Racism in China

[Joanne]

This may be a bit off from Jim's original post, but maybe not that much.

 

On my trips to Shanghai, MX booked the hotel for me. I was the only white guy on that side of town, so I don't know if it was an authorized hotel or not. I tend to think it was not, but they let me stay anyway.

 

An incident on my first visit was memorable. I saw a lot of 'selfish' behavior where people were only concerned about themselves. That's not a condemnation, it's like that in most any highly populated area. Try NY if you don't believe it. Anyway, we went to the Shanghai zoo. As we were walking around looking at stuff, there was a tiger family behind a glass wall. I raised the camera and was trying to focus in when a Chinese guy walked in front of me. He turned and acknowledged me and then gestured for me to go ahead and take my shot. That random act of kindness is still with me. It reinforced my belief that people are people are people. Cut through the crap, and people are much the same regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, etc. There is good and not so good everywhere.

 

I want to add my observation on this. I think my behavior can often being considered rude in an American's eyes. I often push(nudge) my husband away when I need to do something at where he is, without saying "excuse me", etc. After being trained for this many years, I become a weirdo in both countries. For examples, I was corrected for not saying "excuse me" when I needed to pass someone rather staying behind waiting for my chance. I was looked strangely for saying "excuse me" when trying to push through a crowd on Chinese buses. I guess when one is raised among big crowd, the eyes turned blind to people around.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Joanne (see edit history)