What is racism?

As an American woman of German-Irish descent I’ve never experienced racism. Even in my travels to other countries. I certainly didn’t expect to find it in China. But then again, the thought had never crossed my mind. Heck, I’m still getting used to the fact that people stop and stare at me when I pass.
Several incidences, however, have brought racism raining down on us Western teachers. While the locals want to stare in amazement and try their best to speak even one word of English to us, they can turn around five minutes later and stab us with the racism dagger.
It became most apparent when four of us Western teachers were banned from the bus that takes us to from school. Weeks after the fact, we still don’t know exactly what broke the camel’s back of the Chinese teachers who shared the university’s bus. We are told repeatedly that they’re frustrated because we make more money than they do, which is in fact true.
I noticed a storm brewing when we were repeatedly relegated to sitting on the sticky, dirty floor that has evidently never met a broom or mop. It escalated when none of the attractive young teachers would even speak to the equally attractive Latina of our group who wanted to more than befriend them. (In Asian countries it’s considered quite a feat for a man to shag a Western woman, and lately I’ve witnessed that young Asian girls will do anything to get a Western man’s attention.)
About 20 people, four of us Westerners crammed onto the bus at 7:20 am and 5 pm. This bus has been arranged for us. It takes us the 25-minute route from Huludao to Xingcheng, where our university is. Usually the Chinese teachers at our bus stop would ensure their seats, suspiciously always finding ways to always beat us to them. No matter where we stood at the bus stop. No matter how early we arrived there. One teacher from New Zealand never once had a seat, which proved quite a hassle for his tall stature and quite dangerous as he’d be the first to fly through the windshield in a wreck. Latina Laura always sat on my lap if we did per chance have a seat. The other Westerner, an Irish woman, wouldn’t have conceived of sharing a seat when she did in fact secure one. Standing meant trying to make your neck and knees limber like sailors with sea legs or tennis fans. The rickety, speedy metal contraption that bore a can of instant engine started in the broken open glove compartment might ram into another vehicle or a person at any point. Or so we noticed on numerous occasions.
Many bad looks were exchanged. Nary a word was spoken– kind or otherwise between those Chinese teachers who teach English. I finally asked our supervisor, a fellow American, why we were treated like second class citizens.
“You are?” he asked, despite having witnessed several English teachers who’d ridden the bus with almost jubilant glee and legendary popularity. “I’ve never had this problem before. Let me get to the bottom of this.”
Finally after some five weeks of sharing the bus with locals frustrated by our wage difference, word had spread that they were trying to ban us. It happened after school on a Monday afternoon.
Get off the Bus
Through some finagling of our schedule that day, three of us Western teachers manage to land individual seats. This is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Some local teachers ware already on. Some seats remain open.
Audibly entrenched in the song streaming into my ears from my headphones, I glance out the window (which also may never have seen cleaning materials) and see the ringleader of the local furiously dialing on her cell phone. She’s steps away from the bus. But instead of talking directly to us about her group’s peeve, we soon enough learn that she’s calling our supervisor.
The locals start filing out of the bus. As they walk past Laura’s front seat perch, the little Latina Who Could yells at them like the second coming of Rosa Parks.
“Go ahead. Get off! You.. now you... yes, you too. Come on! Get off!” Her deep brown eyes are open only slightly smaller than her angry mouth. Her voice is bigger than both.
I remove my headphones, fully reentering the scene’s atmosphere when Laura answers her phone, still shouting. The Irish teacher and I watch in shock and humor.
Then there goes the bus driver.
While I’m trying to figure out why the only people left on the bus are white, Laura’s still shouting into the phone as she slams the bus door shut, and the Irish teacher indicates something she thinks is gold.
“Look! The keys are still in the ignition,” she says.
I look at her as if to say, “And do what with them? Speed off? Do you expect us to instantly learn how to drive this thing– through reckless Chinese traffic no less?”
This is how you turn a boycott into high jinks and mayhem.
“It’s too crowded?” Laura shots into her phone. This one takes me for a loop. Having ridden the local buses I’ve witnessed their overcrowding. This excuse is so invalid I’m beginning to see why China isn’t yet more powerful after thousands of years of history. In the most overpopulated country on the planet, the teachers’ excuse that the bus was too crowded doesn’t carry weight.
I look out the window to see all the teachers standing beside the bus, their collective countenance somewhere between cowardice and frustration.
At this time, fortunately, our fourth bus-riding Westerner arrives and sticks his head into the bus. Because he speaks Chinese he discovers quickly that there’s no way we’re getting home that day– or likely ever again– on that bus. He manages to talk Laura and Ireland off the bus with no harm or foul and I follow, riding a wave of confusion that preempts any sense of personal affront I might have felt. And just as quickly the four of us are scuttling away in a taxi.
Laura’s still prattling on. Ireland’s still talking about escaping with the bus. New Zealand teeters, making comments like “Someone’s going to pay for this” on one hand, and “Well, you just can’t negotiate with the Chinese once they’ve made up their mind.”
The cost of racism
It might be wrong of us to blame it on racism. But then it might not. (We may never know what was the real cause.) We know for sure we’re being discriminated against when we’re overcharged by taxi drivers, street vendors or retailers.
If a native person asks the rate between places x and y she will pay a rate, say 15 quay. (RMB), whereas if a Westerner asks for the rate, it’d be 20, 25 if you appear absolutely new to the place. Rather than take the fare at the local rate, taxi drivers prefer not to take you at all. This amazes me to the point of frustration. I tell the drivers or vendors or retailers this constantly, though of course because they don’t speak a word of English, they cannot and will not understand. In part I speak as a thwarted Westerner who refuses to be taken advantage of; I also speak as one who comes from a capitalist society. “Fine,” I tell them, “if you’d rather sit in this cab and not make any money, it’s your loss.” Fortunately to this point there has always been another cab driver who isn’t as greedy, or racist, or whatever else you might call it.
This weekend a fellow Midwesterner accompanied me to the electronics market to locate an external hard drive. We searched in three stalls in the flea market-like shopping center. The prices ranged from 380 to 450 RMB (about $57 to $67). Later that evening the Australian teacher in our group said that in another town he’d purchased his, with twice the storage space, for less than 250 RMB.
“How did you do that?” I asked, still amazed and somewhat more hopeful that buying this device wouldn’t deplete my whole monthly earnings.
“I speak Chinese,” he said. “You walk in there and they see a couple of Westerners. They’re gonna take advantage of you.”
This from a guy who’s skin color is somewhere between builders white and milk white, and whose Chinese (I’m told) is terrible. Then again, I’ve seen this silly guy try to convince cab drivers that he’s Chinese.
“Even if he had yellow skin, slanted eyes and almost black hair, no one from China would believe he’s Chinese because of his bad Mandarin,” one Westerner told me.
Again, there is no telling why the price difference was so escalated, but I do plan to bring a Chinese person with me the next time I seek a major purchase.