Race and Money

In this post I discussed Chinese attitudes towards the cyclone victims in Myanmar.

One of my coworkers asked the company why we don’t have a box out for the victims of the Burmese cyclone.  “Well, um, yes, well, you see, while we operate internationally we are concerned locally.” In other words, we don’t give a fuck about them because they’re not Chinese.  But when the Chinese are in peril, doing your part to contribute is seen as an act of loyalty to country and culture and ethnicity, and God help the foreigner who comes here to reap the benefits of all that China has to offer and doesn’t prostrate himself in public as a sign of gratitude for it.

One of my foreign coworkers just made me aware of something.  This is the website for the Chinese Red Cross Foundation, in English.  On the right hand side of the page is a search box.  Type in the word “Myanmar” and see how many hits you get.  Just to check I also typed “Burma” and got exactly the same amount.

They don’t give a fuck, because they’re not Chinese.

The government recently held a telethon here similar to the ones held shortly after 9/11 and Katrina.  The news channels (all of them controlled by the government) have been running continuous updates about the situation there, with stories of heroic rescues and people pulled alive out of the rubble after being buried for days.  Nothing wrong about that, it’s perfectly legitimate.  I’m sure the army has indeed shown some heroics in their rescue attempts, and media stories of miracle survivors are common after any natural disaster.  But they’ve had a running ticker-tape series of continual updates at the bottom like you see on the western news networks, and they’ve been making a big deal about how communities of ethnic Chinese around the world, especially in American Chinatowns, are working to donate money and supplies.

There are a number of words in Chinese for “foreigner,” the most common of which is lao wei.  This, however, is better translated as “foreigner who isn’t Chinese.” So even though these people in Chinatown might be fifth generation Americans, they’re not really considered lao wei.  Thus money which comes from someone with ethnic Han Chinese blood, no matter where they are actually from, is more important than money given by some regular foreign devil.

That’s kind of funny.  I know a lot of ethnic Chinese here in Seattle, and they consider themselves to be Americans first and foremost - even the guy that was born in China and didn’t learn English until he was 18....

Oh yeah, and that’s one of the fundamental differences between America (a country founded on a set of ideals) and China (a country founded around a specific ethnicity).  Anyone can be an America.  You can be born in any country, speak any language, be rich or poor, anything of that nature, and STILL be just as American as someone whose family has been here for 100 years.  So the Chinese Americans (we call them ABC’s here, short for American Born Chinese) view themselves first and foremost as Americans.  The Chinese in China, however, view them as Chinese.  The fact that they are Americans is merely an unfortunate byproduct of the decision of one of their ancestors to move to the land of the barbarians.

If you had a Chinese family which had lived in the US for 200 years, knew NOTHING of Chinese culture or language, they would still not be considered lao wei.  After all, they’re Chinese.

While I won’t disagree about chinese attitudes, it’s only fair to point out that chinese did donate to help the earthquake/tsunami victims in Indonesia. This time they’re so preoccupied that they’ve even forgotten that they hate the French.
It’s amazing to me how deep the racism runs.

While I won’t disagree about chinese attitudes, it’s only fair to point out that chinese did donate to help the earthquake/tsunami victims in Indonesia.

True, but Indonesia is much like Singapore, with a large ethnic Chinese population.  This isn’t to say that the government didn’t send supplies and/or work crews or something of that nature, only that there wasn’t the sort of overt humanitarian gesture on the part of the Chinese people that they are now showing for the earthquake victims.

I realize that charity starts at home and the Chinese are no different than anyone else in that respect.  But there wasn’t a single word about Myanmar uttered by anyone until the lao wei brought it up.