I watched The Amazing Race for the first time last night.  I am generally not a fan of reality TV and rarely, if ever, watch these kinds of shows but I have to admit that I got pulled into the game last night and found myself rooting for Tammy and her brother Victor as they valiantly tried to jump off of a three meter diving board and hit the water at the same time. (they finally gave that up and decided to swim instead!)

This week’s episode found the contestants navigating the streets of Beijing, without benefit of a translator.  If you have ever travelled in China without a translator, you can relate to just how difficult this can be.  Difficult yes, not impossible.

The teams, with the exception of Tammy and Victor who speak Mandarin, stuggled to communicate with the various taxi drivers and others who helped get them to their destinations.  Granted, it was likely frustrating and stressful.  After all they weren’t ordinary tourists simply seeing the sights they are competing for $1,ooo,ooo. 

However, one team let that frustration bubble over into racism.

This team was visibly upset when they had difficulty communicating.  It was as if they expected a cab driver in Beijing to speak English and were pissed off to find that he didn’t-can you say Ugly American?.

I might have been able to slough this off as the stress of the game.  However, in the previews for the next week’s show was quoted as saying, “this is why I didn’t want to come to China-it sucks.”  It struck me that it under stress that we show our true colors. 

Sure, we can say the right things when we are in control but when the going gets tough our filters are strained and deeply hidden feelings and biases surface.  And yes, we Americans are arrogant.  We do expect everyone to speak English.  We do expect that things work as they do in the United States.  And when that doesn’t happen we get pissed off.  Irrational? Yes.  Arrogant? Yes.  Racist? You bet. And on national TV no less!

I am just glad that my Chinese-born daughter didn’t see this show.  And I hope that everyone realizes that the comments and attitudes of the contestants don’t reflect China or the Chinese-but they do tell a disturbing story about the contestants.  So if you see something similar while watching TV with your kids you can take a great leap forward by discussing the existence and dangers  of biases and stereotypes.  You can help break the cycle.

With Respect,

Deb

PS: here’s a tip-look for a young person when you need an English speaker in China.  Kis are taught both Mandarin and English in school!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 5:34 am and is filed under China, bias, children, community, culture, education, family, kids, language, life, motherhood, motherhood parenting, multiculturalism, parenting, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.