British newspaper: Why do China people refuse to admit that hybrids are from China?

The British Guardian website165438+1October 5th reported how volleyball and pop music have shaken China's racial concept (reporter Isabel Hilton).

National unity has always been a rhetoric to whitewash the stability of the country. However, two young people in China caused a rare argument.

At the beginning of this year, Hui Ding, a young man from Hangzhou, was selected for the China National Volleyball Team. In August this year, Lou Jing, a 20-year-old Shanghai girl, entered the top 30 in the talent show. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about these two things. The only thing these two young people have in common is that they belong to one of the few mixed-race groups in China, and their fathers are both black. They became the focus of attention, which plunged China into an unpleasant and often aggressive debate. The theme of the debate is how to define China people.

Lou Jing was brought up by a single mother. His father, an African-American, left China for some unknown reasons. The rude abuse of mother on the Internet reflects a deep prejudice. For foreigners living in China, this is not surprising. However, for many years, China officials have always emphasized solidarity with developing countries, including Africa, thus concealing this prejudice.

China is not an immigrant country, and China's ethnic diversity comes from territorial expansion rather than immigration. In a country of 56 nationalities, it is not easy to answer who is the real China people.

Many years after 1949, few people in China married foreigners. During the Cultural Revolution, this kind of behavior was even banned until the mid-1970s. But in the next 20 years, this kind of marriage is still relatively rare.

In a country that considers itself a monocultural society, racial prejudice is definitely an important factor. However, with the world's most populous country ending more than 65,438+000 years of political and social turmoil and beginning to play an increasingly important role in the 20th century, the ambivalence towards ethnic groups reflects some profound problems in the identity of modern China.

Nowadays, China is threatened by a new phenomenon, that is, immigration. For example, in Lou Jing's hometown of Shanghai, in the past 10 years, at least 3000 foreign men and women got married every year. In Guangzhou, according to local media reports, as many as 654.38 million+Africans live in the local so-called "chocolate city".

If China continues to develop along this trend, there will be more and more China people like Lou Jing and Ding Hui. Their appearance and personal experience will make the world's most populous country have to face the problem of uncertain identity.