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Racism hits close to home in China as Beijing store reportedly “bans” Chinese customers

Audrey Akcasu Dec 1, 2014
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In the wake of the protests in the US over the controversial Ferguson decision and subsequently President Obama’s unfortunate choice of words galvanizing anti-immigration sentiments in Japan, the Chinese are facing a racism scandal of their own, but this time by their own people.

A Beijing store recently came under fire when they hung a sign outside of their shop proclaiming: “Chinese not admitted. Staff excluded.” Just so we’re clear, this is in China.

▼ The store in question is located on the same shopping street as this fancy mall.

Hanging a sign like this in China is not unlike hanging a sign in Tokyo banning Japanese people or a sign in London banning all Brits. Understandably, people are a little worked up about it.

A salesperson from the discriminatory wholesale store on Yabao Road, told the Beijing Youth Daily that, “We didn’t want to hang up the sign in the first place and lead people to think we Chinese look down upon ourselves. But some Chinese customers are too annoying.”

The salesperson goes on to explain that most of their customers are foreigners, some of whom have run into trouble with the local “customers” in store, such as the Chinese man who was caught on camera stealing the wallet of a foreign shopper. The incident recently cost the store US$5,000 in settlement for the crime, after they were accused of being in cahoots with the thief.

Other examples given of “annoying” Chinese include women trying on lots of clothes but not buying anything and competitors coming into the store to copy their designs. Those would indeed be annoying things to deal with, but are they really grounds for an outright ban of all Chinese?

The local populace is not buying these explanations and have been lighting up the Internet with angry comments, some requesting the store “Get out of China, please.” Others are fueling up an old fire dating back to the turn of the 20th century when Huangpu Park in Shanghai was only open to foreigners and is rumored to have had a sign reading, “No dogs or Chinese allowed.” The sign has never been proven to exist, but it’s more about the principal of the thing: Chinese being humiliated by Westerners.

▼ In his movie “Fist of Fury,” Bruce Lee highlights the discrimination and recreates the controversial sign.

Apparently though, neither discriminatory signs nor racial discrimination in general are illegal on the mainland, so the store is free to do as they please. We can’t say for sure if the lack of Chinese people in the store will lead to an increased flow of foreign customers or if the foreign consumers will also catch onto the protests over the discriminatory sign and voluntarily stop shopping there. Let’s hope for the latter.

Source: South China Morning Post
Featured Image: Scene from “Fist of Fury” via YouTube (Kanał użytkownika M3n747)
Insert images: Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons