Tiny world war on campus

When I was an university student, I heard of many stories about Uygur students fighting with Chinese students, DongBei students fighting with Teochow (Chaozhou) students, Cantonese students fighting with HuBei students…

Birds of a feather flock together.  Strongly hold people the bonds of having common memories and customs, eating similar food and speaking the same accent. 

But sometimes there are exceptions.

I met a young Chinese student, Xiao Wang, few days ago.  He studies in a Singapore private university, a university running UK and Australian degree programs.  Striving to build a regional education hub, Singapore government encourages these universities reach out to recruit students from developing countries.  Xiao Wang’s school has students from China, Vietnam, Russia, Africa and many others places.

Talking about life on campus, I asked him whether there was any fight in his school. 

He got excited in this topic.

“We have many Mongolian students. “

“Oh…?” I am a bit surprised.  A country with a vast land, small population, north to China. 

“They are big, strong and haughty. Often bully our Chinese students. ”

I’d thought he were talking about American students. 

“We were no match.  We were defeated. ”

Mongolian wrestling were flashing on my mind.

“Luckily, we have helpers. ”

Here came the bigger surprise.

“Those black African guys helped us!  They called those Mongolian students into the washroom.  After a while, out came those Mongolian, crying.  Hahaha…” He laughed, elatedly.

“African and Chinese together beat those Mongolian.  They dare not touch us now. ”

There ended this tiny world war.

“Some Chinese students mingle really well with those African.” He finally added.

Why people from thousands miles away help Chinese fight with people who are from nearby country and of the same color?

African and Chinese are brothers — at least in this incident.

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16 years ago

[…] Bridge finds African students taking the side of Chinese students in a campus fight with Mongolian students. Share […]

丁小美
16 years ago

我对你写的事情本身并不很认同,觉得它很难代表一个趋势,只是很个体的事件~ 不过不同地域间的人们相互对立或者歧视也不算很奇怪的事情。
相同肤色或者居住在同一个国家(或一片大陆上)是没办法改变的事,但这不会影响人们相互仇视如果他们确实仇视对方的话。即使肤色相同又同住一个大陆上,也还是有很多不同文化间的冲突,甚至是利益间的冲突。中国与外蒙古应该就是文化冲突的典型吧。即便是中国国内,也有很大的文化差异和经济差异,通常这都是造成人们相互鄙视甚至仇视的原因。

另外我隐约感到一个心理因素,就是:人们不太会对一个遥远、不太了解的国度产生仇视,因为这种遥远的异国对于人来说更像个fiction而与人们的生活没什么关系。而对于邻国,总有些不安甚至是敌视态度,因为邻国会与人们“竞争”各种资源(至少这种竞争是显而易见的),而且因为相邻会产生各种矛盾。就好像两个人住到一起更容易吵架一样,距离近了接触的机会多了产生矛盾的机率也就越大~

Chinggis Khan
16 years ago

U african black son of bitches , u dead now I promise

I will show u my power

ahhsahdkjhsadkjshakljhsafdlsfl

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