Being Black And Mixed-Race in China | Gen 跟 China

as a fellow asian this kind of racism towards people with darker skins are sadly all too familiar. here in Indonesia, there are still a large portion of the population who thinks darker skin tones are inferior in terms of appearance, and discrimination towards people who are of eastern indonesian ethnic groups are still way too common and normalized which is crazy.

I knew two sisters in China who are mixed race, Russian mother and Chinese father, they were treated sooo differently, the older sister being more pale and the younger one having a darker skin tone, Chinese people would praise the older sister and call her beautiful all the time, yet they will always question the parents of why their second daughter has dark complexion, it was so bad that the younger sister would cry herself to sleep and spend tons of money on whitening products, she would lock herself indoors because she was afraid of sun, of getting darker, it is sad, extremely sad. Edited: when I say dark I do not mean black, or that she looks like other ethnicity, she had a darker complexion, meaning that she wasn’t as pale as her sister. He skin tone was more brownish! Which is completely normal healthy, and beautiful, Just like any other skin tone!!!!! I’m surprised how people in the reply section can take things so literally!!

as a blasian girl who lived in Japan in my younger years, I can identify with all this girl experienced. I had English classes with an American (Caucasian) teacher, and the difference between his daughter's society treatment (child of a white man and a Japanese woman) and my own was quite obvious.

As a mixed girl myself, I kinda get why the Chinese government doesn’t like it when foreign men come into their country, making Chinese women pregnant, and leave. Because this, although not in China, happened to me. My dad, left my mother pregnant in the Netherlands and left for the US even before he knew of her pregnancy. She had let him know she had me but there was never any contact. I grew up in a small town and growing up it really bothered me to often be the only colored one in a group. Even starting to hate my own color because I couldn’t understand how you can make a baby and be so careless about it? I grew up not being proud of my other half and it definitely caused some mental and emotional issues. When you’re born in a country and raised with it’s standards and feel a 100% that, but 9/10 around you sees you as foreigner and not their own, it’s really not right. I survived it but I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. If you go somewhere and make a girl pregnant, stay ffs

Thank you for bringing this issue to light. As a brown girl living in Beijing, I’ve experienced my fair share of discrimination. To the point where locals aren’t even willing to sit next to you on the subway.

Ive been living in China since 2013 as a teacher. My student told me just the other day "you are black" I said "thank you" she said "No black is not beautiful". These type of comments are so annoying. It never really gets easy. In the US I would be considered "light skinned", so I can't imagine how much harder it is for others with darker skin tones than me. EDIT: I am still living in China, my life here with my husband is great. I was simply sharing an experience I had with a student at school. Kids everywhere say ridiculous and ignorant things, if you are a teacher, you know that.

As a black man, I have been to China several times and in general I found Chinese people warm and welcoming. Many times I have stayed in business districts where there are no black people and end up being a tourist attraction where people ask to take photos with me or some taking my photos secretly. I have experienced racism at only 2 incidents; one during entry at the airport in Guangzhou where I was scanned for drugs because I was black. The second time I was racially profiled is when I was entering Hong-Kong from China at immigration, this was the most disgusting moment in my opinion where immigration officers interrogated me for hours because I was black to an extent, I lost my hotel booking as I arrived late. In conclusion, to all our mixed race and African sisters and brothers, come home to Africa; we love you and let's build our continent together! Love from Uganda 🇺🇬

Im a mixed blasian girl living in China and im glad more people are taking about the this.I have been bullied as a child.A lot of Chinese people have said “your not that black” to me as a compliment,even my Chinese grandmother.Once a old Chinese neighbor said to me”your getting whiter,good!”.It makes me really uncomfortable.Why do we have to be treated like this 😢

I remember this Chinese mother wouldn’t allow her daughter to be friends with my little sister and her friends because they were black. Sad thing is, her daughter wanted to be friends with my little sister and her friends because they saw her as a friend but her mother wanted her to be friends with these white students that bullied her and made fun of your culture/facial features/skin colour and “how she smelled”… It blew my mind how delusional and racist this mother was. Mind you, my sister and her friends were straight A students but because of skin tone, her mother made a judgment that those white students that won’t straight A students and had trouble in school were some how better!

