China and the "Black Man" (Pt. 2)

I've been receiving a lot of hits and feedback on my "China and the Black Man" post, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to better explain some things I said and to point out some new things as well. (For those of you who didn't read the original post, I talked about a popular toothpaste in China that was originally named "Darkie" and whose logo looks like a man in black face. China, I reasoned, needs to be more racially aware and sensitive, especially as it opens to the world and prepares for the Olympics. In any case, I recommend you read the first post it if you haven't already.)

Firstly, I should clarify that during my first few months in China, when I heard the word "niga" being spoken in Mandarin, the reason I was shocked was due to my own cultural and linguistic ignorance and also because of my connection to a country in which a similar sounding word, "nigger", is a a hateful and racist term. The fact that a completely innocuous word in a foreign language could cause such a reaction in me, especially when I didn't have any idea what the word meant, only proves how deeply ingrained issues of race are in the American consciousness. This misperception on my part says absolutely nothing about Chinese people, the Mandarin language, or about China as a whole.

A Chinese person commented on my original post that the term 黑鬼 (hei gui, literally "black devil") is the Mandarin equivalent of the English word "nigger". This is wrong, and actually, it couldn't be further from the truth. The phrase hei gui in Mandarin essentially means a bad, corrupt, or evil black person. While this certainly isn't a nice thing to call someone, it also doesn't carry any racist undertones. The Chinese have had very little contact with black people during their country's long history and thusly, they don't have many stereotypes or prejudices that are black specific. If you ask a modern day Chinese person to candidly tell you what they think of black people they'll probably say the following, "They all come from Africa and they all play basketball well." Not exactly PC or informed, but hardly bigoted.

Additionally, the term hei gui isn't reserved for black people alone and is sometimes used to describe bad people of different ethnicities. My Chinese teacher, Huang Laoshi, describes the ticket scalpers who lurk around train stations as hei gui even though they are in fact Chinese. The term hei gui is also interchangeable with the phrase hei xin, meaning black heart, which is similarly devoid of racial underpinnings. The person who commented on my original post went on to list some country specific insults like 俄国老毛子, meaning a Russian devil . He noted that these terms, including hei gui, are often said lightly, and, I assume, without hate. In fact, he called these terms nicknames.

The only Mandarin phrase I know of that is hateful and racist the way in which the N-word is, is the final term the commenter listed, 日本鬼子, meaning a Japanese devil. In fact, the commenter said that this phrase isn't a nickname, although he didn't elaborate further. There is a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in China (which I will discuss later), and with this sentiment comes deep seated hatred that in some ways parallels racial tensions in America. Yet, to assume that a term like hei gui has a similar meaning to the word "nigger", is to make a big leap. In some ways, making this assumption is choosing a willful ignorance that permits or justifies the usage of American-bred racist jargon and imagery without understanding the real implications of doing so. After all, it's just a nickname, right?

There is no equivalent or synonymous word in Mandarin that means anything close to what the word "nigger" implies in English. There simply couldn't be. China was never involved in the African slave trade, and the Chinese never enslaved, debased, or dehumanized Africans on their soil. And therefor, the Mandarin language doesn't have any word that carries the hatred toward blacks that is contained within the N-word. In English, the word "nigger" doesn't simply mean a bad black person, instead, the word carries with it the loaded connotations and history of a land embroiled in the systemic subjugation and degradation of an entire people. It is a word that was created on the broken backs and shattered hearts of a people torn from their homes; a word that devalues another human as property to be owned and used; a word that says that those with darker skin are inherently lessor and without souls. It is a word that carries with it the tears, losses and victories of the civil rights movement in America. It is a word that, to this day in America, has the power to cause hurt and suffering greater than any knife can inflict. The legacy and usage of the N-word is entirely America's burden to bear and there is no single word in Mandarin that means anything similar.

If nothing else, my original post was a plea for Chinese people to try to be more sensitive toward racial differences and to look outside their own experiences and history to understand why the usage of racist iconography for product marketing like Darlie toothpaste is wrong and immoral. I wouldn't expect any Chinese person offhand to know why the term "darkie" or an image of a man in black face are so demeaning. But, I have a huge problem with any company or person who would willingly co-opt racist imagery from another country without first doing a little research to understand the history and potential impact of said imagery. One, that's a terrible business practice and is bound to cause a public relations blowout at some point, and two, it's a plainly immoral and irresponsible way to market a product. If you're going to borrow imagery from another country or culture, you should understand exactly what that imagery means. The makers of Darkie toothpaste apparently, and hopefully, didn't do that research and they ended up using a stereotyped and racist image and term for their product.

