"I am black and not smart"... Chinese man paid African children 600 won to sing

Issues of Racism and Child Exploitation

Photo by YouTube capture

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] A Chinese person's act of giving African children about 600 won and making them sing a self-deprecating Chinese song has been revealed, sparking delayed controversy.

On the 17th (local time), according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) and others, the Malawi police recently launched an investigation into a video filmed in 2020 in the Enjewa area of Lilongwe, Malawi.

In the video, local Malawian children are dressed in red clothes reminiscent of traditional Chinese attire, singing and dancing in front of a blackboard with the words "我是黑鬼 智商低 (W? sh? h?igu? zh?sh?ng d?)" written on it. The Chinese phrase means "I am a black devil, low intelligence."

The video was revealed to have been filmed in 2020 by a Chinese person who gave the children 50 cents (about 600 won) to sing. The children, unaware of the meaning, sang the song in awkward Chinese while shaking their hands up and down as they danced.

Nancy Tembo, Malawi's Minister of Foreign Affairs, raised her voice, saying, "We feel disgusted, insulted, and deeply pained," and "People insulting us made us feel offended."

Regarding this, the police who started the investigation said, "There are also issues of child exploitation raised in the video, so we are conducting additional investigations," and "There are so many problems with the video that we will investigate the places where crimes are believed to have occurred based on the content."

Wu Peng, Director of the African Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visited Malawi on the 14th and said, "I shared the opinion with the Malawi Foreign Minister that racial discrimination will not be tolerated," and "China has been cracking down on such illegal online activities over the past few years and will continue to crack down on such racist videos."

The Chinese Embassy in Malawi also stated, "We strongly condemn racial discrimination in any form," and "We will cooperate with Malawi to ensure this issue is properly resolved."

However, orders for producing such videos are still actively being made within China. In fact, on a Chinese online shopping site, there is an ongoing listing titled "We create customized videos with various African children and black men holding placards." Prices range from $450 (about 580,000 won) to $950 (about 1,220,000 won).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.