Word: skins
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...there is one thing that distinguishes this 20-year-old from her peers, something that has made her the unwitting focus of an intense public debate about what exactly it means to be Chinese: the color of her skin. Born to a Chinese mother and an African-American father whom she has never met, the theater student rocketed into the public consciousness last month when she took part in an American Idol-esque TV show, Go! Oriental Angel. (See pictures of modern Shanghai...
...ethnicity has been the subject of a relentless barrage of criticism, some of it crudely racist. Many think she should not have been allowed to compete on a Chinese show, or at least not selected to represent Shanghai in the national competition. She doesn't have fair skin, which is one of the most important factors for Chinese beauty. What's more, her mother and her biological father were never married; morally, the argument goes, this kind of behavior shouldn't be publicized, so she shouldn't have been put on TV as a young "idol...
...well in the show, ranking in the top 30 contestants before she was eliminated. Now she's back to her normal life as a college junior - with a little new insight into her home. "Through this competition, it's really scary to find out how the color of my skin can cause such a big controversy...
...first traveled deep into China's southwestern Yunnan province, to a small trading settlement called Nabang. Even though the border town is in China, many of its residents wore Burmese longyis, or sarongs, and women's faces were painted beige with the thanaka paste used in Burma as a skin salve. Despite the occasional truck rumbling past overloaded with teak logs from Burma, Nabang felt like it was just emerging from an opium-induced...
...antigovernment slogans and distributing leaflets supporting the leading opposition figure, Mir-Hussein Mousavi. But he was no ordinary hooligan: he also happened to be a top law-school student at University of Tehran, an idealist who was hoping to use his degree to really get under the regime's skin...