Racism and Colonialism

A commentary by a black African man in Hong Kong appeared in the column of SCMP (the only local English newspaper in Hong Kong) on 9^th april, regarding his personal encounter of racism in Hong Kong. This was followed by two responding comments today, one by another black African and one by a white European. And I guess the conclusion from them is simple: if you are not Chinese, you will feel discriminated in Hong Kong. There was also an interesting point addressed by the white European: in Chinese the term for Africa, FeiZhou, has with its first character the meaning "wrong", while the term for America, Mei Gou, has its first character meaning "pretty"; he thus goes on addressing how this might be due to differences in colour. An interesting observation, I have to say, but I'm afraid the two terms were made that way more because of their pronounciations rather their meanings; after all, the white European has felt discriminated himself , which should not have happened if the term Mei Gou really refers to the "pretty" white nation.

I guess to add to that list there is the mainland Chinese, discriminated by HK-er Chinese at all times. Be them tourists or immigrants, we simply look at them as if they are from a different country (while they are not), and act like we don’t know them at all – except when the mainland Chinese are shopping and we desperately need that business.

The majority of Hong Kong people are just culturally unexposed, narrow-minded, and worst of all, indifferent. We claim to be the Asia’s World City, the place of where “East meets West”. But to me, this “meet” is as shallow as meeting a girl in a club: it is simply a co-existence without any understanding or communication in the cultural sense, because it so happens that there are two distinct cultural groups of people – Chinese and non-Chinese (i.e. everyone else) – that came to Hong Kong since the colonization by the British began 150 years ago. There might be attraction between the two cultures so they, occasionally, flirt with each other, as seen in the movie The World of Susie Wong some 40 years ago. Or there are some privileged ones in Hong Kong whose daily lives are more “internationally exposed”: for instance, kids who attend international schools, people who work at international corporations, folks who like in wealthier areas with a bigger non-Chinese populations. And maybe those who travel really often, either for work or leisure, but that will depend on the attitude of how they travel (in a tour groups like herds, or not?) that is another issue.

But mostly the two cultures remain separated physically, socially/demographically, linguistically and culturally: Chinese and non-Chinese live in different areas, though not necessarily nicer for the latter because there are Indians and Pakistanis in Hong Kong who live in underprivileged conditions; you will find both Chinese and non-Chinese in bars and clubs in Lan Kwai Fong or Wan Chai, but you will only see Chinese in bars in Prince Edward and Mong Kok; or you will hardly ever see a non-Chinese in the public estates, where most habitants are considered lower-class in terms of family income (unless they are interested in them and decide to go for a walk in there, which is cool). But my point is this: besides the few whose lifestyle or living condition is “international”, the majority of Chinese HK-ers don’t really interact with non-Chinese groups, so the chance of learning about other cultures is almost none.

In fact, they are not just culturally unexposed; they are indifferent, for they don’t have to intentions to learn about other cultural groups that live in Hong Kong at all. Because if they do put effort into understanding other cultures – be that Caucasians, Black Africans, Indians – these cultures won’t be discriminated. In fact the commentary I mentioned is nothing new: about a year ago, there was another report saying how Indians and Pakistanis are discriminated in Hong Kong, for their qualifications obtained in their home countries are not acknowledged such that they can only do low-income jobs even though they might be well-educated (one case was a PhD from Pakistan, I think, could only waiter in a restaurant). And because of this report, I got into an brief but heated online discussion on the yahoo HK message board with another dude, for when I said that HK people are in general culturally uneducated and indifferent, he thought, hey, we are not that bad in Hong Kong because at least we don’t have ethnic cleansing… so no we don’t have discrimination.

As you can imagine, that really pissed me off, because: 1) just the fact that we don’t “hate” other cultural groups doesn’t mean we understand their cultures; 2) in fact, it’s because we don’t understand or even are indifferent to them that we don’t hate them (I’m not saying we would hate if we do understand them better), the reason being that we don’t really care at the first place; 3) we are never xenophobic because having 95% Chinese here, most Chinese don’t even have to interact other cultural groups, and of course there won’t be any misunderstanding; 4) the fact that we were colonized for a hundred something years and lived in an environment with fear towards the British (that was maintained in a vague, distant relationship) has conditioned us to look at non-Chinese with a different attitude; 5) none of these should justify discriminations, which should be considered on the receiver end but not from the perspective of the one alleged to be discriminating.

