In a country that tends to prize lily-white skin, a new Harvard study that claims black women are twice as likely as white women to have the genes that prevent skin from appearing aged is drawing debate online.
Weibo’s page dedicated to the topic, entitled ‘People with black skin age slower,’ has garnered over 12 million views and 20,000 comments.
A particularly popular post from Shengming Shibao (Life Times) reads: “Lots of people think white is beautiful, but today, dark skin is making a comeback. […] There might well be plenty of beautiful dark-skinned people around us, bravely tan yourself to healthy, youthful skin!”
Attached to the post is a gallery of glamorous celebs, some black (Rhianna, Beyonce), some particularly tanned Chinese (Jike Juan Yi, Zhang Hanyu).
The BBC quotes one Chinese netizen who said: "I am black and I'm proud."
Rachel Dolezal, is that you?
But before you start thinking that maybe anti-black sentiment has died down in the Middle Kingdom, it's important to note that the Chinese word for black (黑, hēi) means 'dark' or 'tanned' when paired with the word for skin (皮肤, pífū).
Although there are comments pointing out that “hēi rén [black people] and hēi pífū [dark skin] are two separate things,” it seems that a rather crucial feature of the study － which only compared women of African descent with Caucasian women － was lost in translation.
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