On Living With Obama
By Chip Tsao | published Nov 20, 2008
The night Obama won the election, I received at least a half-dozen phone-calls barking about the outcome with utter disdain and disbelief. I was inundated with furious responses from several local scholars, a few doctors and solicitors, and believe it or not, at least one legislative councilor. Their response was unanimous: “How can a hak-gwei [meaning “black devil”] become President of the United States?” Other remarks were a bit too caustic to publish.
I had to remind them that they had been forewarned by, say, movies like “Rush Hour,” where the black hero Chris Tucker not only outshone Jackie Chan with his newly learned kung fu moves, but also took the lead in the plot, had funnier lines of dialogue, and reveled in playing pranks throughout the film on our miserable-looking Hong Kong superstar. Maybe they fell for the contrary impression that the film distributor tried to promote here by using different posters in Asia (with Chan as the central focus and Tucker looking smaller), a move designed to mislead and please the ego of the Chinese audience.
But after my cultural lecture, the reaction was still firm: “No, I just don’t think a black man can lead America and rule the world.”
Then Obama made the first round of say-hello phone-calls to foreign leaders, among whom were the British prime minister, of course, the French president, the Japanese and Korean leaders, and even the Pakistani president. But the Chinese Communist Party boss was excluded. Many Chinese observers felt hurt when Obama put our leader on a short, separate call list along with Putin, a list he didn’t get around to ringing until the following week. As the editorial of a leading local English newspaper rightly criticized, China should be placed higher on Obama’s agenda. We certainly deserve more attention and intimacy since it came to light that Obama has a half-brother who is opening a restaurant in Shenzhen, and who can speak Mandarin and even allegedly read classical Chinese literature.
It is most strange that Obama’s victory was received privately here with a mixture of emotions similar to what you see when a cancer patient learns of their diagnosis—first anger, then denial. We reached the stage of quiet acceptance when we started feeling jealous of the Pakistani president who received the president-elect’s phone call before our leader. But having been kicked off of the head table, at least it is of some comfort that we were then grouped with the Russians instead of having to share a table with someone like Mugabe of Zimbabwe. From that distance over the shoulders of the other guests from around the world, and under the bright lights from the chandelier in the dining room, we should be able to see how black Obama’s skin is, accept it, and hopefully with a bit of psychological counseling, go ahead with the dinner.
The night Obama won the election, I received at least a half-dozen phone-calls barking about the outcome with utter disdain and disbelief. I was inundated with furious responses from several local scholars, a few doctors and solicitors, and believe it or not, at least one legislative councilor. Their response was unanimous: “How can a hak-gwei [meaning “black devil”] become President of the United States?” Other remarks were a bit too caustic to publish.
I had to remind them that they had been forewarned by, say, movies like “Rush Hour,” where the black hero Chris Tucker not only outshone Jackie Chan with his newly learned kung fu moves, but also took the lead in the plot, had funnier lines of dialogue, and reveled in playing pranks throughout the film on our miserable-looking Hong Kong superstar. Maybe they fell for the contrary impression that the film distributor tried to promote here by using different posters in Asia (with Chan as the central focus and Tucker looking smaller), a move designed to mislead and please the ego of the Chinese audience.
But after my cultural lecture, the reaction was still firm: “No, I just don’t think a black man can lead America and rule the world.”
Then Obama made the first round of say-hello phone-calls to foreign leaders, among whom were the British prime minister, of course, the French president, the Japanese and Korean leaders, and even the Pakistani president. But the Chinese Communist Party boss was excluded. Many Chinese observers felt hurt when Obama put our leader on a short, separate call list along with Putin, a list he didn’t get around to ringing until the following week. As the editorial of a leading local English newspaper rightly criticized, China should be placed higher on Obama’s agenda. We certainly deserve more attention and intimacy since it came to light that Obama has a half-brother who is opening a restaurant in Shenzhen, and who can speak Mandarin and even allegedly read classical Chinese literature.
It is most strange that Obama’s victory was received privately here with a mixture of emotions similar to what you see when a cancer patient learns of their diagnosis—first anger, then denial. We reached the stage of quiet acceptance when we started feeling jealous of the Pakistani president who received the president-elect’s phone call before our leader. But having been kicked off of the head table, at least it is of some comfort that we were then grouped with the Russians instead of having to share a table with someone like Mugabe of Zimbabwe. From that distance over the shoulders of the other guests from around the world, and under the bright lights from the chandelier in the dining room, we should be able to see how black Obama’s skin is, accept it, and hopefully with a bit of psychological counseling, go ahead with the dinner.
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
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