East Asia, China, Atheism And Racism

To be Black or African in China is to be labeled unintelligent, dangerous, unattractive, or to see an empty seat next to you on a crowded subway.^[6]

The Chinese have many prejudiced views about race, gender and nationality. Chinese often have no compunctions about directly mocking ethnic minorities, and there sometimes seems to be a prevailing belief that anything non-Chinese is primitive.

Throughout most of their history, the Chinese have regarded anyone who lives outside of China as a savage or a barbarian. Europeans, for example, were thought to have more hair than monkeys, larger noses than anteaters and a smell more awful than dead bodies. The Chinese believed some white people tied themselves together to keep from being snatched away by eagles and other had holes in chests so the they could be carried by poles. According to one account some towns in Europe were composed entirely of women who became pregnant by staring at their shadows.

Chinese have also been victims of racism. In World War II, Chinese-Americans were not allowed to become pilots because it was believed that their slanted eyes prevented them from seeing well enough to fly a plane.^[9]

Black people are often regarded suspiciously, too, and considered as all coming from Africa, regardless of their actual origin. In a society where light skin is still deemed desirable and seen as a sign of fortune, darker skin is often associated with less favorable traits. There have, for instance, been reports of African-American English teachers (and thus native speakers) being turned down in favor of white English teachers with non-native language skills.

China’s economic investment in a number of African countries may well have helped to create the prejudice that all Africans are poor and profiting from money that should rather be invested at home, thus fostering racism in China. In Guangzhou, where a large number of Africans have settled over the last few years, racial tensions have been particularly high.

Typically, however, racism in China is more common in remote areas than in the big cities with a large number of foreign residents. China’s long isolation from the rest of the world has also helped to foster stereotypes.

However, with the opening up of the country and especially the younger generation’s increasing contact with foreign cultures (e.g. basketball is now immensely popular in China), some of these negative stereotypes will hopefully disperse soon. Until then, while discrimination and racism in China do prevail, they are at least non-violent in the vast majority of cases.^[10]