Black in China

by Vessup, Aaron A. ;

  Even in sunny California, many Whites were offended by the sight of mixed race couples walking and talking together. Horns would start honking as they drove by. Sometimes people would shout obscenities or racial epithets from their moving vehicles. The bottom line was simple: there was an established social order, and if you crossed the line, you were a target. Someone somewhere would let you know that you had violated their code.

  My life over the years of my youth and early adulthood was a series of jumps through hoops, reaching for one achievement after the other. Being outstanding at something was what most upwardly-mobile Black Americans did in the hope of achieving social acceptance and equality. There was nothing unique about this survivalist approach. I simply took in stride the fact that my identity would always be under judgmental scrutiny. It was a natural social burden to bear.

  To most White Americans, “Affirmative Action” is a phrase that easily evokes tensions and concern, revealing an individual’s position on the sensitive race question. But I was not just another Black American seeking an Affirmative Action favor. I had been the Men’s President of my Community College and selected to represent the school as a candidate for the Bank of America’s “Man of the Year” award. I had been co-champion in a state-wide speech contest. I had won a speech scholarship to the Nebraska Wesleyan University for my bachelor’s degree, was captain of their debating team, president of the local Phi Rho Psi chapter, State Champion in Oratory, and a national finalist. I obtained my Master’s Degree thanks to a Teaching Fellowship offered by Illinois State University. A few years later, I commenced work on my PhD, receiving another Fellowship to teach speech and cultural communication courses in the University of Pittsburgh’s Speech Department.

  I had also spent three years working in Bloomington, a small town in the state of Illinois, to establish the first Human Relations Commission administrative office there. The slogan of this state is “The Land of Lincoln,” dutifully printed on every motor vehicle license plate. I not only witnessed legal abuse and various examples of disgusting and racist behavior behind the administrative scenes, but through my early years, I also watched both my parents suffer through systemic and socially degrading incidents in my home state of California. It is a personal litany to which most American minority citizens can testify. Black skin was, and remains, a social and legal target.

  Perhaps it was fate that brought me to the interview at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Law.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “You come in here acting like you are somebody. Just who do you think you are?”

  The man speaking peered from behind rimless eyeglasses perched on the end of his nose, as he looked me up and down as if searching for some chink in my invisible armor. I was in the University Law School Dean’s office to determine what the terms of the acceptance letter meant. The final word from this man would be decisive in my long dreamed-of future of entering the law profession. Already I was rocked backward by his first words. This would clearly be more of an interrogation than an interview.

  “So, what is the real reason you chose this Law School rather than elsewhere?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, why do you want to come to Pitt? You could have chosen somewhere else to apply. Why here?”

  “Your school has offered me one of the scholarships earmarked for minority candidates. Otherwise, I cannot afford to enroll in any post graduate program.”

  “Oh. But I hear that your girlfriend who works at this school is White. I know Priscilla. Isn’t she the real reason you are coming here?”

  “No, that is not why I am coming here. I really need to learn the law so that I can help our people fight for equality. It is the only way to survive in this country. If I do not get assistance, I will be unable to acquire the tools to fight for justice using the law. The color of my girlfriend should have nothing to do with my admission eligibility.”

  “Well, I’m going to have to give this matter some more thought. You get back to me next week sometime, I’ll let you know my decision.”

  That was the end of the interview. I did not wait around to hear from the Dean’s office. Already in the works was a Teaching Fellowship in the Speech Department at the same university. I was so disgusted by what had transpired at the Law School that I immediately contacted them for my teaching start date. That put me on the road to getting a PhD in Communication Sciences. After all my experiences during my own education, I ended up spending more than two decades coaching students in intercollegiate speech competitions.

  At the age of twenty-eight, I was already an American citizen with no illusions about justice, equality and fair play. But along the way, I fell deeply in love with photography and community media work, and also with the development of cable television cultural awareness programming. I enjoyed the excitement of cable TV programming production, but I did not want to get caught there because it’s an area with financial downsides. The freedom and flexibility that comes with the classroom had perhaps spoiled me, so that’s where I stayed for a few decades.

  But I still sought adventure, and that eventually led me to look to China as perhaps being a place where I could experience both worlds, the worlds of Teaching and Learning. I also hoped that it could be a place where I could have a fresh start, a blank slate where social stereotypes were not so restrictive.

  The tragedies of brutality in North America, particularly Whites over Native American Indians as well as Black citizens, are well known. It mattered not whether you were born in the country long before the arrival of Europeans, had served your country in the military, were educated or were a Christian. If your skin was darker than pale, your fate was to live your life walking on egg-shells. You could be simply killed because of who you are. Your skin color—red, yellow, or black—meant that you had no value. I discovered that this mindset also existed in China, albeit in a somewhat different form.

  By writing about racial experiences from the perspective of my life in both the United States and China, I am ultimately attempting to portray the pervasive nature of racism and the emotional distress that it causes. There are many ways to critically contrast the American and Chinese social, educational, and economical landscapes. The lessons I have learned involve many cross-cultural interactions, issues of acceptance and misunderstanding. But arrogance cuts both ways, and there is no escaping the fact that in one way or another, all of us are racists whether we recognize the fact or not.

