Mind Your Steps
27
Aril 2007
During
the time when Shanghai was divided into eight
so-called concession zones by eight foreign
powers including France, Germany and Japan,
in British area there was a sign in front of
a park on the Bund which read, “No Chinese
and dogs allowed.” Mind, it was on Chinese
soil and it mentioned Chinese in the same
breath as dogs.
Of
course, it was decades, decades ago, by then
some British people and some French people
and some German people and some other people
were yet to be touched and moved by their own
heroic acts of upholding the lofty values
such as democracy, freedom and human rights,
and feel privileged to look down from their
perceived moral high ground on the world with
dignified pity and disapproval.
And
China, despite being plagued by many faults
as any other nations are, has long prohibited
the racial and ethnic-based discrimination
historically practiced by the Mongol’s Yuan
Dynasty, by the Manchurian’s Qing Dynasty,
and by the foreign powers from Briton,
France, Germany and Japan.
Or
has it?
Local
media in China reported that the act of
discrimination against Chinese has reoccurred
in some patches of Chinese soil, for
instance, in some specialised shoe shops,
just this time the place is in Beijing and
the perpetrators are Chinese.
It
is said that those shoe shops in the capital’s
eastern Chaoyang district would ban Chinese
from stepping into their premises by using a
sign, a curtain or even guards.
When
the complaint was launched with the local
consumer association, an official in the
organisation is reported as replying, “A
merchant has right to determine whom he wants
to do business with.”
Sure,
the Englishmen who built the park also aimed
to gain profit and therefore were even
greater merchants than those shoe dealers,
they certainly as well had right to determine
to whom they would like to grant aceess
privilege.
And
that is not an isolated incidence.
In
an office building in Shanghai’s Caohejing
Industry Park Chinese are reportedly not
allowed to walk into an elevation when
foreigners are present.
The elevation
service contract states that
Chinese must respect foreigners’
privilege in using the service.
Those
in the West who say China may get into a Yuan
Dynasty's bloody-thirsty
wolf-worship mentality promoted by few
elements in the country, or adopt a Qing
Dynasty's outlook of the world that enslaved
other ethnic groups and rejected other
nations, therefore China's renaissance should
be warned about and prevented from, is
utterly a scaremonger with suspicious
motivations, because the evidences show that
some Chinese are working so hard to make sure
their guests will be the masters of the
locals forever.
