articles
China Elevator Stories
What Racism Is and What It Isn’t
Sometimes, people who aren’t racist are mistakenly perceived as racist.
03/10/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
My ex-husband didn’t allow me to pick up my children from school or spend the weekends with them, except on Sundays. Therefore, I went traveling. I mean, what else is there to do when you’re living in a city you would never choose, but are merely staying so your children can have their mother around? Also, what is the meaning of life if it is a life not lived? I visited a few cities in Northeast China, including Shenyang, Changchun (where I work), Dandong, and Harbin. I made sure to travel before it became too cold in Northeast China and before the start of the holidays (major holidays are always a bad time to travel, since masses of people travel within China). We’re currently having a week off for the Chinese National Holidays, which fall in the first week of October.
I have observed that, while there used to be plenty of teachers from the US working at my university in the past, this time around there are none. I’m not sure why—perhaps Chinese-American relations have deteriorated to the point where Americans are not advised to teach in China. I had been looking forward to the possibility of my children being able to make friends with other children in our compound, since they haven’t been able to make friends in Siping. That’s how extreme the racism here is: mixed children aren’t encouraged to make friends with others because they aren’t fully Chinese in the eyes of their parents or grandparents (children themselves usually don’t care, in my experience). Perhaps my ex-husband has also been isolating them from friends, as he did in the past. My older son used to be friends with an American boy who lived in our compound (where all foreign teachers of my university live), who was his age and also started kindergarten and attended his class. We used to visit them at home on Sundays in the past, where my older and younger sons played with their three kids, who were all around their ages. Soon after they became friends, my former mother-in-law started to manipulate their relationship, and my ex-husband began speaking negatively about the boy, claiming he was hitting other students and had poor manners. I never saw him behave in such a way, and he was always lovely when my son met up with him.
I also invited a Chinese-American boy to my place, whose parents I had become friends with. His father was Black American, and his mother was Chinese, but she had been living in Texas for many decades. Their son had a hard time making friends as well, and we met up a few times so he and my kids could play together. My ex-husband and his mother were always quick to manipulate these friendships, trying to end connections that had already been formed. Chinese people here often keep their distance from foreigners, viewing us as so different that communication seems impossible. They believe we don’t share Chinese values, such as filial piety, or that our parents don’t love us in the same way Chinese parents do—who, for example, don’t throw their children out at 18—or they cite other reasons to justify not attempting friendships with foreigners. I personally believe most people are happy to leave home at 18 and begin independent lives while still visiting their parents on weekends if they don’t live far away, often maintaining loving relationships with them. But in Chinese discourse, European parents are portrayed as egotistic, cruel, and unloving.
Since people tend to keep their distance, I mostly keep to myself. I also chat with any stranger willing to share their point of view with me. But talking to cab drivers here… well, it has been a bit strange. Many don’t understand when I tell them that I don’t like Siping much because people tend to hold negative views of foreigners (I only share this when asked how I like Siping, which happens often).
Another reason I don’t like this city is that people can be quite rude, and many lack the manners I have found in certain other areas of China. Many tend to shove, push, raise their voices, scream, and shout instead of speaking in a normal and respectful tone. Most aren’t interested in building long-term friendships—or at least, those I have met aren’t. Many seem content living a meaningless life, simply going somewhere to eat Chinese barbecue without discussing anything of substance, and then discarding people soon after meeting whenever convenient. This is common here, as friendship is understood differently. But I have also found it to be extremely common in Europe these days.
Many women I have met are only interested in appearance, shopping for the newest fashion on Taobao, and in makeup, making meaningful conversation impossible, since I don’t perceive this to be purposeful conversation, but rather a waste of time. Not that I am completely against people who want to look nice, but it is not a topic I think anyone should make the meaning of their life. If all a person ever does is care about looks, fashion, and comparing themselves to others, well, that’s a life wasted, and we simply don’t share anything in common when people are like this—which is, indeed, rather common here.
I have also come across German men who are like this, so this is not particular to Chinese women. Likewise, I don’t enjoy talking with these men, as it bores me to death to spend my life discussing meaningless things.
I enjoy chatting with cab drivers in China who have an open mind and are friendly toward foreigners, but those with preconceived notions—which are common in Siping and sometimes other cities in the Northeast—sometimes make me glad they did not become violent when I spoke my mind. Some have raised their voices, but so far, none has hit me, though sometimes it was close when I tried to buckle up, which the driver saw as an insult to his driving skills. He wasn’t a great driver, just reckless, and usually with such drivers, it’s better not to mention it. One female cab driver even threw me out shortly after letting me in. I think she had already decided not to take a foreigner anywhere, due to whatever preconceived notion she held.