  3

  Jesus is Coming

  “Honey... Dear... wake up... the Lord loves you.”

  As I awoke, I recognized my mother’s voice whispering urgently.

  “Huhh? I w-w-wanna sleep.” I was nine or ten years old. My older brother was fast asleep in the top bunk across from me. On the bunk below me were my two younger brothers.

  “Honey, Jesus is coming.... but the devil is after you...”

  “Huhhh? I wanna...”

  Then my father’s voice took charge, impatient, and louder.

  “Get up! It’s time to pray! Jesus is coming soon. We have got to be ready. It’s prayer time. We are doing this for your own good.”

  My mother’s voice then chimed in again, soothing and softer. I was still groggy and disoriented, but sensed the urgency in their tone.

  “Dear, you’ve got to pray now, it’s your only hope. We’re doing this because we love you. Get up like your father says. Jesus is coming soon!”

  Now I was sitting up, rubbing my eyes and staring at my parents blankly like a dazed imbecile. My father cut my sleep-drugged vacillation short.

  “Wake up! You hear me? It’s time to pray! Get up and come down from this bed and get on your knees. The coming of the Lord is soon. You have got to fight because the devil is after you. Don’t make me say this again, get up! ”

  I swung over to the edge of the bed, dangled my legs and then dropped to the floor about a f
oot and a half below. To just drop risked stepping on the head or limbs of one of two brothers sharing the bottom bunk. Hurting a sibling was definitely cause for a strapping. There were no excuses in this family.

  Everyone else was asleep. As soon as I was kneeling on my knees chanting “Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus... Thank you Jesus... Thank you Jesus...” my parents were gone, their footsteps slowly fading off down the hall back to their bedroom. They were satisfied they had done their parental duty.

  These arousals routinely happened around 2am or 3am, in the dead of night. I kept up the required litany for several minutes before being drawn back into a deep sleep, still on my knees. At some point much later, I felt my body being assisted back onto the top bunk of my bed. I kept my eyes closed.

  Frequently these tactics would almost scare the piss out of me before I could reach the safety of the toilet, and I was left with a bed-wetting problem that lasted many years. I could sometimes barely keep my eyes open in the classroom because of having been woken in the middle of the night. Those were probably the days when I would be looking for a fight.

  My parents were truly committed born-again Christians. Parental skills were proudly Bible based: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Thrashings were a constant. Behind each blow would usually be the refrain, “We are beating you because we love you! You will thank us later. We love you! We love you!” A gloomy shadow of fear pervaded the space inside the walls of our home. I often had a dull ache in the pit of my stomach and incessant headaches, always wondering: Is now the time for the daily whipping?

  As fully committed Pentecostal Christians, we were to live in fear because this was how the Bible instructed fundamentalist Christians to worship. Our parents relished their reputations as Holy Rollers. If an outsider had charged them with mentally terrorizing their children, my parents would have been offended. They viewed themselves as followers of God’s word, the True Believers.

  I was born in the year 1947 in Los Angeles, California, in a house at the intersection of Vernon and Hooper Avenue with the help of a mid-wife. From the age of five years old until reaching the sixth grade at eleven years of age, every year I sang with my classmates, “I love you California, you’re the greatest state of all!” And I believed this because it seemed that everyone from everywhere wanted to live in our great golden state. Mexicans from south of the border came, and they were called “Wet-backs,” “Braceros,” and much later “Chicanos.” There were a few Native American Indians here, but we had been told they lived mostly on Indian Reservations because they were still viewed as dangerous. I wondered about this, because my mother’s mother, my dear grandmother, was full-blooded Cherokee Indian. She owned a large five-bedroom house on 31st Street one lot away from Main Street. Grandmother was a petite, yet warm, quiet, smiling lady. There was no way she could be considered dangerous. But the rumors about Native American Indians remained. I heard it repeatedly said: “The only good Indian, is a dead Indian.”

  Immigrants came to California from everywhere. Proof of this were the Chinese garden crews that rolled through neighborhoods on weekends. But soon the Chinese immigrants were owning laundries and dry-cleaning businesses and restaurants, and Latinos took control of the gardening business. There was also a great influx of people from India and Pakistan. Surely ours was the greatest state. White people originally from the southern states had also established themselves in the best districts, and the police departments seemed to be mostly comprised of this type of person. The “Officer Friendlies” whom our elementary teachers tried convincing us were our pals when they visited, seemed to me like poisonous imposters. I had seen my own father regularly humiliated by this type of uniformed men. But still, our state must be great. Sometimes a child can be fooled about many things. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Officer Friendly, and the fact that everyone in the United States is truly united. America is the greatest country in the world and anyone thinking differently is automatically the enemy.

