As an African-American in the heart of the world’s most populous country I don’t think much about how people treat me. That may seem strange for many, but probably best describes how I am treated.

I don’t know Chinese so don’t understand the comments people make about me and have never minded stares but so much. As many foreigners describe there are cel phone pictures sometimes, but to be truthful, I have taken more pictures than folks I have met.

I’ve read there were less than five thouand green cards given to foreigners by the Chinese Government over a recent seven year period, and someone else told me there are only four million foreigners in the country. Even if there were twenty million many Chinese would still go without seeing a foreigner.

For me, the uniqueness of the foreigner in this huge country explains the responses. But there are signs that verify racism has been exported. One young lady wanted to have a discussion about weed and gangsters. I found the discussion amusing and explained my opinion of gangsters and weed as probably being much like that of her father. It took a bit of air out of the conversation, but got the point across.
I don't blame her as much as I blame the exported music.


At this point I know enough about the surface of Chinese culture to find almost nothing exotic. Besides, the city I am in is as urban as any New York and larger. I stand in awe of the systems required to manage simple realities for so many people.

A few days ago as I departed from a train in Hankou Station, I walked towards the subway from the tail end of the line. The station was huge and hollow. Echoes from thousands of wheels of rolling suitcases filled the giant space. Before me I saw what looked like ten thousand people emerging from the twenty car train. It was the first day after new Year and many were returning back to the city from the field.

As I grabbed food yesterday, a young woman in English asked could I use the chopsticks. I smiled yes. She smiled back. There in the distance between us she wondered about the foreigner and what did I know of Chinese culture. Her attitude seems the most common.

It seems Chinese people know they know many things. My experience reveals a pride and strength great enough to be humble. They know enough about the West and have enough ideas about the foreigner to know we could be here and not know who they really are, but still they are amazed.

In the town of Shiyan during the holiday a man made a comment that my friend interpreted for me that became my first translated sign of the negative. He joked that I should have washed my face that morning.

Then in Shiyan I was on my way to the mountain-a field in the hills. It was a place few foreigners had been. I’ll write more on it later, but it reminded me of the place African Americans were in the South before our Great Migration. The cold and the housing are the opposite of everywhere I have ever lived, but the warmth from the people, the dignity and respect, the warmth and refined sense of etiqutte in every meal and every toast confirmed where there is great distance-China has a a great culture to traverse the gap. If anything as traveler, they spoiled me.

With hundreds of millions of people moving from the rural areas into the city, I am in China in the midst of a Great, Great Migration that makes the one my ancestors experienced in America seem like one small train of wagons headed into the vast West.

Some understanding inherited from the culture of my own family and the history I have read seems sufficient to explain and navigate what I experience here. I am convinced there is kindness, generosity, and the great human heart on the other side of whatever confusion occurs.