My children are also learning to hold negative views of foreigners from their dad, who constantly portrays the Chinese as morally, culturally, physically, and otherwise superior—including claiming they “don’t smell” like foreigners. Well, some Westerners sweat and smell a little, but I have encountered plenty of Chinese whose hygiene wasn’t perfect either—not that I mind; I’m just noting an observation. People here eat a lot of garlic—supposedly to keep energy vampires away (just kidding)—and then take the bus, forcing you to smell their garlic breath all the way to work. Others don’t shower regularly, and some don’t wash their clothes frequently. This is not meant as a judgment, since some may simply lack the money to do so, and I think it’s petty to see them as inferior for that.
In my ex-husband’s view, the Chinese have extraordinarily superior brains, and everything foreigners have invented is inferior to what the Chinese have created. Their filial piety is also portrayed as far superior to the “lack of love” in European families, which is how Chinese narratives often depict European households.
I have seen so many narcissistic families here, where grandmothers smother and engulf their family members, never allowing them to make decisions for themselves—well, if that’s what you call love… so be it. But being a super-controller is not the same as loving your child or grandchild. Letting them be the individuum they are, accepting them as they are, and respecting their boundaries is true love. Love means acceptance, not forcing children to always be there for you in old age or never leaving your city—that’s egotism, not love. Love means seeing them as human beings with the right to live lives that make them happy, not as prisoners of a Machiavellian grandmother who makes everyone bend to her will.
If you’re wondering, I have found Machiavellian grandmothers to be extremely common here. Call me racist—I am simply stating my observations, and people can interpret them as they wish. I have been called racist in the past for making critical observations or for countering flawed arguments logically, stating the truth plainly. I am not what would be considered colorblind (thinking everything in another culture is positive), and I speak my mind, which may lead some to label me racist.
Chinese grandmothers being Machiavellian—I don’t know why this might be the case, but it is very common in my experience, particularly in cases where a grandmother steals children from one parent or ruins a marriage. Maybe these were the women able to survive hard times, since they weren’t considerate of other people and were selfish enough to only consider their own survival. Kinder souls may not have been able to survive just as well.
Narcissists also tend to call others exactly what they are themselves—if they are racist, they will most likely label you racist if you critically state your opinions, and you may simply not be wearing rose-colored glasses as others may do. Now, my ex-husband used to be very critical towards other Chinese (when they misbehaved), which made it really enjoyable to be around him, since he didn’t hold back and also criticized all and sundry online (not in an unfair, but truth-telling kind of way). I certainly asked him not to comment critically online after our children were born, since he also criticized the government, to keep our children safe, but he didn’t care for many years—until, all of a sudden, he became so nationalist and patriotic (the exact opposite of what he had been in the past) that I couldn’t stand hearing him speak anymore. Everything coming out of his mouth was how the Chinese were so superior to other nations, and how the Austrians and other Western nations were extremely inferior, constantly trying to undermine other nations. The projections were a bit extreme; he was constantly portraying me as being extremely evil towards the Chinese when I simply mentioned people were treating me differently from Chinese people. I enjoy being around people who can talk critically about different nations, without being racist.
So… yes, my ex-husband definitely suffers from a superiority complex, much like many other Chinese people I have met. They often perceive other cultures as inherently inferior to Chinese culture, which can sometimes come across as racist (even when it’s not based in reality). It’s about seeing themselves as “better than” rather than “as good as.” Sometimes, of course, they may not actually be as skilled as others, depending on the circumstances, and in those cases, we should call them “not as good as.”
For example, his English isn’t great, but he acts as if it’s superior to mine and constantly turns it into a competition, claiming that his English is excellent while mine is terrible. I don’t brag about my English—I’m aware I still make mistakes—and I don’t consider myself particularly exceptional at it. I passed the Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English when I was 18, but the reason I enjoyed learning English was simply that it gave me better access to literature, news, and other articles online, allowing me to form a broader view of what’s happening in the world and what people across the globe think (those who share their thoughts online in English). English is simply a language I use often in writing and have always enjoyed learning.
The same is true with Chinese people. I have encountered various individuals who projected onto me the idea that I felt I was better than others because I could speak Chinese. I am sometimes mistaken for being Chinese when people don’t notice how I look, and I receive a lot of praise in China. My Chinese is kind of fluent, but I still make mistakes, which is completely normal and to be expected. I am human, after all—not some kind of robot who has endless time to improve her Chinese while being harassed and degraded by others.
I also know that Chinese people may praise someone even if they can only say three words in Chinese, as many are generous with compliments. But the perception that I am bragging about my Chinese skills is completely wrong. I didn’t learn Chinese to compete with others or to brag about my language abilities; I learned it because Chinese characters are amazing—a system so intricate and intelligent that it simply took my breath away when I started to understand how they work. As a visual person, I also loved how the characters looked and the stories they told. I was interested in Chinese culture, history, and society, and these were the reasons why I started studying Chinese. I never studied it to later brag about mastering a language or to claim superiority over others because I can speak Chinese.
This is how I have seen narcissists brag about their language skills. (I don’t even know if these particular narcissists could pronounce Chinese words correctly; I only know they started learning Chinese to later brag about speaking it.) In such cases, we are also dealing with a superiority complex. These people tend to feel inferior inside and constantly compete with you. Your Chinese skills may actually be much better than theirs, but because you don’t use them to brag, they will constantly attack you, put you down, and compare you to others.
These people also see life as a constant competition: they’ll constantly compete with you over anything, making life unbearable. You’ll never be seen as good enough at anything you do, and they’ll think (or pretend) they are perfect and above everyone else. They may be truly bad at what they are doing, but will still think they are god-like and so talented that anyone needs to compete with them and feel inferior. My skills and my life are not a competition, and they are not up for sale. I am also not going to discuss anything with someone suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, since such discussions are overly long, never-ending, and usually so abusive that your brain feels like mashed potatoes after listening to their warped reasoning for five years in a row.
A superiority complex is usually rooted in feelings of inferiority and a narcissist may feel like he is the victim of others—or other nations—even when that isn’t the case. My ex-husband hasn’t actually suffered at the hands of foreigners; rather, he holds preconceived notions about them. He can be rude, mean, or simply behave inappropriately, and then wonders why people don’t like him.
You aren’t suffering from a superiority complex if you are truly exceptional at what you do and proud of it (without forcing others to appreciate or like what you’re doing). Even then, you should be able to recognize and appreciate other people’s contributions, acknowledging that others may also excel in similar or other areas—and that you aren’t necessarily the best of all (which is unlikely, since in any field there are usually many who are great, not just one). Similarly, you aren’t suffering from a superiority complex if you have genuinely become the victim of others and acknowledge your status as a victim. Feeling like a victim when you truly are is completely normal, and these feelings should be experienced, since ignoring them would mean suppressing your emotions.
Back to the topic of racism: one situation in which a person may easily be seen as racist is when she has had negative experiences with people of a certain race and talks about them.
I mean, if you’ve lived in Vienna and were harassed by every Black man from Africa who crossed your path—being catcalled, flirted with, and pressured in a way that made it clear they wanted to force you into sex without accepting “no”—and you then develop a negative view of African men, is it really your fault or theirs? Some people tend to label this as racist quickly, often to present themselves as superior, even though these very people sometimes harbor negative views of white women and are reverse racist. In China, if a woman states similar observations about the Chinese, she isn’t usually considered racist. I have often found her simply stating the truth, shared by others who have had similar experiences. But if a white woman does the same regarding Chinese people, she might be labeled racist.
Do I claim that all Black men are like the ones I met in Vienna? No. But do I keep my distance and avoid interacting with those who are disrespectful, after five out of five Black men I encountered acted this way? Yes. I also understand that not everything that may appear as racism to an outsider is necessarily racism; it may simply reflect repeated personal experiences. If you aren’t attacking them or telling them to leave, I believe you are fine and not necessarily racist. It is also a form of silencing to tell women with negative experiences not to share them. Such experiences can be shared thoughtfully and should be acknowledged as valid. Not being colorblind means exactly that: recognizing that differences may exist.
Some people tend to put every critical comment about people of another culture into the box of “racism,” but not everything that looks like racism is actually racism.
Racism is when you hold negative views of people of a certain race that are not in alignment with the truth. It means you see people of another culture as inferior to how they actually are. It becomes dangerous for a group of people when it is combined with wanting to have them killed, unfairly deported, etc.
It is not racism to hold critical views of people you have sufficient real-life experience with to assess them accurately. Some people tend to want to silence any critique of their own culture, which I would classify simply as silencing a person.
Holding this view, I have to admit that I also think it is okay for people to criticize Austrians, and even invite people to do so, if it is in a sensitive, appropriate kind of way. I think critically of Austrians as well, at least of certain parts of Austria, and am not blind to some of what is going on there.
You are only allowed to criticize them, though, if you also see your own countrymen as human beings capable of inhumane and cruel treatment, when they were, and not as superior and invincible, with Austrians below them. In this case, you aren’t allowed to criticize because your opinion won’t be aligned with reality, but merely reflects a warped opinion about another nation.
I hold a view of Chinese people in which I don’t see only negatives, but also positives, depending on the individual. If the person is a Chinese psychopath who tried to kill me (such as my ex-husband), I simply see him as the monster he is—sorry to be so blunt. However, I would think the same about an Austrian man behaving in the same way, so this is not about race; it is simply about individual behavior.
Were you ever called racist?