Was it racism or simply poor social skills?

Hi there, I'm back from a short holiday to Albania where I stayed in the capital Tirana and took two short day trips out of town - one to Mt Dajti National Park and the other to the small town of Kruja, famous for its bazaar and castle. The topic I am going to address today is a tricky one because it is about racism but I feel that this topic is so incredibly complex that we need to understand it properly and I would like to use my experiences on this trip to discuss this topic. I tend to encounter more racism when I am traveling in countries where there are very few East Asian looking tourists and there aren't that many places like that anymore. You could walk down the street of New York, Toronto, London or Sydney and nobody would bat an eyelid if you were of an ethnic minority but in places like Albania, Tunisia and Georgia, I do stand out and there's no smoke without fire - there have been reports of black and Asian tourists being made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed in places that before; so let's begin by acknowledging the racism is there, but more importantly, what form does it take? There are hardly any Chinese people living there - there is a Chinese embassy there and a small number of Chinese restaurants in Tirana but I didn't know if they were actually run by Chinese people or locals since I didn't go all the way to Albania to eat Chinese food. You may encounter some East Asian looking Chinese tourists in Albania, but since these people are tourists they have very limited interactions with the locals. Ironically, Albania had really good diplomatic relations with the Chinese government back in the 1960s and 1970s, when China poured a huge amount of aid into Albania. Relations soured upon the passing of Mao in 1976 and Deng's new government was viewed with suspicion, leading to diplomatic relations between the two countries totally breaking down by 1978 and only really rekindled after 2000 but it was never ever quite like the way things were back in the 1960s and 1970s when China was seen as Albania's best friend and big brother. And no, none of that warmth towards China persisted till today and certainly, this was not evident at all in my interactions with the locals. Thus let's begin by sharing the few instances of racism that I encountered in Albania and analyze whether or not there was any real racism involved. 

Incident 1: The mother and daughter

I was getting an ice cream and whilst I was in the queue a young girl stared at me and said to her mother that the man is a foreigner. She pointed at me and spoke out aloud, asking her mother about me and where she thought I was from, assuming that I didn't understand Albanian - actually, I speak a little Albanian! This is my second visit to Albania and I have made the effort to learn the basics. So I waved to the girl and said, "përshëndetje, si jeni sot?" (hello, how are you today?) The mother was mortified that I could have been offended by what her daughter had done and just mumbled, "përshëndetje" before turning her back to me and talking to her daughter about something else to steer the conversation away from me. Her reaction wasn't outright racism, it was just the fact that most Albanian people probably have never ever met a real Asian person before or haven't spoken to one in real life, they have probably seen them on TV or on the internet and thus there's this disconnect, like we're not seen as real people they can just have a chat with and they often assume we don't speak Albanian or even English. This mother was quite happy minding her own business but it was her young daughter who got very curious about me and young children have far poorer social skills than adults. It was possible that this mother didn't feel confident enough about her English language skills to chat to me. Most tourists simply get by in English when visiting Albania as English is widely spoken by the younger generation - anyone under 40 will probably speak English well since it became a compulsory subject at school from the late 1990s in Albania but of course, not every student in Albania paid attention in English class so some of them do speak English fluently whilst others don't. This little girl and her mother lacked the social skills to interact with me even if I was more than happy to speak to them in Albanian. If the girl was curious, they could have had a friendly chat with me; I sat next to an Albanian lady on the plane on the plane on the flight to Tirana and she spoke English really well. She was interested in what I thought about country and gave me loads of suggestions about where to visit, what to eat and suggested that a longer holiday in Albania next time as a long weekend was just way too little time to do Albania justice. This lady had more than just a good command of English - she had such excellent social skills and knew how to have a conversation with me despite having just met me on the plane. The mother and child however, were not racist - no, not at all, they simply did not have the kind of social skills one would need to strike up a meaningful conversation with a stranger they had just met.