It's really messed up that not even a fashion model paid for her looks, can feel good about herself because outside the studio people call her ugly. It must create such an intensely chaotic and hurtful dichotomy inside her :(

I'm a millenial Black African male, I went to Guangzhou back in 2012. I was shocked to see the number of Black People there. I personally didn't experience much racism. I thought the locals were welcoming and helpful. I saw a lot of Blasian babies which I thought were absolutely adorable!!! I even had one of the best nights of my life exploring the nightlife of the city. I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's lived experience, my experience should be viewed through the lens of having grown up in Apartheid South Africa where racism was in your face and unapologetic.

My nieces are full sisters but their coloring is very different. It was so clear that people treated my younger niece better because she is "light" while her older sister is mostly ignored or called "a waste" of beauty because she was dark. It's ridiculous how many times I called people out for this, I would call them assholes to their face just to shame them for trying to shame children into insecurity for something they can't control. Asians in general are not phased with voicing out prejudiced beauty standards, but are really shocked when you call them out on it.

When I visited my motherland, people asked me why I looked so dark, I told them because I didn’t stay inside the house to avoid the sun like a vampire, I didn’t cover my body like an assassin during the day, I didn’t bleach my skin, I am South East Asian so it’s very normal for my skin to be tanned, I’m active and happy in my own skin. I once thought like them, whiter skin is better, I did my best to keep my skin lighter, it worked but I was so drawn from it. Now I’m more grown up and living in different country with diverse beauty standards, my eyes has been opened and I don’t see only white skin beautiful, sometimes even opposite. It’s more about having healthy skin, dark white panda, doesn’t matter what colour skin you have, it’s beautiful when it’s healthy. For those who has narrow minded, it’s not their fault, they are influenced by media, their network and society, if they have a chance to go outside of their land, open their heart to live and learn, they will view everything differently.

I'm so glad this is being talked about, as a blasian girl myself I have faced lots of racism from my Asian community but have brushed off their racist remarks because I thought I was just being sensitive, Wasians have always been perceived as the "cute mix" whilst Blasians are seen as the n word, Blasian's are always slept on with little to no media coverage in Asia and in America, it makes me sick to see that people specifically want a mixed child because it's a trend and a statues without thinking about the actual identity issues and racism that the child has to face because it's cute to be mixed, being mixed always comes with the baggage of feeling like a foreigner and both of your racial heritage not accepting you

I grew up as a mixed race kid (half British, half Chinese) in Guangzhou and Beijing in the 80s, and then Hong Kong in the 90s. While people would come up to me and my mum (mum is white and blonde), and stare out of curiosity (especially in the 80s when it was even more rare to see non-Chinese people in China), we never face any kind of racism There was one time when a man on the street in Shanghai berated my mum and I, started accusing us of for the crimes of the historical crimes of the west against China, but that was about it. Fast forward years later as an adult, I married my wife who's Indian, and has dark skin, grew up in the US, and we go to Hong Kong every year to visit my family who still live there. She has faced way more racism in Hong Kong during out annual visit, than I ever have in my life that I lived there. One time at M&S (a British store), a Chinese security guard got all aggressive and told my wife that he was going to search her bag to see if she stole something. I saw this from a distance and went up to him and got in his face and asked if he's been checking all the other people leaving the store... He claimed he saw her put something in her bag, so I took her bag, opened in to show that nothing was stolen, and then asked him "where's the fucking stolen goods?" He started to back down realizing he got caught in his racist lie, and I told him to go get his manager, and reported him (not like it did any good)... I was about the fuck that guard up if the manager didn't come out. Another time my dad was showing his local Hong Kong friends a photo my my wife and I today, and one of his friends said "she've beautiful, but she's very dark". My wife, who grew up in the US, and acknowledges the problems with racism in the US, said that she's never felt more dehumanized as she has in Hong Kong, and I'm sure it would be even worse in China. The reality is, there's plenty of racism towards dark skinned people in China and Hong Kong... Not just black people, but Indians, Pakistani, Filipino, Indonesian etc. In Hong Kong, Indians are seen as second class citizens, because there's a history of the British colonialists that brought them to Hong Kong as their servants, to do manual labor, so a lot of Indians in Hong Kong work in blue collar jobs, run Indian restaurants or are tailors. There's the racist stereotype that they smell, so I've had Indian friends in Hong Kong I grew up with, where if that sat down on the MTR (subway train), locals would get up from next to them to not sit with them. Filipinos are also consider second class citizens, because the vast majority of them are domestic helpers (maids) there, and racism against them is deep rooted in the system. Hong Kong has a law that states, anyone who lives in Hong Kong as a resident for more that 7 years automatically received permanent resident status. The government tried to make Filipinos be the exception, saying the law didn't apply to them, because they didn't want all these Filipino maids getting permanent status and laying down roots in Hong Kong. The government was challenged on their racism, so rather than saying they're not legible for the status, they created a law saying that anyone coming to work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong has to leave Hong Kong annually to renew their work visa, which means that Filipinos and Indonesians coming to work as maids would not have 7 consecutive years of living in Hong Kong, as their resident status is renewed after every year, so they're never legible for permanent resident status. The Hong Kong government managed to get away with it, because technically by law they are not discriminating against Filipinos, because technically Filipinos have the same rights as long as they're not entering as domestic helpers, but the reality is, since the vast majority of Filipinos enter as domestic helpers, they are the one's that get discriminated against. So, the racism is not just cultural, it's systemic. I love Hong Kong as a place, there are many great things about it, I've many many great people there and in China, and it will always be my home first and foremost, but the racism against dark skinned people is real and common, but cannot and should not be ignored and swept under the rug. It should be called out every time it happens.

