Mixed Travels in China - A Reflection by Lucie Hafteck

It’s really strange to look a certain way and not be able to connect your appearance with your race and identity. Some may say that you can’t “look a race”, but it’s quite apparent when you’re the only white-looking person in the middle of a subway train in Hong Kong. 

My appearance gives me lots of privilege, actually. Yes, I get a lot of stares on public transportation when I visit my mother’s country and her side of the family, but mere staring does not compare to what some people experience-getting harassed or hated or even killed for the way they look. Despite this very slight inconvenience, many people in China are amazed at white people and consider them beautiful. Eurocentric features are so popular in Asia that double-eyelid tape and all kinds of facial plastic surgery are very common. 

Whenever my family travels in China, my dad often gets asked to pose and take pictures with some random national tourists. It's as if he is some kind of white semi-god walking amongst the Chinese people, which has always perplexed me. I thought that there would be a common sentiment ingrained in the Chinese against white people; after all, the British did colonize Hong Kong and take advantage of China during the opium crisis and white people have been treating them pretty badly in history. 

The point is, white privilege exists in China. I constantly get complimented for looking “gaam leung lei”(very pretty girl), whether it be at night markets, by the vendors, or sitting at a round table, by my mother’s friends. They’ll ask my mom, am I “wan hyut yi”(mixed blood child)? And a compliment ensues after my mother says yes. Compliments are great and all, but it also doesn’t feel as if I really am accepted as Chinese when this happens. I have had many existential crises over wondering if I am Chinese enough, but I know that I am although I may look like a foreigner to the rest of them. 

I know that I am when the only language I speak to my mother is Cantonese. I know that I am when I celebrate the Chinese New Year and am handed red envelopes by my family. I know that I am when I have been going to Mandarin class every Saturday morning since I was about five years old. I know that I am when I know how to dance Chinese folk dance and have taken Kung Fu and Wushu classes. I know that I am, and it doesn’t matter how I look on the outside because my culture is within me.