Incident 2: The group of teenager boys

My Airbnb host had recommended a good local restaurant near where we were staying, so whilst I was looking for this restaurant, a small group of teenage boys noticed me and shouted, "Hong Kong! Hong Kong! Jackie Chan! Jackie Chan! Kungfu!" I chose to ignore them as I thought they were idiots with poor social skills - however, they persisted and shouted even louder, following me as I tried to walk away from them. Thankfully, it was just at this moment that I had spotted the restaurant as I was looking for and thus when I entered the restaurant, the manager there gave these teenage boys a stern look as if to say, "piss off and stop bothering my customers." The restaurant staff were most friendly and the manager even said to me, "I'm sorry about those boys, I hope they weren't bothering you." So these boys noticed that I am East Asian and probably Chinese, yet their knowledge of Chinese culture is so shallow and limited that they shouted the only three things that came to mind wen they thought of Chinese culture, namely Hong Kong, Jackie Chan and Kungfu. Before I analyze the actions of this group of teenagers, I want to tell you about incident 3 which was very similar. 

Incident 3: Another group of teenage boys

I was in Skanderbeg Square in central Tirana, taking a selfie when a group of teenage boys shouted at me, "your phone linging!" Normally I would ignore them but I had heard a group of Dutch kids say the same thing a few months ago, so I googled it and found a short video that had apparently gone viral on TikTok. For those of you not familiar with this (you can see the video below), it is actually a ringtone done in an extremely exaggerated Chinese accent - I'm from Singapore and I grew up with people who spoke English with a strong Chinese accent and this isn't it at all. This is not a real Chinese accent, not an authentic one anyway but rather, it reminded me of someone trying to fake a Chinese accent the way we know that comedian Nigel Ng doesn't really have much of an accent, but he puts on a ridiculously strong Chinese accent when he plays his alter-ego uncle Roger. I ignored the teenage boys who shouted at me and walked the other way - they did not follow me. But hold that thought, as I want to talk about a fourth incident that happened in Kruja.

Incident 4: The old woman begging in Kruja

There is a really touristy bazaar in the town of Kruja which is worth visiting and when I was there, I saw a few bus loads of Chinese tourists passing through the bazaar spending a lot of money there. There was an old toothless woman who was a beggar and she approached me, shouting, "ni hao!" But actually it sounded more like "niha", I said to her in Albanian "nuk kam para" (I don't have money) and she looked annoyed at me before she approached another Chinese tourist with the same greeting, extending her hand for clearly indicating that she wanted money. In incidents 2, 3 and 4, the Albanians involved had very little information about Chinese culture, but the Dunning Kruger effect is very strong here as these people think that they would be able to impress me with what little they knew and in the case of incidents 2 and 3, they teenage boys probably thought they were being either knowledgeable and/or funny (and no, they weren't at all) whilst in incident 4, the beggar clearly wanted money and thought that knowing how to say "ni hao" (or even "niha") was sufficient to warrant a reward. Here's my response to that, as someone who has only spent less than a week in Albania as a tourist, I actually speak basic Albanian remarkably well and on several occasions, I was asked by the locals, "why do you speak Albanian? Do you live here? Do you have an Albanian wife? Are you one of those guys on Youtube who speak many languages?" Modesty aside, I impressed quite a few Albanians when I was there but I had to earn that for example, by doing an interaction entirely in Albanian. A simple example of that would be when we were to a bakery and they had loads of different kinds of pies (with different fillings), so I would ask the person there about each pie, what was the filling and how much it would cost - the entire conversation would be in Albanian and when they tried to use an English word like 'cheese', I would respond with the Albanian word "djathë"(cheese in Albanian) and even tell them, "ju mund të më flisni shqip" (you can speak to me in Albanian). So it's not like I'm having a complex discussion about the state of Chinese-Albanian political relations, but it is enough to demonstrate that I do speak the language well. So if the Albanian man in the bakery suddenly said to me, "我会说普通话, 您想要什么?" Then yes, I would be suitably impressed but that is how high the bar is and in the case of incidents 2, 3 and 4, they all fell quite short of that threshold to impress. 

