I think its also the result of years of isolationism. For the last century the only people (in general) who spoke Chinese were Chinese people. Hence there has been no equal exchange of cultural ideas. You have plenty of Chinese who speak English to the point where we almost expect it. To give you an idea of how low the bar is set for Americans, walk into a Chinese restaurant and simply say "thank you" in Mandarin. They'll act like you did a magic trick. The point is, because so precious few foreigners are able to engage them in their own language, their views become solidified and unchallenged. I think some of the Chinese like the one-sided language barrier, its a built in cloaking device.

Really enjoy the podcasts so I'm sorry to be critical here, but I unfortunately didn't find this one to be as interesting or as informative as I had hoped. It didn't appear to be well researched and/or prepared for. I feel a good opportunity was missed. Maybe some Chinese people could have been asked of their views on the street or in the studio. It wouldn't have been a science but would help somewhat in gauging the public's views.

That's my two cents worth!

But in general keep up the good work.

By the way, I checked again for the amusing Zerg Korea, and you have it wrong; Africans just go to gorillas, then stop moving. It's the Americans that go to apes in hiphop clothing.

I'm not even sure whether this was Chinese originated, except for the last hexie/sangedaibiao evolution. I'm sure these pics have been circulating on at least 4chan, and maybe even 2chan for some time. I recall there's also pictures from 2chan of people who wish China just dropped into the sea, and condemned the Xinjiangers, Qinghainese, Yunnan ethnic minorities, Mongol Inner Mongolians, and Manchurians into becoming Atlantean.

Shouldn't take these things too seriously; part of unleashing your inner asshole involves unleashing your inner racist.

@sjc,

The reasons many Asian cultures find pale, white skin attractive, is actually very closely tied to the reasons many Western (particular of the Northern Hemisphere) find darker skin attractive, and you have actually touched briefly on it (class).

Think about it:

In China and other similarly developed Asian nations, if you are poor, you probably a) live in the countryside, and b) work as a farmer in said countryside, and as follows c) spend a ton of time outside, where your skin will gradually become dark and leathery.

In North America for instance (and VERY much here in Canada), if you are poor, you therefore a) probably don't get to travel much (especially to southern locales like the Caribbean) and b) spend a ton of time INside, and consequently c) have pasty white skin.

To put it another way, rich Asians don't have to work the farm and thus maintain a nice, pale complexion. Rich Westerners get to travel to nice warm locations and get a suntan.

Our fixations with certain elements of beauty are largely driven by our fixations with class, power, money, etc.

Having said all this, and being pretty damn white myself, I will say I do like a woman with skin that is not TOO pale, and am INCREDIBLY turned off by some western women who spend wayyy too much time in the tanning salon - they look too "crispy", and are probably going to end up cancerous.

Cheers all.

Enjoyed the show, but I thought the Japanese/Korean section got dismissed too quickly. Sure, it may not be racism in the strictest sense, but anti-Japanese sentiment is some of the worst prejudice I've observed in China. [Of course this contrasts with Tawainese, who have a weird nostalgia for the colonial days. How's that for historical context!]

Also, to add to the 'race relations' discussion, I think it's worth pointing out that white guys tend to like Asian girls, but it's often different for white gals. I've met lots of expat women that 'simply don't find Asian men attractive.' Racism?

Finally, I think the argument that people prefer whiter skin because of class is incomplete without evidence. It's logical, but can probably be explained other ways as well. Example, people prefer different skin tones because of different notions of health. Chinese prefer whiter skin because they think getting a lot of sun is unhealthy, whereas Westerners prefer tan skin because they think staying inside all day is equally unhealthy. Attractiveness is a complicated subject, and it's easy to get sidetracked without hard evidence.

I guess these issues aren't so black and white (sorry, I had to).

More drunken bar fight stories in the future please.

There's actually one item of prejudice towards "westerners" that you haven't touched on, namely the idea that they came to China because they failed in their country. Other than that being a "westerners" definitely has it's perks.

However I still think racism is very existent in China. I have heard a number of people say that they don't like people solely based on the fact that they were black. I can't really judge whether Chinese racism is of the "naive" variety or the same as everywhere else, but racism is still racism.

Also the argument that there was no colonization is invalid. Going by that argument, you would have to exempt all European countries that were not colonial powers. Being from Austria which was not a colonial power I would not excuse anyone's here racism with that argument either. It all comes down to ignorance.

Btw I find this ny times article very interesting. It talks about the way men and women respond to people of different races on online dating sites in the US.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/race-and-romance-an-uneven-playing-field-for-black-women/

This was the first podcast I listened to from Sinica and it definitely won't be my last. Race relations and discrimination in any country aren't easy topics to tackle, but I found the discussion really lively and interesting.

