It was hard for me to blend in when I was
in China. I am a 5’8” Black girl with locs. At the time I wore my hair in what
we call “kinky twists”. I visited many places in China including the Great Wall
and Tianenmen Square. When I plan to visit other countries I try to read about
the country so that I don’t say or do anything stupid or offensive, but nothing
could prepare me for being asked my native Chinese people to take a picture
with them because they’ve never seen a Black person.
One lady could not stop rubbing my face.
She said my skin was so pretty and she wished that she had skin like mines.
Really? I always get frustrated, especially in the summer, because I start to
tan and I don’t like getting “too Black.” What is “too Black”?
I was a star in China. Someone even
thought I was Beyonce. Come on now, Beyonce? I started to play along, but I was
afraid of what might happen.
I could learn all the Mandarin Chinese I
wanted, but nothing I could do would change the fact that I was tall and Black.
Fat, too. I tried buying a dress and the woman said to me, “TOO BIG, TOO BIG!”
In China, I wear a 5X.
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