So here's what bothers me about the narrative I get from Asia about racism in the West: there are two theories, both of which are wrong. The first one is that white people look down on Chinese people and that is a result of racism, they feel they are racially superior to Chinese (and other Asian) people - that most certainly isn't true. I have written a whole blog piece on this topic but the punchline is that people will look down on you as an individual because of your shortcomings and flaws, it's deeply personal and it has nothing to do with your skin colour. In short, they hate you because they think you're a pathetic loser not worth of respect, that has nothing to do with where you're from or what your nationality is. The second theory swings to the opposite end of the spectrum and I have also written a blog post about this as well - these are Chinese people who expect people in Albania to see the might of the Chinese economy and be inspired to respect all Chinese people. People who believe this to be the case will look very selectively for evidence to confirm this theory: so going back to the toothless beggar in Kruja, I saw her approach two older Chinese ladies and she tried that same "niha" routine on them, these two Chinese ladies were surprised and since I speak Mandarin fluently, I could understand everything they said to each other - they had assumed that Albanians love and respect the Chinese so much because of all the help that China gave Albania back in the 1960s and 1970s; this was an older Albanian person thanking them for their help by showing respect despite the obvious language barrier. The two older ladies both reached into their purses and gave the beggar some money, that was when I heard the Albanian beggar swear at them (don't forget, I speak enough Albanian to know the most commonly used swear words in Albanian). Yup, the beggar knew the two older Chinese ladies didn't understand Albanian, so she received the money and swore at them, right to their faces. Clearly, this beggar had zero respect for these two older Chinese ladies - in fact she clearly thought they were idiots for giving her that much money and she was pleased that her "niha" routine yielded such great results. So I yelled out to her, "Të dëgjova, shqip kuptoj!" (I heard you, I understand Albanian!") The beggar then gave me a death stare but decided that now she has made some money, it was probably best to just walk away from the situation.  The two older Chinese ladies looked very confused but I thought, it would be too cruel to tell them that instead of getting any respect (I had nothing to gain by ruining their holiday), the beggar said something so vulgar that would translate something like "**** your mother." 

Of course, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie at that point, this was not my fight. The beggar got some money, the Chinese tourists thought they were respected in Albania and as I was the only one who spoke both Albanian and Mandarin, I could see exactly what was going on. The Albanian viewed the Chinese tourists with not just disdain, but hatred that came from somewhere deep inside - like that parting shot of "**** your mother" in Albanian was not called for. Like if she shouted that at me when I refused to give her any money, perhaps I could understand and I would have shouted something equally vulgar back. But these Chinese tourists had already given her money (and I saw it was a note, so it wasn't small change - the smallest note in Albanian currency is 200 Leks, the equivalent of about 2 euros) so respect was the last thing that beggar had in mind when she took that money. Yet the Chinese tourists were blissfully unaware of what had just happened and had somehow convinced themselves that they were being showered with respect and love in Albania. But this illustrates just how Asian people can be so set in their ways that they only look for evidence that confirms their long held beliefs and they want to be right, so they will always ignore any evidence that proves that they are totally wrong. Thus Chinese people who believe that white Albanians are unconditionally racist will see racism everywhere they go even if there is no evidence of it, whilst Chinese people like those two older Chinese tourists will interpret any event as "evidence" of the locals offering them respect even when that's clearly not the case. The truth of course, is that neither of these theories are true - not in Albania, not anywhere in the world. In fact, the truth is often somewhere in between these two extremes - most Albanian people probably don't have any kind of opinion on Chinese people since they simply do not interact with any Chinese people in their everyday lives. Cities like London, New York,  Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco and Sydney have massive Chinatowns and there is a sizable Chinese minority in these places but this is simply not the case at all in Tirana where the only Chinese people you're going to encounter in the streets are the tourists; so unless you're working at a tourist attraction or in a hotel, you're simply not going to cross paths with any Chinese people at all. That means they simply wouldn't have any reason to hold any kind of opinion on the subject matter if it is something that they haven't had to deal with or isn't relevant to their everyday lives, they would turn their attention to something that they have to contend with everyday and would be a lot more important to them instead. So let me give you an example of how easy it is not to have an opinion on a topic and that is a natural reaction. 

