I have been drumming my fingers waiting for a dozen or so Chinese friends to tell me what they thought of Obama winning. I told them I would weave their thoughts into a blog. They promised me they would. So far I have caught only two tadpoles on my email:
“Personally, I think for a black man to be the president in US is amazing and demonstrates American democracy. We will see how is he keeps the relationship between the US and China.” – Lee Yao
“I have little interest in political issues. I hope the new president can bring us something new.” – Wei Qian
No big juicy fish for me to sink my blogging teeth into.
The rest haven’t given me a reply. Perhaps they are busy composing their considered responses. I doubt it. The truths are as follows: firstly, they are not particularly interested. (Funnily enough, my plumber, who came to fix a water pipe today, did not even know Obama had won and seemed uncertain as to who Obama was.) Secondly, they find it difficult to express abstract thoughts in English, a very alien language to them even though they have all studied English for years at school and at university. Finally, and most importantly, Chinese people can be extremely racist and classist.*
I don’t think my Chinese colleagues and acquaintances really want to tell me what they really think. This is normal. I have been told in no uncertain terms by even Chinese university lecturers that they dislike black people. They do this in a friendly manner, not the AWB “die kaffir in sy plek” vicious manner. Obviously, I still don’t like it.
“One Chinese cultural trait that is not likely to go over outside of the Confucian sphere of Asia, … is the practice of not giving a direct response, of speaking in vague, fragmentary terms that leave the objective-minded Westerner confused and frustrated”**. Absolutely spot on. And it is extremely frustrating. Just give me your opinion. I may not like it but at least I know where I stand.
The Chinese word for indirect is jianjie, 间接. The first radical refers to “interval”, the second to “receive, connect or pick up”. Believe you me, that “interval” while you wait to “pick up” what the Chinese person actually means when he answers your question – if he ever does – can be a very long one. You have to guess.
I am learning Mandarin, and in the Chinese textbook I am studying there is a topic dealing with the differences in Western and Chinese work cultures, Zhongguoren zongshi jianjie de biaoda tamen de xiangfa, rang ni ziji qu cai, which translates as, “Chinese people always indirectly express their opinions, letting you guess on your own [what the hell they mean]”.
In China black people find it difficult to get jobs teaching English. You are usually asked by work agencies and schools to attach a recent photo to your resume. This is because they want to make sure you are not black. Parents do not buy the black face for private teaching. The white face is instantly bought even though I have seen some of the most atrocious spelling and grammar on whiteboards as those white teachers limp through lessons.
On the other hand, I have seen black ex-Zimbabweans – and their mother language is not English – do a really fine job with the students. One simple reason is that they have learned well the grammatical structures of English and can sympathise with Chinese students’ difficulties with the language. I further deeply empathise with those poor Zimbabweans – and please, I am not being patronising – he has been forced to leave his country to try and eke out a living elsewhere. And he has a tough time of it with the Chinese; blacks tend to get paid less.
I also have a Chinese American friend, known as an ABC, American Born Chinese. She was born and raised in the US and cannot speak Mandarin. She is a mother-tongue speaker of English and a qualified teacher. To her absolute shock she has battled to find work in Shanghai. This is because she has Chinese features. They want the European look. As she said to me, back home in the US she could sue those companies for not hiring her because of racial discrimination.
Of course the praise from China’s leadership on Obama’s success was sound and heart-warming. President Hu Jintao said, “China and the US share broad common interests and important responsibilities on a wide range of major issues concerning the well-being of humanity”. And “the well-being of humanity” is absolutely crucial as we wait for the incumbent American president to leave, leaving behind him an obscene trail of crimes against humanity. And I hate bullies! But there was a silver lining to the black, black cloud Bush made: he so seriously undermined beliefs in the Republican Party that anyone put forward by the Democratic Party was most likely to win. Which is not to undermine Obama: the world, I believe and hope, is going to become a better place with him as president.
I am thrilled that the next world leader is a black man, or a coloured man. Seeing a black man at the helm of the US has to impact the Chinese mindset of looking down on black people.
I used to run empowerment programmes for children when living in South Africa, even before the old, evil regime folded. Black people loved putting their children on my programme because it was going to boost their children’s self-esteem. Those black parents well knew their own self-esteem had been shattered in a variety of different ways under apartheid; they did not want their children to go through the same debasement. Rather, they wanted them to grow up feeling worthy and equal to any other person.
With Obama as president, all people, regardless of race or creed, and especially the Chinese and black Africans themselves, will have to see black people in a much healthier way. Though I don’t like using corporate training buzz-words, Obama’s victory – a victory for us all – could be the beginning of a much-needed global paradigm shift.
* I am aware that, for example, The China Daily ran a vote to see who was the most popular US presidential candidate in China. Obama got 80%. But the results do not reflect Chinese readers much. Mostly Western readers in China read the English newspapers. I very rarely see Chinese people reading any of the English papers. Chinese people in their twenties, and even younger, seem far less racist. Many of them are fans of black American basketball players.
** From The Chinese Have a Word for It, a book on Chinese culture and Mandarin, by Boye Lafayette De Mente, a renowned sinologist who has lived many years in China.
Not only Chinese but Africans, Latinas and SE Asians.
As well as the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, who called Obama, “Young, handsome and tanned.”
I think the question should be asked, how does Obama’s victory make people see Whites? Is there any country on earth where people in the majority of another race will elect a person where the minority constitutes just 12% of the population? The answer is NEVER. And here I refer to South Africa of course. Blacks are more racist and will rather vote for a Mugabe-like candidate because he is black than if say a White Mandela ran for office in South Africa. Think about it.
Howzit Rod,
Im quite surprised that Chinese people regard black people in this way. For me the irony of it all is that in South Africa, Chinese people are considered “black” by our government.
Crazy stuff isnt it?
Nice article thanks
Trev – yeah I know Chinese people are now classified as black – this is to ensure they get jobs and are not a 0.5% or whatever minority. Mainland Chinese are racist and classist in a way that they don’t even know (denial?) they are racist. It is just routine to send your photo in and for a PR guy asking you on the phone if you or your wife are black before setting up an interview. I once told the PR guy, “I am not sure if my wife is black or not, let me go check…. hmmmmmmm…. oh yes she’s definitely not black” He laughed at my sarcasm (which he could not understand, sarcasm is not Chinese humour, Mr Bean is), said goodbye and I never heard from him again.
Funnily enough I had a boss in SA once who was a South African born Chinese and quite racist.
And classist? Wow. Have to blog on that and the Chinese women’s love for skin-whitening products.
Mark – thanks and 100% agreed – unfortunately. I cannot understand how a certain luminary with 11 criminal charges against him – sure nothing proven – can even be vaguely considered for election. In Western countries, with just one charge the official has to step down.
May Llewellyn Kriel continue to blast away at the majority party and its leaders. More power to LK.
First, it is indeed a great achievement that a person of color has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. It reflects political symbolic representation of a significant cohort in the population. However, it is not a panacea and does not eclipse the very long history of representation of all ethnic groups at all levels of government nationwide.
Second, misrepresented allusions on the part of the media during the course of the campaign have been inexcusable. When Barack Obama appeared in Berlin he was wrongheadedly likened to both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan during the course of a desperate attempt to simulate having external policy experience. This misrepresentation reappeared during comparisons with the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King;except for being black there is no similarity, no civil rights experience, he’s a member of another generation, he has no clerical background, and wasn’t even born in the same region. Further, likening Barack Obama to Thomas Jefferson is also a misnomer except for similarity in intellect. Thomas Jefferson was a great believer in a weak central government which performed services that states were unable to perform independently. Barack Obama expounds on bringing national government into every facet of each American’s life, something thinking people eschew. Additionally Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced an economic depression in a world totally unprepared by mechanisms to counteract that. The United States was desperately trying to stay out of war and was not engaged in combat anywhere when he took office nor during most of the time while he was in office. It should be pointed out that police actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are being waged against insurgencies and not the governments of those nations and that the United States has declared war against no one so that no “wars” exist. These actions are ongoing in order to engender the establishment and survival of viable governments.
The United States is also not in post-apartheid recovery;slavery ended in that country in 1865 and since 1960 all manner of employment, health, food, job training, hiring preference, loan preference, and educational assistance programs have been established and operated. If these programs have insufficiently met the needs of the underserved, it is incumbent upon that constituency to make those needs known to representatives at village, town, country, state, and federal levels so that these programs can be made more effective. As it is these programs have been proactive to maximize participation in all of them to a point that those who are dissatisfied clearly have not availed themselves of the goods and services readily provided. Barack Obama is not the new Nelson Mandela in that he is not going to govern a majority that was governed by a minority.
Barack Obama is also no new Abraham Lincoln. Their sole similarity is that they both happen to have begun their presidential stages in Springfield, Illinois and that they both happened to be senators.
Although these images may have inspired those who had been politically inactive to participate, now the promises will have to be made good. I sincerely hope that those who supported Barack Obama have unlimited patience to wait because the economic situation will require undivided attention on external matters as they relate to the domestic front in the USA. This is very contrary to unending diatribe espousing green industries, rebuilding infrastructure, tax relief for the middle class and assistance for each and every American, and reestablishing the United States’s reputation abroad. Quite frankly media coverage has painted a picture of the entire world holding hands and singing an ecumenical version of “Kumbaya” in a nirvana-like joy.
These pipe dreams have now become largely unattainable. Those who have counted on them can expect to stand in line. It’s a question of whether they will have the fortitude as events unfold, or, whether they will retreat to the lives they have led in the present tense during which they have made the wrong decisions and expected others to pick up their pieces and glue them back together. This platform stands to steel the resolve of the disillusioned through its inability to deliver what it has led them to believe can be “changed” which cannot be.
In closing, Barack Obama will be lucky not to be branded the new Jimmy Carter within eighteen months of taking office, once the public digests the bitter pills which must be swallowed in order to move forward. I wish him luck, but will not hold my breath in anticipation. This so-called “mandate” was a substantially lesser one than that had by an earlier panacea, William Jefferson Clinton, and we all know how that miracle turned out.
It’s no different in other races