By Eric King-
A skit on China’s biggest Lunar New Year TV show has sparked outrage and widespread criticism, including accusations of racism.
The comedy sketch featuring a Chinese woman in black face was broadcast on state television’s Lunar New Year variety show.
The skit which featured on Thursday night on state broadcaster CCTV depicted the opening of a Chinese-built high-speed railway in Kenya.
It depicted actors in monkey and giraffe costumes, while the actress in blackface donned an exaggerated false bottom and a basket of fruit on her head. The segment was intended to celebrate Sino-African relations, but was condemned online for cultural insensitivity.
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The performance was part of CCTV’s annual Lunar New Year gala, which draws an audience of up to 800 million and is said to be one of the most watched programmes in the world.
The 13-minute segment was introduced with a dance sequence set to Colombian singer Shakira’s Waka Waka (This Time for Africa). It featured Africans dressed in zebra, lion, and gazelle costumes, and actresses playing attendants on Kenya’s new Chinese-built high-speed rail line.
The skit then begins with a black woman asking the show’s host to pose as her husband when meeting her mother, in order to avoid being set up on a blind date.
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A Chinese actress playing her mother then strides in made up in blackface followed by an actor in a monkey costume.
The host’s Chinese wife then appears, ending the deception, but the African mother says she cannot be angry because “China has done so much for Africa”.
“I love Chinese people! I love China,” the actress in blackface exclaims.
Although the skit, titled Same Joy, Same Happiness, was meant to celebrate Sino-African relations, many viewers condemned it online, with some calling it “cringeworthy” and “completely racist”.
However, the reaction on the streets of Beijing has been blasted by some, who have condemned the criticism as being overblown.
“It’s normal for Chinese actors to dress up like foreigners when performing a foreign play,” 80 year old Zhou Hengshan, said. “This wasn’t meant to demean any specific ethnic group.”
Xue Lixia, 20, said she trusted CCTV’s judgment in assessing whether the skit was racist.
“After all, this is a sketch that was broadcast on the Lunar New Year gala. If there was any racism, then it would have already been cut,” Ms Liu said.
Chinese society is dominated by the Han ethnic majority and racial sensitivities are generally much less pronounced than in the West.
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