Racism in Taiwan and the ROC
This is a topic I’ve wanted to write about for some time. But today in the Globe and Mail, one article just pushed me over the edge of anger.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080718.wchina19/BNStory/International/home
The article accuses the Beijing government/police/CCP of ordering local bars to restrict access in bars to black people and Mongolians. As in, they will not be allowed in bars during this time. I’ve had it with hearing stories like this. I have to say that although Taiwan is slightly more accepting of ethnic minorities (I’m talking about anyone with dark skin here) this country has a long way to go.
Here is a recent example. A ‘friend of mine’ works at a job where a new foreign speaker was entering the workplace in a week. She had met the new person but the Taiwanese boss had not, and so the boss asked what this person looked like. My ‘friend’s’ response was that he had “curly dark hair, glasses, kinda tall…”
The boss’s response? “He isn’t black is he?”
Just one example of the attitude here. It’s really unfortunate and I think it’s just disgusting. How can a country with such a regimented education system simply neglect to teach its students about basic things such as racism and social awareness of different cultures? Many Taiwanese are not in fact of ‘Chinese’ decent but they are of Aboriginal, Portugese/Chinese/Japanese background given all the occupations of Taiwan in the past. As well, the Chinese people here with darker skin depending on those backgrounds are routinely discriminated against.
I want to say that on for a country like China that wants to be a global leader and set an example during the Olympic Games to discriminate against people with darker skin…it’s despicable. Not least among those reasons is the blatantly obvious one that people from countries all around the world – athletes, fans, supporters, coaches, business people will all be watching and many of them will not be white. What if they want to go into a restaurant or bar?
Why aren’t people rallying against this more? I’m also disappointed in Taiwan. For a country that considers itself more democratic than China, I still see many advertisements on mailing lists for a “North American” speaker who is NOT Chinese looking and ‘looks’ North American. Or others that ask the teacher to be female, or under 40 or a plethora of other criteria that basically make me not want to work for that school or company ever.
Quite frankly, it’s sad for me because let’s say it simply, I’m in the minority here in Taiwan. I get treated very well because of what I look and speak like. Not only am I female (and many teachers here are male) I am white, and I have a North American accent. But goodness…if you have an Australian, British, New Zealand, or South African accent you face discrimination when it comes to obtaining private students and also at work where you might be taken advantage of (namely asked and be required to do additional work) and also paid less.
I won’t even get into the recent rumour of the time an ‘anonymous’ company hired a ‘one-armed-man.’ What a dilemma that was…because really how can a person with one arm ever be a teacher?
Sigh….
Well said. It is important to speak up about this. For those of us who are “white” and English speaking we are privileged in many ways, but we are also in a position to recognise racism and speak out against it.