Who could be an Oriental angel? Lou Jing, mixed heritage and the discourses of Chinese ethnicity

Lou Jing was born in Shanghai to a Chinese mother and an African American father. She never met her father as he left China before she was born, and so was brought up by her mother in a single-parent family. In 2009, Lou Jing entered the Shanghai Dragon TV’s talent show Go Oriental Angel! Lou’s skin colour engendered heated debates among netizens, which became polarized between comments of support and racist slurs against Lou and her mother. This study reveals how mixed heritage subverts the overlapping boundaries of gender, race and Chinese ethnicity, and online debates demonstrate the persistent influences of historical discourses and contemporary context in a rapidly globalizing China. The blogosphere has provided a forum for heated discussions of biopolitics, in which Chinese ethnic identity is continuously contested.