From the South China Morning Post:
Bar owners near the Workers’ Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises.
“Uniformed Public Security Bureau officers came into the bar recently and told me not to serve black people or Mongolians,” said the co-owner of a western-style bar, who asked not to be named.
Maybe Overseas Chinese or somebody else can help with this, but is it possible this is a mistranslation for 黑社会 or 黑帮分子?
I did a search at South China Morning Post and couldn’t find the “not to serve black people or Mongolians” story. I suspect that someone is spreading rumor. I have not heard such report from the Hong Kong media. If anyone can find the actual story from SCMP, please post the link.
Are you suggesting that they can’t be?
Of course the Chinese CAN BE racists. I know a lot of Chinese who are racists.
All I am saying is that I could not find the source of the story.
I think you are correct and it is a mistranslation of black societies, meaning gangsters. of course, it could be correct the way it is too. Hard to say without seeing the original article.
黑帮分子 doesn’t translate into “black people”. I doubt that SCMP would make a mistranslation like that.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. As far as I can tell, the original article was written in English by a western ex-pat. So I thought of two possible scenarios.
1. The interview is conducted in English and the bar owner mistranslates the characters.
2. The interview is conducted in Chinese and the ex-pat misunderstands.
Simba, the title “See! Chinese people are racist!” is an in-joke among those of us who talk about racism and who repeatedly get told about the racism of people of color.
I’ve seen lots of chinese mistranslations in the news, which is funny, because we always poke fun at chinese mistranslations of english.
The point is, it’s perfectly plausible that they simply mistranslated “hei shu hue”