Discussion Clarification on why some novels seem racist and believe the 'Yellow race' is superiour

I didn't bother to read the rest after reading the first paragraph....

Have you ever taken a biology course in China???

You can't just imagine things.....

 

How about we discuss how to cure world hunger or poverty?
Seems there are more meaningful discussions to be had.

 

It's because china is not multi-cultural and not exposed to other cultures. Thus they think, yellow race is superior or something. No one in Chinese society see's this as wrong, so it's normal.

 

For thousands of years, they think that Han people and Han civilization were the center of the world. There is a reason why they call their lands: Middle Kingdom.

 

It was funny because as a Chinese student in America, I was really surprised how little the majority of American, people of the so claimed multicultural country, knew about the rest of the world. Well, I'm not that surprised now since they don't seem to know much even about their own country.

 

No, it´s not the same. It´s true that it´s normal to have a egocentric view of the world and to feel superior but in Europe there was a fascination and sometimes admiration for distant and/or exotic civilizations. Proof of that is Marco Polo´s impact.

And I know and admire India´s brilliant past.

 

They were considered fascinating and exotic, but still inferior, barbaric races to be exploited and tamed. Proof of THAT comes from European colonial history.

Asian civilizations back then also considered European civilization to be interesting and exotic and... that's it really. They didn't really pay much attention and as a result, several Asian regions became European colonies, several more were forced were fed opium etc. (in fact, although Chinese hardly bring it up anymore -probably because it was squeezed out by anti-Japan sentiment, the Opium wars and the sacking of the old Summer Palace were considered the next most humiliating incidents to the Chinese as a whole. I can't begin to imagine what the Indians must have felt to be outright reduced to a colony. Japan wasn't thrilled either and tried isolationism until Europe threatened it).

... come to think of it, relationships between the East and West started out pretty crappy huh... (still much better than what happened in Africa and North America though)

 

A good author should be able to see beyond the obvious, the propaganda and one sided worldviews. So the author can create a diverse set of characters with different shades of nationalism, beliefs and arguments. The lack of that just means that it's bad literature (or it sells well). Still the question remains, why these bad examples are translated.
China certainly has critical and well thought out content creators. A recent example is the Chinese animation film "Have a Nice Day" by Hao ji le. Even with an ironic reaction of the Chinese government at a certain film festival.

 

I am deeply sorry for the racist in novels,and I'll explain the problem from a Chinese perspective.
There are no political leanings in the following,please do not attack me for any political factors.
The origin of modern Chinese network novels was in the early twenty-first century.
What happened before that time?China's embassy's in Yugoslavia had been bombed、China-US military plane collision on the South China Sea、China's taiwan strait crisis…
What was China like at that time?Many serious social problems、many Chinese people worship all things foreign、traditional culture is faced with the impact of western culture、per capita GDP is only one percent of Japan、military power is far from the United States…
So novels of this period are full of what you call racism,because of the weakness and inferiority of China at that time.
For example,the hero of Tom Sue（龙傲天,direct translation is Dragon Proud Sky） model is the most popular,apart from labels such as harem、invincible,he must also without a good knowledge of Chinese culture、good at Chinese martial arts、and is a "Chinese" supremacist…I think you should understand why.These situations has been relieved after China's continuous development in recent years, but it still exists.
As a Chinese,I'm glad to see so many foreign friends will be interested in Chinese culture because of the network novels,but what I don't want to see is that network novels become the only source of your to understand Chinese culture.Whoever you are,thank you for reading this text with poor English and Chinglish,see you again.

 

Well... take note how Trump just referred to some countries as "shithole countries". Not superior yet? How about Americans believing their country is the best cause FREEDOM and all?

Now, about some of your points:
Yes, I do agree that Chinese do glorify racism against Japanese, but I've hardly seen it against Koreans. And the racism is justifiable, although (I believe) the newer generations of Chinese are slowly losing their racism. Think about it. If like 80-90 years ago, your country got invaded by foreigners, tons of people were massacred, countless atrocities were made, how would you feel? If you grew up to your grandparents or parents talking about how they lost their loved ones or friends to the Japanese, you might have the same hate. Why should the Chinese leave behind their hatred after ww2? People these days still have the same hate over the Confederate flag, and its been hundreds of years ago. They still have the same hate towards Nazis, which are also from the ww2 period. The atrocities the Japanese committed could definitely be compared to the Nazis. The healing process needs time. You need to think of things in different perspectives. I believe your view towards Russia would definitely be different if they had nuked the US during the Cold War.
About history:
What history are you talking about? How does portraying their nation and inhabitants as saviors and heroes not portray Americans as being superior? And history... China was also historically one of the greatest empires, so your point can be double-edged.

