Recent incidents on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and on Holland's Got Talent reveal the persistence of casual bigotry—intended or not—toward China and Chinese people.
By Matt Schiavenza
The Atlantic - Nov 22 2013
Last week's episode of Holland's Got Talent featured a 30-year-old Chinese-born contestant
named Xiao Wang, a PhD candidate who moonlights as an opera singer.
Xiao was on hand to sing "La donna e mobile," an aria from Verdi's Rigoletto, and performed beautifully.
However, one of the talent judges on the show, a Dutch singer named
Cornelis Willem Heuckeroth, used the segment as an opportunity to mock
Xiao's Chinese-ness.
Here were a few of Heuckeroth's comments:
"Which number are you singing? Number 39 with rice?"
"This is the best Chinese I've had in weeks, and it's not takeaway!"
"He looks like a waiter from a Chinese restaurant."
"This is the best Chinese person I've ever seen, and he's not even a delivery boy."
Hueckeroth, who for some reason goes by the name "Gordon," also called Xiao's performance a "surplise."
The other two panelists on the show both looked embarrassed by Gordon's remarks; one, an American named Dan Karaty, even told him that he's "really not supposed to say things like that."
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