African-American In China

My wife runs her own English school on the Beijing west side, the part of the city where she grew up. She makes arrangements with low-income parents who otherwise would never be able to send their kids to an English-language school, and sets up after-class instruction at her old apartment. It is the classic case of giving-back to the community, a phrase that gets a lot of play in the U.S., but really means something in China's big cities.

I decided to visit the apartment one afternoon, and meet some of the children. They are around 8-to-10 years old, and I was clearly the first dark-skinned foreign person they'd ever seen in-person. A few of them just freaked out: "what part of China is HE from?!"

After dealing with a few attempts by the little hoodlums to lock me in the bathroom and turn off the lights (and turn on the heating lamps -- the switches are unaccounatbly on the outside of the door. I don't want to get into that), I told my wife I felt much safer and more comfortable back at my office a few blocks away. The walk back gave me some time to think again about being African-American in China.

A writer for the Atlanta Post website asked me some questions about this in an interview for a story about business in China. I said that Chinese don't look at me as African-American. To them, I'm just African. (Or, in the case of a 10-year-old troublemaker, I am a Chinese person from who-knows-where that's worked-outside-so-long-that-his-skin-got-really-dark-and-his-eyes-got-really-round.)

Prior to the 2008 Olympics, it seemed that the only things Beijing Chinese knew about black people was 1) they were from Africa, and 2) they sold illegal drugs. After all, that's what it said in the People's Daily.

Rumors circulated across Beijing that nightclub owners were shutting their doors to black customers as the Olympics drew closer. Police stopped me at my apartment compound and asked for my identification a half dozen times. I traveled to Hong Kong on a visa renewal run and heard the same stories, not just from citizens of Nigeria and Kenya, but also from Indians, Pakistanis and Brazilians. So really it wasn't being African that made you suspect in the eyes of the authorities, it was being non-Chinese, period.

In truth, China has its own race issues to solve, managing the demands of more than 50 ethnic minority groups, and it will be interesting to see how it all develops. Keeping foreigners comfortable is the least of this country's concerns. Besides, we're all considered wealthy, regardless of skin-color, otherwise we wouldn't be here. And so I guess that's what being African-American -- or African-anything -- in China is really all about.

I keep that in mind, especially when my wife and I try to catch a taxi together in Beijing. Most drivers won't stop. Others nearly crash their cabs because they can't stop staring. I now tell my wife to stand by herself, and when the driver stops and lets her in, I will run out from behind a telephone pole and slide into the back seat with her, cackling like Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop."

When she asks me "what's so funny," I simply tell her I've seen this movie before.

China and Basketball

Travel east of the Forbidden City along the Chang'an main drag in Beijing, and you will find an outdoor schoolyard with about a half-dozen basketball courts. The courts are filled with people engaged in basketball games and you can easily imagine being in an American metropolis like Brooklyn. But right next door is a single soccer field, and it's always busy too, even during winter, when the basketball courts are empty.

The point is that while basketball is growing in popularity, it is in no way comparable to the love the mainland Chinese have for soccer.

In fact, it's almost the opposite of what you'll find in North America, where multitudes of kids play youth soccer, then give it up for hoops when they approach puberty. In China, young people are done with basketball once they become adults. It's definitely a teenage obsession, like the X-Box.

But that's not what you hear from the various American sports scribes who land in Shanghai, take a look around for 4-to-6 hours, and quickly crank out another story proclaiming "BASKETBALL MADNESS SWEEPS THE MIDDLE KINGDOM", before hopping on the next flight back to New York City.

In the words of another great Empire State wordsmith, John McEnroe, "You have got to be kidding."

While I'm not a big fan of soccer, I can tell you that "futbol" outstrips hoops for Chinese sports fans every time. Not to take away anything from Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian and what they've accomplished by becoming NBA talent, but basketball is and always will be the exception here. A basketball is easy enough to acquire in Beijing, but you still need a hoop, and a high ladder to install it. For soccer, you just need to find an object, preferably round, and kick it. That simple equation explains why soccer is the world's number one sport. Find two kids and a rock (a real rock, not The Rock), and you've got a soccer match. No ladder necessary.