It’s colonization that leads to this racism today, because it has conditioned us to perceive foreigners in a way that is different from how we would treat our fellow Chinese HK-ers. It’s well known that Hong Kong when under the British governance gained an enormous amount of economic growth, because the British brought with them the ideas of common law, constitutional “democracy”, tax system, Adam Smith, free trade, and capitalism. And I’m not disagreeing with that, nor am I ungrateful for that. But these “gifts” had their consequences and implications. For instance, it’s less well known that when under their rules (that is before 1997), Hong Kong was never really democratic: the governor of Hong Kong appointed by the Queen always had the same power, if not more, as that of the Chief Executive appointed by Beijing today. Chinese was rarely represented in the Legislative council of Hong Kong before the 60’s, and before the 70’s (i.e. the Cultural Revolution-inspired riots by the Leftists in Hong Kong) there was no Chinese in the Executive body. It’s only towards early 80’s, as the handover was under its way and Basic Law was being drafted that gradually more Chinese elites, most of which educated in England or in HKU (the institution that upholds a British kind of pride, or snobbishness) were introduced to the government. And there was Christopher Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong whose main job was to show to the rest of the world that Hong Kong was ready for democracy, not the pre-cold war kind of communist ideals that the Beijing government was trying to get rid of then – not a very convincing act, however, for there was never really a democracy when we could only elect representatives to a Legislative Council that could easily be overridden by the Executive body appointed by the Queen (or as in now, the Beijing Government). So when I meet foreigners who are interested in Hong Kong and ask me about the 1997 Handover, especially when I was in Canada, I told them that at the core of the Hong Kong politics, nothing has really changed: we never really enjoyed any democracy, and we didn’t get any after the Handover; we never had a real election, at least not for our leader, and we are not likely to have one in near future. The only difference might be that we were manipulated to think that we were democratic so we wouldn’t (or couldn’t) ask for true democracy, and now we truly know that we are not democratic and we will fight for it. (An improvement, isn’t it?)

But what does colonization and democracy have to do with racism in Hong Kong today? They are very closely related, in fact, for the shadow of colonialism is affecting the way we look at foreigners in Hong Kong even till today.

Because of the colonization, we have never been equipped to look at foreigners in an equal way. Collectively between the British (and other non-Chinese) and Chinese in Hong Kong, there never existed any equality. I mean, let’s be real here: the British colonized various parts of the world to exploit their people and their resources, not for the scenery. You think they went to India was Calcutta was beautiful? No. You think they went to Africa ‘cause the Savanna looked good? No. You think they came to Hong Kong ‘cause the fishing villages were exotic? Hell no. It’s all about exploitation in the beginning, done in the name of trade and coated with the benefits they brought to Hong Kong – from which they gained even more. I don’t think anyone would, or could, argue that colonization was not wrong or not about exploitation. And if you really think so, I think you should go read Franz Fanon.

Besides the inequality, we were conditioned to have fear towards foreigners. Because they came with guns and ruled with an invisible gun, most Chinese citizens in Hong Kong has long been adapted to this fact; even for the Chinese who came after WWII, they were conditioned to be afraid of the British government because they had to conform in order to live here. So it’s a condition that people are not gonna challenge the British government so long as they guide us along the path of wealth, except the riot in the 60’s and the student movements against colonialism in 70’s. Even so, fear towards the British – or more accurately, Gweilo, a term that is applicable to anyone who is white – remains in such a way that when most HK-ers look at white people today, we look up (and I don’t mean the physical height). Indeed, although Gweilo is a term considered derogatory because it describes white people as “ghosts”, or something unpleasant, it is used by Chinese with fear – we came up with this derogatory term because we are fear of the whites, just like how we are fear of ghosts. Funny how Chinese people distort their thinking, isn’t it – when we fear of someone, we belittle that someone. I guess Mr. Lu Shun really gave an accurate description of Chinese people in his short story The True Story of Ah Q. And If Gweilo is really that derogatory, then why would be widely accepted even among white people? Of course, you may argue because this is a term that is never really used in a common language between the two cultural groups, but I don’t see derogatory terms like the N-bomb accepted by black people (they use it among themselves, but never to be called by outsiders). The fear of Chinese towards the whites because of colonial history is signified in this word Gweilo, a term still applicable and used today not because it’s culturally used as an accurate description of white people, but because it still represents how most Chinese people perceives foreigners and their culture, and because this fear has never really gone away.

Because this attitude towards other ethnicities was never really rectified, foreigners (black or white or brown) still feel discriminated today in Hong Kong. And don’t get me wrong here, I don’t agree with this discrimination at all and I am not justifying it. But is it really discrimination, if this real Chinese attitude towards foreigners is because of our fear, or our inadequacy in history? For we have to understand one thing: not all Chinese HK-ers have had the opportunities to obtain a good education, a good exposure to English as a language, and thus, a good exposure to foreigners on equal grounds. All these contribute to the misunderstanding that exist between Chinese HK-ers (or a term that I am a little uncertain about – Locals), and any other non-Chinese groups. And of course, you might argue that Koreans and Japanese are not Chinese, but their cultures are more widely accepted in Hong Kong than others. That is true, and one can only blame history for that: Chinese and Koreans and Japanese do share some similarities in their cultures and customs, and it’s just easier for them to interact with each other culturally (although one will have to think about the political conflict between Japanese and Chinese since WWII as well).

I think that colonialism is only one factor that has contributed to this racism in Hong Kong. Other factors, such as the media, free-market and consumerism, language and subculture, all contribute to it. But at the same time, these factors lead to other problems and issues as well. It’s only with time that I can outline them, for at the moment, I feel that Hong Kong as a subject is so complex that I don’t know where to start. So I can only deal with bits and pieces one at a time, and see if I can get a good picture at the end.

Last, let me clarify my stand here: I respect everyone because we are all human beings. I might joke about certain stereotypes towards certain ethnicities, but really, I respect everyone and will take any opportunity to learn about other cultures. Sometimes I even question the idea of identity, because I think it would really fxxk our world up I we are just all patriotic.

So the bottom line (even it might be cliché): one love, one respect.