My visit to the former concentration camp of Dachau in Germany in 1982 or 1983 exemplified the disconnect between younger generations and history. I could not believe my eyes and ears as blonde German youths, male and female, wearing Storm Trooper gear, boldly rampaged through the eerie confines of this death camp shouting “Heil Hitler!”
My wife at that time was German and later as we were walking with her teenage daughter in a plaza I was accosted by a diminutive local punk. My wife and her daughter ran but I kept my leisurely pace even as he pushed me twice from behind, shouting at me as a group of his bigger friends watched. I ignored him, and thankfully his words were unintelligible to me. I sped up a bit, knowing that any moment I might have to retaliate. He continued to follow and shout at me, and a chill came over my body as I expected him to punch or kick me, because this meant that I would need to fight back. I was not going to run. In the distance ahead were the retreating figures of my wife and daughter. But the kick never came as the punk finally gave up trying to get me to react. Maybe we were now too far from his support group. It took every ounce of my energy for self-control to not take the bait to fight. Recalling how in school, my teachers sometimes wrote on my semester report card: “Does not have self-control,” now made me feel proud. What did they know?
The racist ideology of Nazism has not died out, and in the United States, the legacy of racial genocide continues in various forms, under many guises. But the most important reality is the unfortunate truth to the saying, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” Both Chinese and Americans who do not care about their histories may be in for greater future shocks. There can be a glimmer of hope in China only if young parents can lead their offspring in the embrace of universal brotherhood of all ethnic groups and cultures.
Basketball superstar Yao Ming has been quoted as saying that “Racism is not a problem, as far as I know, in China. We are taught in school that a long time ago there was racism, but it ended with the Communist liberation in 1949. Minorities are given special privileges, like money from the government, and they are allowed to have more than one child…”
Various groups and individuals may contest that.
In China today, the fact that different people have conflicting experiences is impossible to refute. One thing for sure is that Yao Ming lives in quite a different world as a Han Chinese, as a child of wealthy parents, and as a national superstar athlete. His perceptions are undoubtedly influenced at least in part by these elements.
Racism is a kind of blindness. Some people see the skin color and fail to see the human being inside. To them, you are your color. This process of making assumptions and drawing instinctive conclusions based on certain features, origins, or faith is not just a part of racism, it is part of life. But it is still enrages me that people peg me as something based upon nothing more than the fact that I look different.
Ironically, after only a few years in China, it seems a bit funny that I have been a guest in more private homes here than in fifty-five plus years in the United States. Generally speaking, Chinese people seem more hospitable, more open and welcoming once they get to know you. Who knows, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I am not the social guy I like to think I am. But during my life in North America, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been welcomed into the homes of White families. In China, and in other countries, on the other hand, I have been extended this basic courtesy more times than I can count.
Here are a few examples of the degree of support and inclusion I have felt, along with some instances of negativity.
In Beijing, my friend, Cy Huang, owner of the M&G printing and office supply store about a mile from where I live, is of medium size with smiling eyes. Aged about forty-two, he is an energetic businessman and his office supply store is regularly filled with students from the Vocational Business College nearby. His wife, who I call “Meimei” (sister), is a pleasant soft-spoken lady wearing eyeglasses, her cheery disposition and competence keep things running smoothly when Huang plays internet fix-it man and problem-solver in the neighborhood. They have a teenage son attending a boarding middle school outside Beijing. The father tries to encourage his son to speak more English when he is home on some weekends. I have known this family for years. I have sat hours in the store, waiting out waves of students in need, theme papers to be printed, online services required, phone card fees to be paid, educational supplies to be bought. Often, I am pushed by the customer rush onto the sole seat against the back sloping wall close to Huang’s inner sanctum. This is where he watches movies and sports during customer traffic lulls. Cash and other pricey store valuables are kept in this area, but they trust me, and I enjoy being with them and chatting with them, sometimes sharing photographs from my latest travels.
Together we watch Chinese soaps, football or replays of NBA games. Recently, we have been able to use a translation App on our mobile phones to help our conversations. Their son, whom I call little brother Huang, is a bit reticent, which is perhaps one reason his parents invited me to stay with them in their new home during a Spring Festival break. That way, the son and I could be able to talk more.
We drove many hours southwest to a village where Huang’s mother lived and where he had spent his childhood. We stopped on the way at a place where Chairman Mao developed strategies for the revolutionary campaign waged against the Nationalists. I had a picture-taking field-day, and my education about Chinese history progressed by leaps and bounds. We drove on, passing through smog-enveloped industrial towns, huge cooling towers and chemical plants spewing acidic smoke out into the dark brown atmosphere. The closed windows of the new car, with its well-functioning air conditioner, provided only a small margin of safety.