The NBA is consumed by the same marketing insanity that hits anyone who discovers mainland China happens to enjoy your product. A dozen NBA stars make trips to Chinese cities every summer, allowing themselves to be treated like freaks as they earnestly open youth centers in the cities. But when they go to the countryside, they find that basketball is a luxury, and discover that the real heroes go by the names of Messi, Beckham, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

When the Chinese national soccer team lost two out of three games in the recent Asian Cup tournament, the country was plunged into a sports depression. I heard the term "national humiliation" more than once. It's proof enough for me that soccer rules in China, and second place is not even close.

Mainland China TV

One universal rule about television worldwide is that audiences are drawn to stories about two types of people: police officers and medical professionals. The daily routine for TV cops is always action-packed and prone to some kind of barely-explained mayhem. Television doctors engage in an on-going battle to save lives. It is no different on television in mainland China. And just to show you they have a sense of humor about these things, law enforcement and hospital work is regularly lampooned in the familiar two-man stage comedy routines known in China as er ren zhuan.

A lot of foreigners hate television in China, but in fact, it is no worse than anywhere else. You will find the familiar staples: the formulaic reality shows, documentary programs, sitcoms, historic dramas, and multi-part romantic sagas. I am fascinated by what I see on the air over here. There is, for example, a lot of gunplay in the police and war dramas. The Chinese are never shy about presenting a violent resolution to a gripping story of corruption or conflict, and it's not just on TV. One of the most recent popular theatrical movies goes by the none-too-subtle English title "Let the Bullets Fly." Medical TV dramas are infused with the most overwrought cliches: a patient (typically a young girl) is brought to the hospital in a coma, and does not recover until the all other family members come to recognize the faults in their lives. Then she wakes up and everyone lives happily ever after.

That's not to say mainland Chinese viewers do not enjoy imported television programs. One channel shows a foreign film (although not usually an American movie) almost every day. And romantic comedies or dramas from South Korea are extremely popular in China and throughout Asia. Some years ago, South Korean TV producers took the Latin-style telenovela and pushed it to another level of emotional, angst-laden hysteria: families in generational conflict, unrequited love issues, terminal illnesses that strike without reason or warning. "The Koreans have no mercy," said my tearful wife after watching one such episode. "Everyone knows this."

Sure, it doesn't have any real connection to real life, but that's what television drama is meant to be about, right? And in modern China, escapist fare ought to have a special appeal, considering true escape from reality is unlikely anyway.

Wal-Mart

I live near one of Beijing's biggest Wal-Mart stores. It is, like many stores, stuffed in the basement of a much bigger building, and the place is always crowded and chaotic. As such, shopping in a Beijing Wal-Mart is a claustrophobic's nightmare. I couldn't wait to buy my stuff and get out of there, but each of the checkout lanes had at least 20 people waiting in line, and it's like that...all...day...long.

The successful transplant of Wal-Mart stores is one of the biggest business success stories in modern (post '90s) China. But it wasn't always that way.

One sensation you get when you walk into a Chinese Wal-Mart is the stench of rotting meat. That's because it became necessary for Wal-Marts here to include a butcher shop, similar to the ones you would find on the street. A location where you can find a man wielding a meat cleaver, merrily chopping up fresh chunks of sheep, lamb, goat, cattle, chicken, fish, and whatever other dead animal lands in front of him. And the butcher's table would be surrounded by dozens of customers, noisily bargaining for the best cuts he had to offer. This is precisely the atmosphere that has allowed Wal-Mart to survive and prosper in China. Certainly not the imported brands of electronics, clothing, or hardware.

Legend has it that when Wal-Mart opened its first superstores in China, nobody showed up. That's because the customers were all outside the building, haggling with the butcher on the street. So the Wal-Mart bosses did the smart thing and brought the butcher inside, and all the customers followed him as if he was the Pied Piper himself.

Now, if you think you will find all of the made-in-China products in a Chinese Wal-Mart that you would find in an American Wal-Mart, think again. Practically everything sold in stores here is indeed made-in-China, but it's not the same stuff. It's generally stuff that is a lot cheaper -- and a lot lower in quality -- than anything on the Supercenter shelves in the U. S. suburbs. No one cares, because it is the best that anyone here can afford. Considering how hard life was in China only a generation ago, it is no surprise how popular the chain is.

In the U. S., many consider a Wal-Mart experience the worst, most low-rent shopping trip imaginable. But for Beijingers, it's like going to Macy's. And that's all you need to know about life in modern China.