All in all, I have only found two Chinese novels hard to bear with their radical nationalism. Castle of Black Iron and IRAS. Out of tons of novels, only these two. I am an American, but its hard for me to see biased, generalized, and wrong assumptions.

 

The problem is not being proud of your race. The problem is demeaning other races while you are at it and think that other races are below yours.

 

Different human races (as in ethnicities with different physical traits) do exist. It's just political how they are defined, and many countries have national pride which is why they obviously think THEY are the best. It has nothing to do with racism and more importantly that word can mean pretty much anything now..

 

Sorry but that is bull****, racism against an entire population cannot be justified based upon atrocities committed by their forefathers. I understand why the hate thrown against the Japanese by some Chinese may seem justifiable to you, and i truly feel pity for them. I feel sick knowing the atrocities committed by the Japanese and them not acknowledging it. But following your logic the Japanese are then also justified if they began to act racist against the USA, Africans should be justified in their racism against Europeans and Americans. Under any circumstances can racism not be justifiable. If people do not begin to lay aside their bigoted thoughts of which is taught then conflicts will continue and more hate will join that evil circle.

And yes racism against the Koreans in novels exist, just read I'm really a superstar. This probably came due to strained relations between the Korean and Chinese after the Chinese government began to block people from viewing Korean shows and all things related to Korean culture.

Yes history wise China was a great empire (when it was unified at least), it was the center of the world for many centuries, until they began to isolate themselves of and the European nations began to force them to open. I am not sure what you mean by doubled edge though.

 

China is actually extremely multicultural, but at the same time it is also very homogeneous

 

If you wanna see yellow race superiority and racism, then go read God and Devil World. It is an absolutely 'lovely' novel...

 

The situation with the Japanese is that they get sort of treated as generic villains, just like Nazis in Western media. The thing is, Western media shows a clear distinction between Nazis and Germans in general. In the case of Japanese however, there isn't really a term to set aside just those Japanese who committed atrocities in China. From my time in China though, it didn't appear to me that Chinese media really bash Japanese -in general-, rather it's mostly Japanese soldiers during the China vs Japan confrontations that tend to get bashed (so the equivalent of Nazi soldiers). Most genres (like modern city life or Wuxia) don't even bother to mention Japanese people most of the time.

Yes, some Chinese novels do go out of their way with racism. But I've recently noticed something (at least from the novels I've come across recently): Most Chinese novels face-slap just about Any character that's not on the MC's side. The result of that is that the vast majority of characters that tend to get poorly depicted are Chinese, be they arrogant young masters, unbelievable parents, trash lovers or whatnot. In such stories, when foreigners get mentioned, in fact they're just getting the same treatment as everybody else. :\ (seriously there's this series I read a bit of recently, and the MC's father is absolute trash, her cousin is absolute trash, her cousin's mom is absolute trash, her uncle is absolute trash, her fiance is absolute trash, her best friend's uncle is absolute trash... you get it. She walks into a random kindergarten, and the head of the parent's association just happens to be absolute trash too)

 

Hmm somehow I'm not very surprised many Chinese novels are sinocentric.
Because it's easier to write about what they know about then not... though people can learn about other cultures and etc all on the net but it's not easy to understand and convey things you never grew up with... in a way? //what am i saying lol >.<"

 

I know that the hatred and racism came from the WW2, but for some people it's because the Japanese Goverment has always went to the Yasukuni Shrine. A place where even the Japanese Emperor isn't allowed to go because his father or grandfather (I don't know who but must be one of them...) disagreed to go that place because it's the place where the war criminals of WW2 are buried (I think, it's not buried but i can't find another word for it).

PD: The Japanese Emperor of the WW2 era was the responsible for the WW2, but even his descendants knows that it's bad to pay respect to the war criminals.

 

This thread has been revived, and so popcorn comes back! Here's some popcorn for new viewers!