Research Paper On Intercultural Discrimination in China

(Student’s name)
(Professor’s name)
Literature and Language
22 June 2017
Intercultural Discrimination in China
Discrimination is particularly common in China, and as a Chinese who moved to the United States for further studies, I have experienced it firsthand. Uniquely, Chinese do not only face discrimination in China, their home country but also abroad. According to Mendes & Srighanthan (87), intercultural discrimination has largely been characterized by people from various places in the country, and specifically the rural places being discriminated against in cities and towns. Despite being citizens in their home country and having the freedom to live in any part of the country, Chinese living in rural areas face hardships in cities such as Hong Kong where they are viewed as outsiders and commonly referred to as migrants (Mendes & Srighanthan (94).
Over time, Chinese have forced perceptions about the socioeconomic capabilities of people based on their localities. According to Zhang & Yuen (424), cultural, recreational, and religious activities are a rich source of discrimination, for instance in tourism where people from the mainland are highly discriminated in Hong Kong or certain provinces are viewed poorer than others and hence are discriminated against by people from provinces that are deemed economically empowered. Another timely example of the discrimination in China was given by Lee (para 8) who discussed how Uyghurs (Muslim Community in China) has been discriminated against for years and is being viewed as a source of extremism in modern China. In 2015, the Human Rights Watch report about China read, “Since mid-2014, authorities have detained, arrested, or killed increasing numbers of Uighurs alleged by police to have been involved in illegal or terrorist activities” (Human Rights Watch, para 12). Evidently, discrimination based on religion is on the rise in China.
Though discrimination is widely evidently and has been discussed in a majority of literature, some organizations believe that social reforms are taking shape in China and the discrimination narrative is changing. For instance, in 2014, InterNations, an NGO working in China, reported that there have been successful efforts in fighting ethnic discrimination, religious discrimination, and racism (InterNations, para 3). The increasing use of the internet, particularly among young people, has enabled Chinese coming from different parts of the country relate harmoniously and find commonality thereby helping fight intercultural discrimination.
Before I traveled to the United States, I fell victim of intercultural discrimination in a country I call home. When I completed high school, my mother knew I had become of age, and I would within no time have a girlfriend. She always insisted that I consider ladies from my hometown. She was against cross-cultural marriage because she understood the existence of intercultural discrimination in China and knew that such a marriage would not work. On my part I was against her thoughts, and I went forward to approach a girl from Gansu Province, one of the economically underdeveloped provinces in China. When I introduced her to my family members, they rejected her for they believed that people from the province are not critical thinkers hence their poverty. The pressure from my family eventually led me to break with her.
Later, I approached a girl who was born and raised in Shanghai, but it turned out that this time round, I was rejected by her family members. Shanghai is a big and developed town, and its residents are economically empowered. Her family rejected me because I had not come from their cultural group and I had not been born and raised in a big city. My situation is mirrored in the by InterNation’s report which states that though China has 56 different ethnic groups, the Han Chinese have remained the most dominant leading to other communities facing discrimination (InterNations, para 4-5). The report points out that regional discrimination based on provincial zones is highly prevalent. Therefore, my case is just one among thousands others that are happening in China today.
Even if there are now Chinese who get married to someone from the western culture, it brings both joy and sorrow because there are still misunderstandings aside from the understandings they arrive at. According to Bo, they can have conflicts and get integrated with one another, and due to the continuous development and China’s improving international reputation, a lot has changed (2015). Whenever ceremonies like this happen, everything is kept private and it connects a lot of factors that show the developments in their economy, culture, and political background. Furthermore, they keep it private because they are aware that it is still not yet widely accepted in China despite the cultural developments in improvement. I have seen other couples who go through a very tough time making their family accept that they are not going to marry someone from China. I think that there is still a form of discrimination because they have to keep the ceremony in private because they are afraid of what other Chinese people might say.
According to InterNations, another race they discriminate against are the Japanese and this is evident because of how they use slurs like “little Japanese” and “Japanese devils” (2017). These two countries have caused riot against each other in the past, especially when Japan invaded China and help atrocities against the citizens of China in World War II. Based on a poll done by BBV W...