dalian beach days with the africans

i didn't really want to write about this, but zach said i should, so i will write briefly. last week i went to the beach for the first time which i was really excited about. one of my friends from my company has a girlfriend who is from nigeria and she invited me to go, so we met up with 4 of her african friends. they are all students in dalian.

at first when my friend asked me if people stared at me here, i wasn't exactly sure why. i was like, yeah, sure, don't they stare at you? she said the staring was pretty bad, but i didn't really imagine then how much worse that kind of behavior was for black people than white people here.

i think the bus ride to the beach should have been an omen. my nigerian friend and i were standing in front of a bunch of russians who also looked like they were going to the beach (dalian is full of beach-going russians in the summer). there was a mom, a little girl, and 2 older daughters. i think the little girl had never seen a black person before, because once she caught sight of my friend she started giggling. then she looked to her mom and her sisters to see if they found this amusing as well. she was just staring at her throughout the bus ride. finally, with a big grin, the little girl takes her arm and puts it up against my friends arm to compare the colors. the little girl's mom finally scolded her and made her stop. i guess her mom felt guilty about the whole scene or something because after that she insisted on taking all of our bags and holding them since we were standing and she was sitting. it was very strange. after they got off the bus, my friend asked me if i had seen what the little girl did. she wasn't that incredulous about it, more just kind of noting. i told her that it was dumb but it seemed like the little girl didn't know any better.

well, take that scene, apply it to adults, and that was pretty much what the whole beach experience was like with the african girls. people were walking by trying to take pictures of them (i'm not even going to say us) with reckless abandon. the chinese people were the most obnoxious about it but i couldn't believe that the russians were doing it too!

the chinese people would stand at a distance and start to take a picture. my friends would say in chinese that they did not want a picture, and then the chinese person with the camera would strategically place a friend or family member so it looked like they were taking their picture, but they were not aiming the camera at their friend or family member- they were, as you can guess, still aiming the camera at my friends. wow, so lame haha. no one bought it. it got to the point where my friends started grabbing handfuls of stones (the beaches here have stones instead of sand) to threaten people who were trying to photograph them. one time a guy just got too close. he came over with his infant son and started trying to ask me of all people if he could take the african girls' picture. his wife was standing at a distance with the camera ready. well, at least he asked, but i told him no. he sort of stood there for a while, i think trying to seem more sympathetic in his cause with his little baby. eventually he started turning around and i guess one of the girls tossed a stone at him. it seemed like it hit the man and bounced off and hit his baby. the baby started BAWLING. my friends felt really bad, so they called him back and said they could have their picture. one of the girls reached out for the baby to comfort him and the chinese guy just willingly handed it over. he just stood there grinning from ear to ear while his baby was bawling his eyes out and we tried to comfort him. i think the dad was just thinking, 'sweet, now i get my picture!' eventually the mom came over to get the baby because the dad was obviously just enjoying the whole scene way too much and wasn't about to take his baby back just yet.

the russians were pretty ugly about it too, but they were much more likely to ask my friends if they could take their picture rather than trying to be stealthy about it. i think some of them thought that i was russian because again they were asking me if they could take their picture. my mind was just getting really confused at this point, so i told them in chinese that we didn't want a picture, then realized that they probably didn't know chinese, and just said NOOO!! i don't think they were expecting to be rejected, so they just sort of walked away looking a little confused.

the whole scene got so bad at one point that we were actually going to move to a different part of the beach. imagine being surrounded by chinese and russian vultures with cameras and trying to prevent all of them from taking pictures at once. it was pretty stressful. eventually after the initial excitement wore off though, things died down and we were pretty much just left with one lone chinese guy who was circling us and staring for a good 15 minutes. my friends got tired of him too after a while and threatened him with stones, and he gave us a sheepish thumbs up and then ran away. good lord.

afterwards, the girls pretty much just complained about chinese people the whole time. some of them seemed to feel more anger than others. i don't really blame them. some of them have been here going on 4 years in their studies and nothing has changed since they arrived here. it would be frustrating having people commenting on your skin color and appearance everywhere you go, especially when you can understand what they are saying and the person doesn't realize that you can. one of the girls was saying that even when she tries to be positive and friendly towards chinese people she gets burned- one day a woman said hello to her so she said hello back and then the woman started commenting to her friend on how dark and ugly she was. so much for being friendly.

i felt pretty embarrassed for them at the beach, and i was especially embarrassed when a young chinese girl came up and asked if she could have a picture with me. note....not of me...with me. not feeling like being mean i took a picture with her but the whole situation was quite eye-opening.

they told me they went to the zoo one day and that so many people were taking pictures of them that it was unclear who the animals were. they were joking about it but i can imagine if it were me being pretty angry at the time when it was happening.

i think the 2 main issues at hand are the lack of racial diversity in most of china and chinese people's strange preference for sickly pale skin. but if china really wants to step into the 21st century, they need to get over this fascination (or whatever word you want to call it) pretty quickly...

as a side note, i'm sure not all chinese and russian people behave in this way, but this is just what i saw on this day at the beach. there were some instances, like at dinner, where a russian person came up, nicely asked to take a picture with one of the girls, and thanked her afterwards for it. it's just the overwhelming majority of the day was not like this. at any rate, i think taking pictures with people you don't know is weird! what would you do with the picture?