The name Darkie toothpaste was changed to "Darlie Toothpaste" in 1985 after the company was bought out by Colgate-Palmolive in 1985, and the incredibly offensive image on the package was downgraded to a less jarring image. However, to this day the image on the front of Darlie toothpaste appears to be Al Jolson in black face, and that is plainly inexcusable.

To help put this into perspective, imagine for a moment that an American company journeyed to Japan and borrowed a grossly stereotyped and offensive image of a Chinese woman (I don't actually know whether or not such imagery exists) and used this image on a product sold in America called "Comfort Women Panties." [A quick history lesson for those who don't know: During WWII, the Japanese invaded mainland China and forced thousands of Chinese women into prostitution to keep their troops happy as they tore through the land. Many of these women were mere teenagers when they were abducted, and they were treated like animals by the Japanese. They were repeatedly raped and gang-raped, tortured, and often killed after their bodies were wrecked by such abuses. Many of the Chinese women who survived this torture became sterile. The Japanese called these Chinese sex slaves their "comfort women."]

Trying to imagine the immoral usage of the term "comfort women" along with a racist image of a Chinese woman to market a product in America exposes just why Darlie toothpaste is so offensive. Chinese-Americans and Asian-Americans would never allow such a product to remain on the shelves, as well they shouldn't. The immorality wouldn't be lessoned if the company took a play from the Darlie handbook and changed the product name to "Comfortable Women Panties" but retained the racist image. It would still be inexcusable, racist, and a blight on American society. This is the closest parallel I can think of to compare Darlie toothpaste in China to a similar product in the west.

All I'm asking is for people, whether Chinese, American, black or white, to look outside of their own sphere and try to understand and empathize with others. This isn't being overly sensitive; it's being human and caring about your fellow man. Whether or not you can personally understand why an image or word has the power to harm, you should at least try to understand the pain and suffering it causes another. Is it really right to sell a product on the blood and tears of a people unlike yourself? I hope the answer for everyone is a resounding no.

China and the "Black Man"

The Chinese term for a person of African descent is 黑人 (hēirén), literally meaning "black man". Similar to the way in which African-Americans are commonly called "black" in America, the term hēirén is innocuous and inoffensive to Chinese people. But, China doesn't always fair so well with pan-Africa racial relations.

The Chinese are an interesting bunch. On one hand, most of the country is very welcoming and open to most foreigners, including those from the African continent and also those of African descent. As China tries to modernize, there is a genuine want to be open to the world and to learn from other cultures. There are, for example, more Africans in the city of Changsha than any other group of foreigners. But on the other hand, China doesn't quite understand racial sensitivity.

Take, for instance, Darlie toothpaste. The Darlie logo is a grinning black man with pearly white teeth who is wearing a top hat. It looks unmistakably like an image from the era when racist and stereotyped images were commonly used to sell products in the Southern United States. Basically, it looks like a man in blackface.

It turns out the Darlie toothpaste was created by a Hong Kong company and was originally named "Darkie". Colgate-Palmolive bought the company in 1985 and quickly changed the name to avoid being branded racist or creating a media-relations fiasco. Still, the blackface-like image remains, and the name of the toothpaste in Chinese is still "Black Man Toothpaste".

Recently, a Canadian women was aghast to find a label on her newly bought dark brown couch identifying the color as "Nigger Brown". After making a complaint, the women learned that the label was made in China and was the result of old translating software that turned 深棕 (dark brown) into the offending word. The women has since filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer for not catching the word before the couch was put on a sales floor. The Chinese company says they can't be blamed because they had no idea what the word meant and they have now updated their translating software. You can read an article about it here.

In fact, the Chinese word for "that" is pronounced "niga", sounding almost identical to the racist English term. "Niga" is also used as a connective pause, the same way we use "ummm" in English. Most Chinese have no idea what the word means in English. When I first moved to China, it really threw me off balance to here "niga" uttered so often without knowing its meaning.

At the heart of the matter lies in the fact that China was isolated from the rest of the world for so long. To the best of my knowledge, China never had a hand in the African slave trade, nor do most Chinese people know about slavery in America and the racism that sprung from it. This ignorance is both a blessing and a curse. On the upside, it means that Chinese people don't have any longstanding, slavery-linked, racist attitudes toward blacks, as we do in America. But, it also means that they find don't understand (without explanation from a Westerner) why a toothpaste like Darlie is so offensive, or why sensitivity to racial differences is so important.

As China integrates further into the world, including preparing for the summer Olympics, these are issues and topics Chinese people will have to address.

*Update*
I've written a new post in which I discuss issues raised in this post in greater depth. You can read it here: China and the Black Man (Pt. 2)