During the time when Shanghai was divided into eight so-called concession zones by eight foreign powers, including France, Germany and Japan, in the British area, there was a sign in front of a park on the Bund which read, “The Gardens are reserved for the Foreign Community.”
Along the shore of the Bund, there were seats for visitors, but most were also reserved for the foreigners. When local Chinese took the seat, policemen – most of them were Indians, bought to Shanghai by their British master – would come to interfere.
Of course, it was decades, decades ago, by then some British people and some French people and some German people and some other people were yet to be touched and moved by their own heroic acts of upholding the lofty values such as democracy, freedom and human rights, and feel privileged to look down on the world from their perceived moral high ground with dignified pity and disapproval.
And China, despite being plagued by many faults like any other nation, has long prohibited the racial and ethnic-based discrimination historically practised by the Mongols’ Yuan Dynasty, by the Manchu’s Qing Dynasty, and by the foreign powers from Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
Or has it?
Local media in China reported that the act of discrimination against Chinese has reoccurred in some patches of Chinese soil, for instance, in some specialised shoe shops, just this time the place is in Beijing and the perpetrators are Chinese.
It is said that those shoe shops in the capital’s eastern Chaoyang district would ban Chinese from stepping into their premises by using a sign, a curtain or even guards.
When the complaint was launched with the local consumer association, an official in the organisation is reported as replying, “A merchant has the right to determine whom he wants to do business with.”
Sure, the Englishmen who built the park also aimed to gain profit and therefore were even greater merchants than those shoe dealers; they certainly also had the right to determine to whom they would like to grant access privilege.
And that is not an isolated incident.
In an office building in Shanghai’s Caohejing Industry Park, Chinese are reportedly not allowed to step into an elevator when foreigners are present.
Those in the West who say China may get into a Yuan Dynasty’s bloody-thirsty wolf-worship mentality promoted by few elements in the country, or adopt a Qing Dynasty’s outlook of the world that enslaved other ethnic groups and rejected other nations, therefore China’s renaissance should be warned about and prevented from, is utterly scaremongers with suspicious motivations, because the evidences show that some Chinese are working so hard to make sure their guests will forever be the masters of the natives.
Chinese, mind your steps.