The root causes are the "values" instilled by the media and older generations. Growing up outside of Asia in a cold climate, I had the fairest skin. My relatives would always comment about it whenever I travelled back. I hated it and would literally choose the sunniest day to go for a run, paint the gate, do as much as I could to get tanned, to look more like my friends who were either tanned or naturally dark. I don't these days because where I'm living the skin cancer rates are extremely high. I think the people who can't look past appearances also haven't met enough different people. For me growing up with a mixed bunch of friends during my childhood, and then meeting people from all over the world as an adult traveller, has made me appreciate that everyone is beautiful.

Very odd, considering the huge Chinese population in African nations. In my country, there are a lot of Chinese there, and they prefer to distance themselves from locals and look down on us, whilst benefitting from our resources & people. Black ppl are not wanted anywhere, so best thing to do is to focus even harder in building our own countries instead.

Eden is actually really pretty. I sometimes wonder what's wrong with people's so-called "beauty standards", honestly...

I’m married to a chinese guy we both born in South Africa and I’m mixed raced Muslim we refered to as malay because most of us come from Malaysian genetics how ever once me and my husband have kids I will not be visiting china because I would never want my kids to feel like they are not enough my husband loves me regardless of my skin colour and it’s not always been easy with the elders in his family because not only am I not Chinese but I’m also Muslim and his now Muslim aswell and it’s messed up because I’m not even dark at all im not even much darker then my husband and he is very light in complexion I also remember we once had lunch with his family that visited from out of town and his one cousin was married to a white guy and they have a son so my mother inlaw said that child is not Chinese so it’s not only black people chinese people are just racist in general and I’ve managed to learn some Cantonese and I always hear my mother inlaw calling black people racist stuff in Cantonese it’s just really sad tho see how small minded they are especially when living in a country like South Africa where we have so many different races for decades and interracial marriages and relationships are very accepted and normal here it’s not uncommon to see white and black people and Chinese and Malay etc it’s just a norm we see it everyday just going to do grocery shopping or taking a walk it’s normal to see this

Well, I am a Mexican-American person who loves to read a ton of Chinese web novels. And I've found there's a predominant discourse about very unrealistic beauty standards in those stories. Like they idolize/fetishize absurdly pale skin, narrow facial structures, and the top tier male leads in romance or danmei are often mixed race but always half white or quarter white in combination with Chinese... never half African. I bet I've read several hundreds of these novels in over a decade, and the only time a prominent mixed race character with darker skin appeared, it was a half Indian and half Chinese person. And that person was... the villain!!!! I've read a lot of excuses people make on websites and forums where people talk about their favorite Chinese web novels, regarding racism and colorism in China. Everyone wants to mute any discussion about anti-African racism and colorism in Chinese culture that's depicted in the novels, manhuas, donghuas and TV dramas we love. It's not like I want to be controversial, but as a person of color myself, I find it disturbing to read about Chinese authors promoting unrealistic Western standards of beauty. I had a Taiwanese roommate in college, who went on extreme diets of eating mainly lettuce in boiled water for meals in order to obtain a more narrow looking face. She loved to praise me and say with envy that I was blessed with a narrow cheekbone structure. She also regularly used skin whitening products like these really sketchy creams...I was always worried about the ingredients in them! I felt bad for her, she was extremely concerned with her face and skin color to the point I wish she could go see a psychologist.