Also, it was great to hear Jeremy Goldkorn after following Danwei for such a long time.

Props all around and keep up the great work!

White skin ,yes. You can't imagine how powerful it is in Chinese culture.Think about how much women cost for getting whiter! Even make you popular.They think black people can never be washed like a white paper(far away from their hope).A freind of mine told me so.And she has cleanillness.Many peolpe have this problem ,I think it comes from childhood(too severe or spoil upbringing).

Some people told me that they can't stand foreigners(including black and white,even other asian people).Beause they don't like the smell no matter whether perfume or ... When I try a perfume,my mum always stop me and tell me she feels sick . Watching cool guys in media is OK,but in reality their faces make stress.

BTW, in the podcast "操你妈“ is very 囧…Hope I have written every sentence right.><

If I can add another term to the pile "Han Chauvinism"- Cultural superiority.

Let's keep the wikipedia train going with -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_chauvinism

And my favorite example: "Pizza originated from China, and Marco Polo stole the recipe."

There's no racism in China as long as

a) you're chinese

b) you don't go outside

c) you can't understand chinese

Other than that, I'd put my iPod earbuds in if I were you, cuz you're gonna be surrounded by 'ig'nant' comments about 18 hours a day. Have fun with that.

I've been living in China for 5 years. I'm not black I'm white. I get annoying comments and menacing glares every day. Is that enough of a sample size? Or do you think I should try another 5 years.

i dont blame her though.. she must have learned these stupid ideas from her parents or who knows from who. I had a professor at university that used to behave the same, his lab was in US and 99% of his students were from China (obviously he was from China too), all other laboratories were multicultural and based on merits.. except this lab.

Why some Chinese behave so RACIST like this

Right... it is the fault of American movies for "portraying Africa as chaotic and anarchic." They should portray it like Scandinavia.

It is the fault of Chinese for considering that a black passenger is more likely to stiff the cab driver. They must all be malevolent, illogical self-saboteurs to deny good customers. They must be all wrong to conclude that other foreign customers such as Australians pose a lesser danger.

The current PC brainwashing is mind boggling.

I am Chinese.

Here is my comment for Americans.

When an American thinks of racism, he/she always (or most of the time) thinks of blacks. Don't you? So that's the problem. You tell people that you are not a racist, and you act like you are against racism, yet whenever you think of racism you think of blacks as you think that they are INHERENTLY inferior. You never think of yourselves being a victims of racism someday. Why? Because you think you are superior. And that's the origin of racism.

In America you have Black Actuary Society, Black Engineer Society, but do you have any white societies? No. Because people think blacks are "inferior" and uncompetitive so they need something to make it balanced. What a racist view.

If you are against racism, then stop asking people to treat blacks fairly. Everyone is the same. A white can do something, do does a black or a Chinese.

When ABC showed a chimp ad after a black got an Olympic medal, people got angry. Why? Why angry? Huh?? What's the relationship between a black and a chimp? No nothing! Then what are you angry for?

And for blacks, if you feel sad whenever whites discriminate you, then really you feel inferior. Also a kind of racism. A racism towards your own ethnics.

Say no to racism. But I can tell you if a Chinese discriminate blacks, he/she probably discriminates whites too.

I havent heard the show yet, but if the presenters are claiming that richer Chinese maltreat poorer Chinese, this concurs with my experience. When I wasstudying at Nottingham University in Ning Bo most Chinese students refused to use please and thank you in the restaurant. They were always pressuring the overworked waiters to be faster and bitched about them. They werent slow in fact.

I made friends with the waitresses. They told me they rese ted Chinese students lack of politeness and appreciated the Englishmans thanks for their work.

So snobbery, to be sure.

Wow, how I never came across this episode before, I don't know.

I thought it was a tad scattered, and like some others commented, there were some areas of racism in China that I felt weren't explored sufficiently, though I appreciate that it is by nature too big and complex a topic to tackle fully in just over half an hour.

Having said that, I was disappointed with how swiftly and unanimously Chinese-on-Caucasian racism was swept under the rug as basically nonexistent or unimportant.

If one talks about the scale and extent of racism, I can understand that it would be one of the less pressing facets of racism in China.

When I say scale, I mean that by comparison to other ethnic groups (Chinese or non-Chinese), Caucasians probably receive by far the least amount of racism. As for "extent", I mean that when even when being on the receiving end of racism, it's not likely to go as far for Caucasians as for other ethnic groups. Blacks being denied teaching jobs for simply for being black is just one example, and a very real one, which I image doesn't affect Caucasians.