We entered a small village simply described as row upon row of old thatched roofed homes built close together, each with a courtyard, and streets almost too narrow for cars. His mother was a stocky matronly woman whose quiet warmth and smiling face was almost an exact replication of the Chairman Mao visage which hung framed on the ancient near-crumbling brick wall in the one-room hut. Opposite the Mao picture was a picture of a blonde Jesus. Between the two pictures on a side table were candles, fresh joss sticks, and fruit offerings usually representative of Buddhism. We dined here with Huang taking over the food preparations. Both his mother and wife watched him perform his culinary skills. After dinner, we walked along narrow, deeply-rutted paths to visit two other homes where I met Huang’s brothers and other family members. I was amazed that in each of these, raw-looking, basic, hovel-like homes, there were wide-screen television sets and internet hookups.
We then went to another dinner held in a friend’s restaurant. It turned into a long night. Meimei explained that her family lived in a small village far away. I was curious how they met, and was told they had met through the friend. They had been together for twenty-two years.
We then went to a hotel in which I was to stay. We waited at the registration counter for quite a while as things seemed to become complicated. I gave up my passport and I just hoped to see it again. A crowd of Huang’s friends entered the lobby and we sat waiting for my room to be booked. Eventually it became clear that the hotel manager was reluctant to actually give me a room. Heated conversation was heard from behind the closed doors where Huang and two of his buddies jawed it out with the female manager. The door opened and curious faces peered out at me, and then the door shut. After a while the decibel level of voices died down, the door opened and solemn-looking faces appeared one by one. Someone handed me my US passport.
“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to look for another place. Perhaps we will find one that is used by officials and government leaders.”
Huang, looks at me and grins.
“This is China, we cannot change everything. But this hotel is closed to foreigners.”
We leave and eventually I am taken to a hotel with huge marble columns, high ceilings and marbled floors. My room is spa
cious and well-decorated. Booking in here goes like a snap. My entourage of five people depart after taking me to my room and giving it a cursory inspection.
“Breakfast here is free, in the next building, so we will meet you tomorrow morning about 9:30 am, okay? We hope you get a good sleep. Good night!”
The next morning after breakfast, I was collected by Theo, Huang’s older brother, and then we picked up Huang and Meimei, and continued on our way, heading for the city of Shijiazhuang, where Huang had bought a new apartment. It was in a housing estate with underground parking and uniformed security guards, and adjacent to a small shopping mall with a cinema. The two-bedroom flat, located on the eighth floor, was spacious and had a full glassed balcony overlooking an automobile manufacturing plant. The view beyond was of three power station cooling towers, belching steadily and adding to the brownish haze that stretched into the vastness beyond. Our day was one of waiting for the delivery and installation of a 54-inch flat screen television. Their son, Huang junior, was in no mood for talking English and the parents were happily buzzing around enjoying their new sense of ownership. I continued to read The Assassination of Fred Hampton, by American author Jeffrey Haas, a reflection of my many years in Illinois that is still haunting.
The next morning, we went for a walk in a futile search for coffee. Another day, we visited the ancestral burial ground where Huang’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are buried. Huang and his son performed incense burning rituals, and then set off several strings off fireworks that crackle and pop like small gun shots, rending the silence of the eternal sleepers.
Back in Beijing, I returned to my twenty-second floor refuge, high above the city. Once inside, the silent comforting stare of vertical titles on my bookcases, housing my many printed friends, put my soul at ease. A faint smell of gucheng incense, reinforced that indeed I was in the right place. This is my temple.
Familiar sounds came from the floor above, the rapid chop-chop of a steel blade attacking a wooden cutting board, slicing and dicing, intermittent sounds of a hammer pounding, a drill whining, as invisible hands continue redecorating and refurbishing for future rentals. It’s all good.
Looking out the north-facing windows, past the canal below, the skyline was clear and visible. This was a special day, the gray haze was gone. Even the Fragrant Hills traced a low, jagged line against the far horizon.
There are no blatant racial dividing lines here. This is the place I call my “Home”, and I feel like I can fly.
31
Seminary Days
The Christian Theological Seminary was located at 1000 West 42nd Street in Indianapolis, within walking distance of Butler University and the Indianapolis Museum of Art of Ministry program. The seminary takes students from a variety of Christian traditions, including Pentecostals, Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, and Orthodox, but at the time of my attendance there was as yet no Black student caucus, or Hispanic/Latino association. There was a Social Justice Group which was the vehicle for my involvement in the Prison Dialogue Program. I also participated in an internship at a local United Methodist church, while also servicing a Pentecostal church. I also did recreational sports coaching through the seminary, including working with Appalachian White kids living in the blue-collar neighborhood across from the Eli Lily Pharmaceuticals plant. The stench and toxic acidic air flushing daily through the neighborhood became cause for us to organize a protest, which led eventually to us being invited by company executives to discuss compromise solutions and health measures.
The parents and the kids in the area accepted my presence and we had fun teaching basketball fundamentals, and coaching the softball team in the city summer league. The kids trusted me, and on a few occasions attended the Pentecostal church with me. But they were honest in expressing their view that the services seemed comical, strange and unbelievable. They had been raised Catholic so I didn’t bother to press them about faith practices.
I liked the idea that the school believed that ministry should be socially active, but embarrassed by the fact that one of its alums was Jim Jones, the White American founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, best known for the mass murder-suicide in November 1978. Nine hundred and eighteen died in Jonestown, Guyana, including nearly three-hundred children, almost all of them by cyanide poisoning. Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head, presumably self-inflicted. Most of his cult followers were Black Americans.
One day in Indianapolis, my attention was caught by a news story in which the local police had been seen barging into the home of a Black man and beating him. His family was forced to watch his humiliation as other officers held them back with guns drawn. Even the Blacks at the Pentecostal church where I work talked angrily about this event. “We just gotta do more praying!” they repeated with sighs of exasperation.
Jessie Jackson, a student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, began to appear frequently in the news as he organized protests against police brutality. I felt I had to do something as a seminarian in Indianapolis, but what could I do? The church that I had been raised in forbade any political or social action. The notion of being in the world but not active in social causes was a cause of great conflict within myself. The entire matter of race and the church was a deeply troubling matter. The issues of segregation and separation between Black and White Pentecostal Christians was eating away at me. Church politics within the fundamentalist groups boggled my mind. I was tired of the prospect of going through life with my hands tied behind my back by religion decrees.
This brutal invasion of a Black citizen’s home was nothing new. Indiana was known to be the state where the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was headquartered. Basic elements behind the lynching of Emmet Tillman, a 14-year-old Black youngster from the north, who had innocently flirted with a White woman during his summer visit to the south, were clearly motivated by the Klan’s ideology. Here I was in the home state of the Klan, taking religious training.
During this period, my only direct interaction with local law enforcement came when I became a victim of what was known as the “Pigeon Drop” scam in which the perpetrators used my Christian mantle against me.
A young Black man approached me near a busy street corner speaking broken English and asking for help to find an address written on a scrap of paper. He was clearly on the verge of tears and I stopped to talk to him. I was the “Good Samaritan.” A few seconds into this interaction, a middle-aged Black couple walking arm-in-arm approached from another direction. As they passed, the tearful African pivoted away from me towards them, and repeated that he was lost and new to this country and city. His brother recently died in a factory accident, and he had come to pick up the insurance claim of several thousand dollars.
The couple looked at me with raised eyebrows saying “Man, do you know him? Why don’t you help this brother?”
“I don’t know him...” I said, and then we all recoiled in alarm as he pulled out a thick wad of what appeared to be hundred dollar bills, apparently supporting his story. On the busy street, people were milling and rushing around us.
“Man, you better put that money away!” I told him, and the couple supported me.
Turning to me, the woman said, “Why don’t you help your friend? He’s in trouble and it won’t be long before somebody hits him on the head and takes that money!”
l was thinking, while he was not my friend, why should I leave him? As I weighed a decision, my bus arrived. The lady’s husband pulled at her telling her they had to get on shopping for shoes for their child.
My bus pulled away.
“Okay,” the woman said. “We are willing to sacrifice our time to help this guy if you are, but we must hurry because our baby is at home. Let’s go to a restaurant to sit down and figure out what to do.”
That sounded reasonable to me, and I certainly did not feel right leaving this poor desperate foreigner alone.
&nb
sp; We all sat down at a table in a Denny’s fast food restaurant without ordering. The place was almost empty. The lady sat beside me, the man directly across from me, the African at his side. The African took out his money, placed the thick stack on the table as if to count it. The lady’s husband was older than the rest of us and in charge, and he placed the pile of money in a white handkerchief, wrapping it and tying it with a knot.
“Listen brother, if you are so desperate, I will go with you to find the address,” he said. “You can’t go showing money in public, and you know we can’t trust the police.” He looked over at me. “You don’t know us, but your money is safe with him,” he told the foreigner. “He has an honest face.”
I felt good at this compliment. Then he asked me, “Are you Christian? Student? Where do you go to school?”
Being proud, I told them I attended the local seminary at CTS, and was a graduate from Wesleyan University. The couple beamed with new lights in their eyes, and the African foreigner visibly relaxed.
“Yes, I think we can trust you to hold the money while I help him find that address,” the man said. “Do you trust him?” he asked the African, who nodded his assent.
“Only one thing,” said the man in charge, if you hold his money you must keep it with your own. It will be safer that way. Do you even have any money?”
In hindsight they must have already known who I was and also that I had just come from the bank with a large amount of cash.
“Well, in order for us to trust you with his money, put your money in this white handkerchief. I will hand it you under the table.”
“Okay,” I said.
“How much are you putting in?”
“Two hundred,” I replied.
“Man come on... is that all you got?”
The price of the used car I was on verge of purchasing the next evening, $1,200, was in my bag. I was reluctant to reveal that I had more.
Black in China Page 17