Treatment of Minorities in China

There were times when I heard that African Americans were treated differently in Asia. Yet in my experience this cannot be further from the truth. I enjoyed every moment of my time in China. I was treated with respect in all situations and in some ways found myself to be a small time celebrity. I am sure the color of my skin had something to do with this. People would ask to take pictures with me. I even had people ask me if I was a professional athlete. So my color did bring attention to me but not in any negative way. Still, there was a time while visiting the zoo in Beijing that I received some hostile looks from different people. Yet, I realized that the majority of the people that came to visit the zoo were not from the city but were from the country side and had for the most part not been exposed to seeing people of color. There were others that were so naive to think that African Americans were the only occupants of the United States. I accepted the attention that I got and was willing to embrace people that wanted to speak to me or wanted to take pictures with me. There were those people that wouldn’t ask to take pictures but would instead just walk up to me and just snap a picture of me like some animal in a zoo. That was disconcerting to me and I was kind of offended by that action but for the most part had no real problems.