Friday, November 06, 2009

Being stared at by the Chinese

You would think that with the extent of inter racial relationships in Australia, that a bi-racial child would no longer be a novelty.

And this is true, for the most part, especially amongst non-Chinese.

But when we go shopping in Chinese shopping districts, the looks are ever-present.

Every stare usually starts off with the child, then a review is done of both Ms B and myself. I am sure its just a curiosity thing, given the broad variety of features in eurasian children.

Once the stare reaches me, I often get the double-take look.

Given that I have blonde hair and blue eyes, I guess I just stand out a lot more when in between a Chinese woman and a child that could be, or might not be, Chinese.

Having said that, I too am often guilty of the same thing. For some hard to explain reason, every time I come across a eurasian child I will mentally assess his features against his parents. I don't understand why or for what reason, but I often catch myself doing it too.

2 comments:

Faye said...

I think its just a human trait of assessing the child.

Most of the time our brain registers the race almost instantly when we see a person of any race - after all we've been fed so much PC tripe about races and its obvious differences its been imbued into us.

Its not a quick glance and a mental acknowledgement of their race its an actual gawking.

So when a kid comes looking mixed I suppose most do a double take to reassess what registers as obviously a mixed race child.

Not to mention the fact that most Chinese are somewhat conservative to a certain degree do most are mentally assessing the 'offensiveness' of the two of you walking together.

But this is common.

I too get stares when I'm with my partner - he's not white, he's in fact much darker than I am and in the Chinese people's books - It is an absolute TRAVESTY.

Happens when we walk past people of his race too. They just gawk. Annoying but you get used to it.

George said...

I live in South Florida. I'd have to juggle knives while naked on a unicycle to be stared at.
My Chinese wife and I recently went to China. I stick out like a sore thumb over there (no, I'm not blond) but everybody stared, just not in a bad way. I think most were curious. If anything, I saw many nods of approval. People were very nice.

What do you like/dislike most about Chinese women?