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by marcus_holmes 1845 days ago
I'm sorry you experienced racism. As an Australian and Brit, I apologise for our countries not living up to our ideals on these things. I can't speak for Germany - I'm a guest here too - but I know that most Germans are working towards eliminating racism from their culture.

That's not my experience of the Chinese, however. China is not working to eliminate racism. It doesn't have these ideals. As a white person I will never be accepted as a Chinese person by the Chinese, because in Chinese people's eyes, Chinese == Han (from my experience). This isn't unusual in Asia - Cambodians only recognise Khmer people, Japan only recognises ethnic Japanese people, and so on. I have white friends who have lived in Cambodia for decades, speak the language perfectly, have Cambodian families, but who can never become citizens and will never be accepted as "Cambodian" because of their race.

This isn't true of Australians (for example). Australia doesn't equate Australian = caucasian [0]. You can emigrate to Australia, and become a citizen, and the vast majority of Australians will accept you as an Australian because of that. Being Australian is not about race, but more about culture and commitment. Australia's sense of identity is not linked to its ethnic identity in the same way that SE Asian countries are.

[0] There are always some racist dickheads who will disagree with this. Sorry for that.