It really doesn’t take much to impress local Chinese if you’re white, does it? Spotted in Qingdao and posted to the Sina Weibo account of @天璇妈妈, here’s a foreigner picking up trash. “The Weibo post heated up discussions among netizens, racking up hundreds of likes on Weibo,” reports Sina. “Some bloggers said we should learn from the foreign man, even foreigners are help protecting our environment.”
Apologies for the snark in the lede; we actually should applaud this man, especially since this reportedly wasn’t the first time he’s been spotted doing yeoman’s work on Qingdao’s Badaxia shore.
“My friend was taking a stroll on the beach of Badaxia around mid-day yesterday when she saw the foreign man picking up plastic foams and bottles. She felt it was quite moving so she took a photo with her phone and asked me to post it online,” the Weibo blogger “天璇妈妈” told the local newspaper Qingdao Morning Post.
Reporters hustled to the beach but the man was gone.
“There was a blond man picking up rubbish here one hour ago,” said Mr. Zhang, who was fishing by shore. Zhang said the foreign man was about 1.8 meters tall wearing a black T-shirt and gray pants. The man was picking up plastic bottles, crashed wood blocks and plastic foams, things left by tide water, according to Mr. Zhang.
“The water just ebbed. And walking on the slope of the shore risked falling into the sea. The man had to use both his hands and feet to keep himself on the slope before he began to collect rubbish,” said Mr. Zhang. The foreign man left after half an hour he filled the bags he brought to carry the garbage.
If netizens ever discover this unknown foreigner speaks Mandarin, he’ll never go another evening without a date. Sign him up for the Spring Festival gala already!
Foreign man picks up trashes at Qingdao shore (Sina, h/t Alicia)
In China:
Chinese guy picking up trash = sanitation worker/plastic recycler/all-round low-life scum
White guy picks trash = second coming of the f&cking Christ
Chinese person in neon yellow vest with broom, dust pan and face mask = sanitation worker
Chinese person in normal clothes picking up bottles = frugal 大妈
Chinese person in normal clothes picking up TRASH, not bottles = madman
The uniform makes all the difference.
It’s a tenet of Confucianism that the high-society man be the one around which a moral society orients itself, “like stars around the north pole.” (Or something to that extent.) Still happens in China that when the privileged do good, they get praised. When they act badly, they get doubly hated on （仇富）. When “low-society” people do either, society is neither surprised nor impressed.
So yeah, what Joe said.
In America:
White guy picks trash = upright citizen
Chinese guy picking up trash = sanitation worker/plastic recycler/all-round low-life scum
You mean Mexican…
thanks for being nice to 洋鬼子