However, the sheer reality of overt racism directed at foreigners of Caucasian origin is undeniable, irrespective of the scale and extent of it.

In my first year in China, I remember being stood by a street food vendor with an American friend around midnight. All of a sudden, a couple of men we'd never met came out of a bar nearby, and as soon as they saw us they started screaming "%$@&*# foreigners, get the #!@% out of China" in Chinese and all sorts of other obscenities at us at the top of their lungs.

I was very intimidated, but decided to ignore them simply because I didn't want to escalate the problem by confronting them.

However, it made absolutely no difference at all and they immediately headed over to us. One of them tried to kick me twice - once in the groin, and once on the chest -

although he didn't connect properly, and went on to try to have a punch out with me.

There were plenty of other Chinese people around, but no-one seemed to even notice, let alone try to intervene, until basically his friend and my friend held us both back.

I'd ignored the kicks without even making eye contact, but then when his friend held him back I said to him "你有什么问题呢?", which set him off.

Eventually he was dragged back by his own friend, who himself was also directing vitriolic abuse at us, despite never having met us.

I expect this kind of thing happens everywhere from time to time, but I'd lived in Europe and South America for half of my life before coming here, and I'd never seen or even experienced anything remotely like that. I was so upset, I cried and thought seriously about leaving China, since it wasn't the first instance of abuse I'd received.

It's impossible for me to know how representative my experiences in either of the three continents are, but the fact is that's what happened. And in fact, it's not the only time I've been abused by strangers for being a foreigner (I mean the word abuse in the real sense of the word, verbal and/or physical). It just happens to be the most serious example.

Perhaps the situations in south-west and north-east China vary hugely, which might be the reason Jeremy felt inclined to dismiss racism directed at Caucasians as preposterous. But it doesn't change the fact that it is real, and it happens with enough regularity.

It goes without saying that Caucasians do often receive preferential treatment in China, even over Han Chinese a lot of time, but in my view, positive stereotypes and negative ones (manifesting in actual racism or discrimination) do not compensate each other. They are part of the same problem, and I just wish the podcast had dealt with this particular facet of racism more earnestly.

That said, I also felt other facets of it, such as Chinese-on-Japanese racism, were curiously swept under the rug rather too quickly. I'm sure we've all seen the "日本人与狗禁止进入" signs somewhere. I've certainly seen them in numerous places across China, including on the gate of my guitar teacher's music school. I don't know if it's a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the Japanese for hanging similar signs aimed at Chinese people during the occupation, but to my mind it doesn't make it any less racist or unacceptable.

On the odd occasion where I pretended to Chinese strangers that my half-Asian colleague was Japanese, they have more often then not refused point-blank to talk to her thereafter (even after having chatted away happily with each other for a while), claiming that they don't talk to 日本小鬼 or whatnot. So again, I thought that aspect of racism in China was overlooked.

In short, I appreciate that there are too many facets of this topic to cover fully in such a short time, but I do feel that a few aspects in particular were dealt with rather too hastily, without doing justice to the reality of those problems.

Yes, racism is a major issue in China, not only against darker skinned people but also against Caucasians. There is something I observed among Chinese peoples, northern Chinese are much more likely to be racists than southern Chinese, perhaps it has something to do with their ethnic background.

Northern Chinese are for the most part pure blooded Han, they are extremely nationalistics due to the proximity of Beijing which is the seat of political power in China, I have often heard or been told while in northern China that blood mixing is bad, that foreigners are evil, that Chinese women should go only with Chinese men, and so on.

Southern Chinese have for the most part mixed background between Han people and ethnic minorities, most are not pure blooded whether Han or from one of the minorities. Beijing and the central government seems far when you live in Guangdong or nearby provinces, almost like another country, peoples don't really care about what's going on up there in northern China, too far, too different, people seems to care more about making money than politics or being nationalistic, the local cultures are different and some cities in Guangdong have had uninterrupted exchanges (except during the Mao era) with foreigners for hundreds of years (Foshan for e.g.), people seems more open to foreigners, more friendly, more warm.

Also the gender gap definitely plays a role about locals' acceptance of chinese woman + foreign man couples, in Guangdong there are the only 2 major cities in China with more women than men (Guangzhou and Shenzhen), the more north you go, the more men and less women there are, Beijing has a one of the widest gender gap compared to the rest of the country. Of course when women are a scarcity local men don't want them to go with foreign men, it's understandable.

What's not understandable however is attacking foreigners who are dating local women, if instead Chinese men would trim their hair, take daily showers and learn how to dress, maybe local women would favor them above foreigners.

So, personally I prefer to live in southern China, not only for the weather but also because people are on the average much more friendly and less racially biased.