Expert: LM - 7/15/2006

Question
1.  Would it be worthwile to study the image and perceptions of Black Americans by Chinese citizens?  How it got that way and how it can be changed.  

2.  What would be some good resources to start with?

Answer
1. It will not be changed. Things in China are REALLY SLOW to change. If you think about it: They've had a writing system for longer than anyone else and yet they never achieved the level of technological sophistication as the Europeans-- and from where I'm sitting may never do so. Here, they REALLY like to live in the past and have no intention on changing.

What else? There is no free press or television here, so if you wanted to write a letter to the editor it would not likely even be looked at.

Even in the places where Chinese people have a bit more freedom (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), I've noticed that the impression that they have of black people is even WORSE than it is in the Mainland. Presumably this is because the TV programs are all government written and are pushing a different agenda (i.e., trying to trick the populace into believing the legitimacy of the government). Blacks are not even an issue in this skullduggery. (Yet Chinese people still know enough to ask me how big my *beep* is, or whether I can sing, dance or rap.)

Overall, the experience that I have with Chinese people in the Mainland is OK. It's not that much work to find a woman here, and it's not impossible to find a job. I'm content to leave well enough alone.

2. Don't even bother. See above comments.