  4

  Excess Baggage

  It came as a big surprise to receive an email inviting me to go to a city in the south of China with a contract to teach English classes. I had never heard of Changsha before and had no idea where it was. Would I be willing to sign a minimum two-year contract to work there?

  This question put me on the spot because it would mean throwing myself into the feisty cultural fires. But I was excited about the prospect of a new and strange land and I answered the letter with a categorical “Yes!”

  The Chicago O’Hare airport check-in counter was packed with impatient globe-hoppers. I slowly approached the front of the queue looking like a modern-day nomad. Most of the travelers around me had designer, streamlined aluminum luggage and looked to be embarking on business trips and holidays. Not me. This would be my last time in the United States for a long while and I was loaded down with all of my valued possessions. I had my guitar, and a two-wheeled metal camera case with heavy Canon 10D-35 mm camera with a full lens assortment, a small Sony digital camera and a pocket digital Canon are my constant travel companions. Plus two large suitcases full of clothes and books. I merely blinked and offered my credit card when told the overweight charge. The extra cost was nearly enough for another ticket, but there was no turning back. The only things left behind were my tennis racquets and golf clubs, which I intended to replace once I got settled.

  I told myself I was making a fresh start. Leaving behind the constant strain of being Black in a White-dominant society. Would things change in China, where the dominant color was Yellow?

  I was already aware that many Chinese refer to Black people as hei gui, which means “black devil”. This did not bother me. I have been called worse.

  I arrived at Beijing International airport and the contact who was scheduled to meet me to ensure that I made a second flight to southern China the following day did not appear. Instead, he had a train ticket delivered to my hotel. I was instructed to proceed the next day on a thirteen-hour train ride, and so off I went.

  It was truly a surreal trip south. I rode in a smelly, cramped train compartment shared by six strange-talking bunk-mates. People spat on the floor wherever and yelled into their mobile phones for extended periods, not caring about conversational privacy or disturbing those around them. People stared at me for long intervals, their mouths gaped wide open as if I was from outer space. Welcome to the real China.

  It was a long, lonely train ride heading south from Beijing. I was exhausted from jet-leg, and suffering from culture shock. But I was born optimistic, and I still hoped that better things and days lay ahead.

  “Ah! There you are! You made it! Let’s get you something to eat, I’m not hungry but I know you must be starved! Yes? How about KFC?” This was my jovial, elfish contact from the vocational media training school, the guy who had failed to meet me for the promised flight from Beijing. His name was Wang Tang, a boyish-looking roly-poly sort, with an extra-large head and plump cheeks on a wide face. His eyes had a mischievous twinkle, and he was chewing a wad of chewing gum which occasionally snapped loudly as a bubble exploded.

  “How about not KFC?” I replied. “What do you normally eat at this time of day?”

  “Well, we can stop at that KFC over there, since it’s close, okay? My treat, the school is paying for it all anyway.”

  “Whatever you say, I just really need to get some sleep ASAP.”

  “What’s that mean, ASAP?” He giggled. “Some code, yes?”

  “As Soon As Possible. A.S.A.P.”

  “Ohhh, I get it. Uh, by the way, sorry I could not meet you in Beijing as was promised in our email. You know how it is… things come up. And I really thought you would enjoy seeing the countryside all the way down here. You really have to see what China looks like, you know. I thought it was a good idea. Yes? Did you like it?”

  Tang chuckled a lot. I had the impression that he probably smiled in his sleep. He always seemed t
o be in a perpetual rush but never appeared to accomplish anything. Initially, we got along great, since I was totally dependent on him for information and survival tips. His job was to serve as my official translator and guide, director of my activities. He was one of only two English-speaking faculty members and had status as a result of spending one year in Thailand.

  I discovered early on that if he gave a “yes” answer to my inquiries, the opposite was more likely the reality. To say “I’m sorry, I do not have an answer right now…” was not in his playbook. Also, it quickly became clear to me that I, the new foreigner, was getting privileges that eluded the rest of the native faculty. Resentment set in.

  First, the bedroom furniture in the small dormitory apartment assigned to me was built for shorter human frames, and as local stores did not carry king or queen-sized beds, the college president authorized a custom bed to be made for me. Second, a car and driver were placed at my disposal allowing me to come and go from campus in the evenings. Third, I was paraded and showcased at important events as a celebrity, even to the point of making three television appearances. Fourth, and perhaps most critically, my paltry salary of 6,500 RMB was double, even triple, the amount many faculty were receiving. I was eventually granted a small raise with a second-year contract extension. Even so, I was well aware that my salary was a pittance compared to what foreign teachers were earning in other parts of China.

  The administrators held special dinner celebrations for my birthday, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas. This did not sit well with the general faculty. On the campus bus, Tang could sometimes be heard talking loudly about foreigners, or entertaining his listeners with parodies from the previous night’s television shows. Sometimes, a teacher nearby would look back at me and smile or translate some of what was being said. One day I was informed that the subject of discussion had been my new contract. Tang had been telling the teachers on the bus about the conditions, incentives and monetary amounts of my employment.