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 Let’s Go! Oriental Angel was a contrived, twee and saccharine attempt at an X-factor style show in the mainland this year, designed to be good family TV that can be followed with utter fanaticism by China’s huge evening audience and then promptly forgotten about afterwards in readiness for the 2010’s teen pop idols. However, one particular contestant caused an uproar which is quickly going international.
Miss Lou Jing, representing Shanghai, is a mixed race Shanghainese girl, her father is African American and her mother is Chinese. Her mother was made pregnant and her father left to return to the US, she was raised by her mum and grew up in Shanghai living the life of a normal Shanghainese girl who is loved by her family and friends, and playfully called Xiao Hei (Xiao Hei means little black, and is a dimunitive much like negrita in Spanish, it’s not racist). She, like most teenagers, had dreams of star hood.
Reactions to her have been both positive and negative, if one were to be diplomatic. Her detractors are up in arms about her mum’s “disgraceful” behaviour: cavorting with the foreign devils and raising a mongrel which came of her immoral lifestyle, many refuse to accept that she is Chinese and think she is African. Very hurtful statements were made against her such as "How comes she wasn't born a zebra" and particularly her “slutty, thick skinned, race traitor bitch of a
mother”. On the other hand many jumped to her defense, many netizens thought she was brave, beautiful (she is pretty fit actually) and many “In this Obama age…” responses were posted in response. Someone even went through the effort of posting a falsified response in her name threatening to sue, which only escalated this war of words. Just another day on the internet.
What’s interesting is the international response that soon followed, apologists and China bashers have come all over to express their 2 cents. As if on cue the white liberals and the black nationalists jumped all over it. Milder statements from "they’ll have to learn to do better" to the more offensive ones "these ignorant, xenophobic Chinese are showing their true colours" to the more extreme ones "the Chinese are Blacks, and they just don’t know it, how very sad it is that they don’t recognise that without Kemet, there would be no China." Other posters have suggested she moved to London or Paris, where she will be adored as she is of an “interesting” ethnic mix.
This is all a very interesting contrast to 2005 when all Chinese media were showering adoration on Miss Mwamaka Sharifu Lali, a Kenyan girl who discovered she has Chinese blood from 600 years back went (back?) to China to take advantage of a scholarship and a spot of root-finding. All that positivity from the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's voyage left China busy and contentedly patting itself on its back, Miss Lali was made every front page big and small in China but never not a single western (or indeed Kenyan) paper.
What’s more interesting of course is the context, after all Blacks in China are nothing new and are accepted in some areas of life without anyone batting an eyelid: albeit this is restricted to trade fair buyers, English teachers, students of Chinese, RnB club DJs, basketball players in the CBA, football players and of course, drug dealers for white expats. Many cities of China have fledgling international districts, and in early mornings you can see Black, White, Arab and Chinese children all speaking the same local dialect, going to school together, and getting up to no good in the same little
crews in the evenings. I of course exclude the hordes of Caribbean Blasians from this picture; they have been uniquely comfortable enough for the last 200 years in their own uncomfortable indentity crisis.
Of course this brave new Blasian past, present and future hasn’t been all fun and games, Racism definitely exists, definitely; but since most Blacks in China are very rich by Chinese standard this is generally left at the level of “you look like 50 cent, are you related?”, “just don’t marry one” and lots of uninvited hair touching. More serious Black and Chinese antagonisms in China do exist too and periodically explode. China under Mao was happy to arm African nations against colonial powers and educate its engineers, officers and doctors. This internationalism was militantly expressed in free
travel, accommodation and tuition for our brave coloured allies. Sods law dictates that nothing good lasts for long, and in 1988 Nanjing University exploded with anti-black riots. These are now widely recognised as a precursor to Tiananmen square, as the sentiments went from “they took our women” to “subsidies for locals, not internationals” until finally “free press and human rights”. Of less world-shattering influence is the 2007 drug raid in Beijing’s hip Sanlitun bar district, which led to the Somali ambassador’s son being beaten senseless by overzealous police officers and another tally
being added to the “not too proud moment for China” list. Most recently Guangzhou saw energetic protests last month by hundreds Africans who were complaining against the heavy handed immigration raids which alledgedly led one overstayed African to jump to his death in a bid to escape deportation (though this was later found out to be nothing more than a rumour).
Back to Miss Lou Jing, this poor little 19 year old with limited English has conducted herself with absolute grace and dignity in the face of everything. She has been crucified somewhat by her mixed blessing of receiving the role as the poster child for a China trying to come to terms with it’s own growing cosmopolitanism, and an outside world hungry for information but is willing only to see her experiences through its own narratives and paradigms. Congratulations and sorry!
There is a calmer picture and truth is hidden behind all the hype. Once again, someone led the blind monks to the elephant. People who know very little about China are talking about China like expert sinologists again, with the usual dose of ethnic essentialism, bad humour and muddle minded ignorance. The blame goes back to China Smack. It’s the only portal for which English speakers can catch a glimpse into the gutter press of China, the BBS recluses of the dregs
of an e-generation with no social skills beyond idol worship a la Perfect Blue style, instigating human search engine lynchings, and trying to divide their nationalism between the People’s Republic and Manchester United in an intellectually sustainable way. These posters are a breed far apart from the normal netizen’s routine of seeking the latest drama on Youkou, playing World of Warcraft and chatting to each other on QQ. It’s “articles” should be taken with a sociological
distance and mild amusement not unlike how one would approach a youtube comment thread. It wasn’t until racial issue based blogs picked up on this translated story that started the United State’s netizens on one of their favourite edgy topics. Next thing you know, TIME magazine, Der Spiegel, French & Italian tabloids are all over it, the print media never made this much fuss when these comments thread warriors were calling for all ethnic Koreans in China to be killed or
that in a fight, a Shaolin monk would definitely beat a ninja. This whole episode really is more about the social life of information rather than Miss Jing, Black people or China.
I talked with my granddad about it and finally got as close to the authentic Chinese response as you will find, with a sagacity well tempered by age, he told me that both himself and grandma thought she wasn’t much of a singer - another tone deaf pretty face for us to buy, and that, my dear brothers and sisters, is the real truth.
Olhos de Gato
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Life in China 
