{"id":1320,"date":"2023-10-24T03:59:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2023\/10\/24\/racist-sketch-presented-during-spring-festival-gala\/"},"modified":"2024-07-01T22:51:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T14:51:35","slug":"presented-during-spring-festival-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/presented-during-spring-festival-gala\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Racist Sketch’ Presented During Spring Festival Gala"},"content":{"rendered":"

China’s biggest television show has been ridiculed after it featured a “racist” skit involving an Asian woman with a painted black face and large fake buttocks who was followed around by a “pet monkey”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

China’s biggest television show has been ridiculed after it featured a “racist” skit involving an Asian woman with a painted black face and large fake buttocks who was followed around by a “pet monkey”.<\/p>\n

The comedy sketch was shown on the Spring Festival Gala<\/a>, an annual variety show, which is said to be the world’s most watched television programme with an audience of up to 800 million people.<\/p>\n

Understanding the Spring Festival Gala<\/h2>\n

The skit involved the male\u00a0Chinese\u00a0host being asked by a young African woman if he could help convince her mother that he is her boyfriend, so that she would not have to go on a blind date.<\/p>\n

The woman’s mother was an Asian actress with her face painted black who arrived on stage with a fruit bowl placed on her head.<\/p>\n

She was followed around on stage by a man dressed as a monkey with a basket on his back.<\/p>\n

\"Spring<\/p>\n

Image: BBC<\/p>\n

\n

The sketch – which ended with the mother expressing in perfect Chinese Africa’s love for China and the Chinese people – may have been a well-intentioned attempt to highlight warm relations between African nations and Beijing.<\/p>\n

However, it was lambasted on both Weibo and Twitter.<\/p>\n

“Cringeworthy at best, completely racist at worst,” said a Tweet from Parthepan.<\/p>\n

“It’s Africa, so bring out tribal dancers & animals? And was that a Chinese woman in blackface with a fake posterior?”<\/p>\n

\"racist<\/p>\n

Image: Telegraph<\/p>\n

\n

Twitter user Krish Raghav said: “My first Chinese New Year watching the annual CCTV spring gala and they trot out a Chinese lady in blackface, exaggerated proportions and everything, with a pet “monkey” (played by a man from Cote D’Ivoire), shouting “I love China!” – I can’t even.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"racist<\/p>\n

Image: Telegraph<\/p>\n

\n

On Sina Weibo there was a mixture of bemusement and ridicule towards the sketch.<\/p>\n

\u201cForeign media are going to explode,\u201d said one comment.<\/p>\n

“I really can’t believe what I just watched. This show gets worse every year,” said another.<\/p>\n

What’s on Weibo, a website which tracks hot topics on Chinese social media<\/a>, said the actress playing the mother was well-known Chinese performer and producer Lou Naiming.<\/p>\n

\"racist<\/p>\n

Image: BBC<\/p>\n

\n

The Spring Festival Gala – which is also called the New Year Gala – is produced by China’s state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) and would have been heavily vetted before it was shown.<\/p>\n

Chinese companies have previously<\/a> been criticised for their depictions of other races.<\/p>\n

In 2016,\u00a0Air China\u2019s Wings of China magazine warned travel<\/a>lers to the UK\u00a0that \u201cprecautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people”.<\/p>\n

It was carried in English and Chinese in an article about London\u2019s attractions under the headline “Tips from Air China\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier that year, a Chinese laundry detergent commercial sparked outrage with its depiction of a black man being \u2018cleaned\u2019 in a washing machine before he came out as a Han Chinese man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s biggest television show has been ridiculed after it featured a “racist” skit involving an Asian woman with a painted black face and large fake buttocks who was followed around …","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[60,306,29,559,826,214],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs","tag-marketing","tag-social-media","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11747,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions\/11747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}