I did some research on Albanian cuisine before going on this trip and made a list of local dishes I would like to try there - some more nicer than others but there was one dish that I simply couldn't find. Flija is a multi-layer cake which is supposed to be so delicious, it takes a long time to bake as each layer has to be cooked on top of the previous layer in a manner very similar to kueh lapis from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. I wanted to compare flija to kueh lapis, but despite having visited many bakeries, I didn't manage to find it. I was then told that it was not commonly prepared in bakeries as it was such a labour intensive task to prepare it (the Albanian name Flija means 'sacrifice', reflecting the many hours of hard work the baker has to put in to create this amazing cake) and this was often eaten as part of the spring equinox celebration. Well, I was in Tirana in October and that would be like trying to find a Christmas pudding in London in June - not totally impossible but good luck trying to pull that off. Thus I didn't get to try that Albanian cake Flija on this trip and to be honest, I wasn't that fussed. After all, one of the other traditional Albanian dishes I tasted fërgesë was a bit meh - it was just bits of grilled peppers in a cottage cheese stew, eaten with bread. It wasn't unpleasant but it didn't really impress me either, it was alright, we finished our portion of fërgesë and said, "okay, been there, done that, we won't be ordering this dish again." Thus in the case of fërgesë, I didn't hate it, I didn't like it either, I am kinda just neutral about it - like if it was on the table, I would eat it but I probably wouldn't order it again in a restaurant. By the same token, since I didn't get to try flija on this trip, I don't have an opinion on it. Hence for the Albanian people who either have very little or no interaction with Chinese people at all, they are likely to have little or no strong opinions on the subject matter, in much the same way like I really don't have a strong opinion on fërgesë and flija. Here's the thing: Asian people who assume that white people have a strong opinion (be it a positive or a negative one) about Asian people - they're making the assuming that they are so important that anyone and everyone must care enough about them to form an opinion about them, even if that opinion is a negative one. However, even in incidents 2 and 3 which did come across as offensive, the boys who were yelling those remarks weren't trying to insult me per se, it wasn't even about me - rather they were actually trying to impress their peers by being funny. I certainly didn't find it funny being at the receiving end of those remarks, but the other teenage boys in those groups laughed and thus the person yelling the remark probably thought, "mission accomplished - my friends now think that I am so hilarious and witty, they will like me more now." He didn't care what I thought about what he had said or done since I was just some random stranger he ran into on the street, he only cared about his friends' reactions and opinion - this was not about me. 

This is why I think it is important not to read too much into such incidents when they do happen - I think those guys who yelled at me in Tirana had very poor social skills and there are far better ways to start a conversation with a stranger you have just met, as demonstrated by the lady I sat next to on the flight to Tirana. I had a lovely conversation with her and she was a pleasure to chat to. The fact is some people have very poor social skills, but if their friends and family have equally poor social skills, then they will become oblivious to the problem as it has become normal. Crossing paths with working class people who have poor social skills is just part and parcel of travelling and I found that this tends to happen a lot more when visiting poorer countries - I have experienced this in Georgia, Albania, Tunisia, Morocco and Indonesia. I can't ever imagine this happening in a richer country like Switzerland or Norway and there is clearly a correlation between the wealth of a country and how ethnic minorities and tourists are treated there. The only way to really avoid this is to simply not go traveling but that's too high a price to pay - after all, the vast majority of the people I met in Albania were really nice and friendly, apart from the small number of people mentioned in these four instances discussed in this blog post. It is important to be able to distinguish the difference between actions motivated by malice and those which are simply a result of poor social skills and sheer stupidity. Hence we should really only get angry over the former and simply ignore the latter given that we are never going to cross paths with them ever again. I will continue to travel to poorer countries off the beaten path like Albania and yes, I fully anticipate some stupid idiot with poor social skills to yell "ni hao Jackie Chan" when I walk down the street - I know I can cope with that and it wouldn't stop me from finding my next exotic adventure. My personal response to that is based on a reflection that I am a rich tourist in a poor country, I am lucky enough to be intelligent enough to learn so many languages, have so much knowledge about the different countries I have visited and more to the point, I'm not a moron with poor social skills, so when a moron with poor social skills shouts something offensive to me in a third world country, I reflect on that power dynamic as I am headed back to my five-star hotel whilst that person who shouted at me is probably going home to a tiny home he shares with ten family members after having spent a day doing a terribly poorly paid job. With that in mind, I feel lucky and blessed, I don't feel the need to react to whatever that dumb person has shouted at me as I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. And that's it from me on the topic, do feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Many thanks for reading.