Amy Hawkins

Amy Hawkins is a freelance journalist based in Beijing. You can follow her on Twitter @DHawkins93

Posts by Amy Hawkins

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Mixed Blood

On being biracial in Beijing – by Amy Hawkins

 

“Mixed blood” is not a term I thought I’d ever take too kindly to, resonant as it is of eugenics, segregation and Harry Potter’s “mudbloods”. But just as the past is a foreign country, so too are, well, foreign countries.

Tourists in China often return home with tales of being asked to take hundreds of photographs with locals, who marvel at their white or black or brown skin, their height, and their willingness to walk through the dusty streets without wearing a mask. Living in Beijing, an international city like Shanghai, I have mostly avoided becoming such a curiosity. Reveal that I am half Chinese, however, and the questions come flooding in.

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