Dear Sir/Madam
RE: 'Banana' feature.
It is not suprising to find copy in your magazine of an offensive/insensitive nature. But the latest installment has finally prompted me to write to you.
I am the manager of Julia Gabriel Centres for Learning, we have an international school here and from today I will not be stocking your magazine for our customers.
I grimiced when I read your feature on 'exposing' interracial relationships that featured only young white males and cute Chinese girls. I was dumbfounded when all the world was outraged about the Animal Olympics, but you guys ran stories promoting it and commented on how the monkey was cute. But the latest article is just too much.
One would expect an article on the term 'banana' would focus on issues of racism, nationalism and how it's a fallacy/ not good. You however, run a cover of a grinning girl in a banana followed with a shallow article that almost condones the situation. Is it all just a joke for you guys? Would you run a cover of an inanely grinning African-American guy popping out of an Oreo packet?
There are only two things I can think of. One: You and your editorial staff are completely ignorant and insensitive to the issues that we face in the world and don't know what you are doing. In this case I'm willing to stick with the mag if it starts to change. Two: you are very aware of these issues and do it on purpose, that is, you have a reactionary agenda. In this case you can go ahead and pass our address on to distribution and stop delivering to us,
Thank You
Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning, 75 Wuxing Lu.
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By lydia
Dear Sir/Madam RE: 'Banana' feature. It is not suprising to find copy in your magazine ...
Dear Andy, Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns and comments with us. First I would like to address your comments regarding the interracial relationships article. The article was not solely focused on white males and Chinese girls, although as an article addressing expats and interracial relationships in China, that is a large and unavoidable part of the story. One of our main couples, Tom and Flora, have a very healthy interracial relationship, are of relatively the same age, met in university (Tom is English but has long focused his studies on China--he is fluent in Mandarin and dedicated to China through his job), have very similar interests, married with the blessings of both families and recently started a family. I believe their story works to show that in China, real love and mutual respect can be found in interracial relationships if the two people have common interests to begin with. Our third couple was a Western woman and her now ex-Chinese husband. I believe we succeeded in staying away from the typical "white male, Chinese female" stories and offered real accounts of how interracial relationship in China do and do not work. We were aware that the banana story would cause some heads to turn, but we decided to run the story after dozens and dozens of Chinese-Westerners in Beijing and Shanghai who we asked about the article said it was one they would like to see printed. The banana on the cover, coupled with the cover text "Peeling away overseas identity issues," reflects the majority of comments we received from overseas Chinese: They believe the term "banana" should be addressed up front and thrown away. I do not believe we at any point in the article condone the use of the term "banana." This article was not intended as a joke and we interviewed many, many overseas Chinese along with professors and experts to create what we think is a well-balanced article about real overseas Chinese identity issues when they return to China. The sidebar is where we let overseas Chinese speak for themselves about the term "banana." We asked them what they thought and printed their answers. We used the sidebar as a forum for overseas Chinese to speak their mind in their own words about what the term means to them. I am concerned that you believe the article condones the use of the term "banana," as that was not at all our intention, and I would very much like to know which parts led you to that conclusion. I want to stress again that we only went with this article after passing it by many overseas Chinese and receiving their comments and agreement that the article should be printed. I would be more than happy to answer any other questions you have about these articles or other articles in City Weekend. I look forward to hearing from you again and appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns.