So a Black Person can be Chinese?

Some of my readers may not know that next semester I will be studying Chinese at Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. (Fun Fact: Harbin is in dishearteningly bleak and close proximity to both Siberia and North Korea.) Part of getting myself ready for the culture shock has been reading blogs by former CET-Harbin students who went through the program. I came across the blog of one's of the program's teachers during one of these blog binges and I've been hooked ever since. Last week while I was perusing said blog I came across a recent post that caught my eye.

China is made of up 56 total nationalities, Han and 55 other minority nationalities. Han make up 92% of the total population of China, completely dominating its ethnic minorities culturally, development wise and economically. Biracial children of Chinese and more recent immigrants to China, particularly those from Africa, are generally overlooked upon when Chinese discuss the multi-ethnic makeup of China. This is due to the fact that usually these children are sent to live with their non-Chinese parent in that's parents country of origin. However, one particularly skilled child managed to stay in China with his Chinese parent and have Chinese citizenship (unconfirmed but hopefully). Ding Hui, the son of a South African father and a Chinese mother from Hangzhou was recently added to the Chinese national volleyball team. The racial implications for any some-what dark/"not-Chinese-looking" person to represent China in one of its most coveted arenas for power projection are off the charts. And for a person of color who will shortly be in China, this will be added to the list of things to flaunt about black people in the face of racist/just-scared-of-black-people Chinese.

Other posts to peruse:
Can a Black Man be Chinese?
Implications of race in a society that prides itself on its multi-ethnic population despite the marginalization of its ehtnic minorities by the Han majority
Can a Black Woman be Chinese?
Race and gender in light of a significant sex-imbalance in China and what it means for countless Chinese men who need to look elsewhere for brides due to the historical preference for male children (and its subsequent backfire in the face of the Chinese)