Many Chinese people in the US were irritated by what Jimmy said, and organized protests against ABC in Los Angeles and some other cities. A few days later, Jimmy apologized to the protesters, holding his hands together and bowing to the people several times, which he believed was a sincere way to say sorry in Chinese culture. But that apology was not accepted by furious Chinese. On Nov 9th, sporadic protests turned into the biggest Chinese demonstrations in the US history, 27 cities saw massive street protests with posters picturing Jimmy as Hitler, and slogans such as "Killing is Not a Joke" and "Fire Jimmy Kimmel". Later ABC posted an official apology on its website, which however was not well accepted either.
I was in the hospital when the Kimmel Show was broadcasted, and didn't follow the Chinese communities' activities afterwards. But I've never seen Chinese people here paying so much attention to a comedy show, and becoming so enthusiastic in politics. Most people describe this as the start of civil rights movement for Chinese, but some also consider this as an unfortunate result of lacking humor and over reaction. A lot of debate was going on in Mitbbs.com, a very popular online forum for Chinese who are living/studying in the US. There was also a great discussion on which national flags that protesters should carry - the US or China, or both? (I will talk about this later.) But most comments there agreed that Chinese shouldn't be silent, and something must be done to show the ABC that racist jokes like this can not be allowed.
However opinions are very different back in China. I read some comments on Chinese online forums and social media. Chinese netizens responded very interestingly to the show and protests. Most of their opinions can fall into one of followings:
1) Look, the US is not as good as we thought, even their TV shows advocate genocide;
2) There is no point of protesting. It's your own choice of going to the US, and if you're not happy with that, why don't you just come back to China?
3) You deserve the mistreatment because you betray your home country;
4) Stop it, it's a joke, you're humiliating yourselves (and China). You're protesting only because you're allowed to do so, imagine what you would do if you were still in China;
5) Good job, you're fighting for your dignity.
6) None of my business.
To understand why Chinese people responded so differently, we first need to understand what "Chinese" means. There are three different groups of Chinese: (1) Chinese citizens who are living in China, here I will call them Native Chinese; (2) immigrants from China who are already US citizens, here I will call them Chinese Americans; and (3) new immigrants from China who are not US citizens yet but plan to stay in the US for a long time, here I will call them Overseas Chinese.
It's interesting that a show which talked about "killing all Chinese" irritated Chinese Americans and Overseas Chinese but didn't upset Native Chinese that much, despite that "Chinese" in the show obviously referred to Native Chinese. I think Chinese immigrants were less tolerant of the joke because the word "Chinese" itself also has racial meanings - many immigrants from China and their descendants may still identify themselves as "Chinese" even though they no longer hold Chinese citizenship. And this joke can be very harmful to them and their children if audience take the "Chinese" as a racial concept rather than a citizenship. While on contrary, Native Chinese don't care that much because they are so far away from the US, and public opinions on the other side of the Pacific can hardly affect their lives.
The debate on national flags was carried mainly between Chinese Americans and Overseas Chinese. New immigrants wanted to carry Chinese national flags because they believed the show was insulting China, but Chinese Americans did not view it as a diplomatic issue (China v.s. US), but a civil rights movement (Chinese v.s. other races). After a few discussion, they agreed not to have Chinese national flags during the protests, and stayed with the idea that the ABC was advocating genocide rather than provoking Beijing. Chinese Foreign Ministry also kept silent about the event as they always do.
Jimmy might want to tease a country in the show, but he (or the kid at the table) used the wrong word. You do not want mess up with racial issues in the US, and the word "Chinese" is one of them. I 'm proud of what Chinese protesters did after the show was broadcasted. They might not have every step well planned and organized, but at least they made a great start for Chinese communities' impact on the American society.
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