Her near win set off a national debate about race, racism, sex, inter-racial relationships, unmarried mothers and Chinese identity, in a country that until recently has generally had fairly rigid cultural notions about all of those topics.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1925589,00.htmlCan a Mixed-Race Contestant Become a Chinese Idol?
By Simon Elegant and Chengcheng Jiang Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009
In many ways, Lou Jing is a typical young woman from Shanghai. Pretty and confident, she speaks Mandarin heavily accented with the lilting tones of the Shanghai dialect and browses the malls of this huge city for the latest fashions.
But 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.
http://parlourmagazine.com/2009/09/a-new-kind-of-idol-lou-jing/A New Kind of Idol: Lou Jing
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | by J. Baker
Lou Ching is an all-around normal and attractive 20-year-old girl from Shanghai who likes clothes, (presumably) boys, the mall and has big dreams of becoming a singing superstar. So big that in August she became a contestant on China’s Let’s Go! Oriental Angel, a televised talent contest much like our beloved American Idol. So what’s the big deal? Lou is Black.
To clarify, Lou Jing is biracial. The product of an extra-marital affair between her Chinese mother and an African-American man, naturally the circumstances surrounding her birth make for great TV, which the show’s producers have played up, and playing Lou in the process. A baby born out of an affair is hardly news in any country, but the simple fact that her mom slept with a Black man and Lou was born has made the girl the focus of a rapidly growing debate about what it means to really be Chinese. Lou’s birth and upbringing in China, and pretty much her life until now, has been disregarded by many simply due to the fact that she has Black blood in her veins, something that I suspect would be different if her father was White. Naturally, she and her mother have their fair share of haters, some just displaying outright racism and disrespect towards both of them, hidden by the cloak of the internet.
http://african-chineseguy.blogspot.com/2009/09/lou-jing-sad-story-of-black-chinese.htmlSaturday, September 26, 2009
Lou Jing (娄婧) the sad story of a Black Chinese girl.......
I have never been outrage about a story coming out of China then this one.....
When 20 year old Lou Jing (娄婧) who is of mixed Chinese and black heritage became one of the five Shanghai finalists on the reality Tv show Go! Oriental Angel, the color of her skin became a national issue on what a true Chinese person is suppose to look like. She also became a target for cruel gossip and vicious racist attacks on Aug 30, when her mother shared their family's story on the show.
The attacks began after Ms Lou's mother revealed at a preliminary round of the show early last month that her daughter was the result of an illicit affair she had with an African American man some 20 years ago.Ms Lou's mother, who is a Shanghainese and known only as Madam Lou, said her Chinese husband divorced her when he found their newborn looked African instead of
Chinese.