image source,YouTube
Huang Wanhua, 32 years old this year, plays the role of a domestic Filipino maid in the TVB TV series “Golden Night Mansion 2”.
In the TVB TVB drama “Golden Night Mansion 2”, actress Franchesca Wong plays a Filipino domestic helper in Hong Kong. She paints her body and face brown and imitates English and Filipino with a self-proclaimed Filipino accent. The matter has sparked heated debate in Hong Kong media circles.
The discussion stemmed from a tweet on Wednesday (April 13) by Jerome Taylor, director of AFP’s Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan bureau. In a tweet he retweeted, he questioned the show’s handling of the issue of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, and the topic quickly spread in public opinion circles. So far, the actress has not issued a statement, but TVB has stated that it will remove the show first, and then broadcast the series after it has been deleted.
Born in a Filipino-Chinese family, fellow actress Sabrina Man told the BBC Chinese that painting her face and body brown was racist because it was originally used to mock people of colour.
“The Filipino community in Hong Kong is large, we are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, and the TV series could have hired legal Filipinos…and the character further perpetuates stereotypes about foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong, including ‘stupid’ and ‘ Submissive’ personality,” she criticized.
TVB subsequently issued a statement saying that the characters in the play are purely fictitious, and the actors are professionally skilled and successfully portrayed the characters. The play has no intention of discriminating against any nationality, and the TV station also apologizes to anyone who may be affected. According to reports, the show will be taken off the shelves and the relevant plots will be deleted. So far, Huang Wanhua has not responded to this, but some people have praised her acting skills are wonderful and beautiful, very good.
2017 is the 50th anniversary of TVB’s establishment. This TV station has witnessed the love between Chinese audiences and Hong Kong-made dramas for nearly half a century.
Racism or superb acting?
Huang Wanhua, 32, moved to Hong Kong not long after she was born in Canada. Studied elementary and middle school in Hong Kong, then returned to Canada to study, then went to Hong Kong to work in marketing, and then turned into an actor, gradually emerging in the stage. In this black comedy, she played a Hong Kong worker “sister” (Hong Kong’s nickname for Filipino servants) Lulu, with an eccentric personality and a mysterious background, causing the neighbors to pay attention to whether she would use “Nanyang sorcery”, and then the employer’s heart Suspicious and a string of fantasy plots.
In past interviews with Hong Kong media, Huang Wanhua said that for this drama, she worked hard to learn Filipino, worked hard in “tone”, and asked her Filipino workers for advice. She also said with a smile that she “has dark skin and was mistaken for her sister to be accustomed to”, and this time playing a foreign domestic helper is a “perfect combination”. The Hong Kong media “Oriental Xindi” praised her for her excellent performance and attracted many new fans.
Filipinos in Hong Kong are dissatisfied
image source,BBC Chinese
According to a statistical study by Hong Kong immigration support group Enrich, the economic activity of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong accounts for 3.6% of Hong Kong’s GDP, which is almost equal to the proportion of tourism.
Despite the support, Eni Lestari, president of the International Migrants Alliance in Hong Kong, told AFP that the show’s characters showed little respect for the often discriminated group of domestic workers.
After the incident attracted criticism, a large number of Filipino netizens took to Huang Wanhua’s social media to criticize her for being politically incorrect. Moreover, the English name of the show “Barrack O’Karma” is close to the name of former US President Barack Obama, and it has also been questioned for targeting people of color.
Joey Cia, a Filipino-Chinese Hong Konger in his early 20s who was raised in Hong Kong and currently holds a teaching position, told the BBC that his family has been in Hong Kong for three generations, “In Hong Kong today, we feel more and more discrimination. “
Joseph Tse, who comes from a Filipino-Chinese family, said that many people with similar backgrounds speak fluent Cantonese or other Chinese dialects (such as Hokkien), but they are still discriminated against in Hong Kong, not to mention disadvantaged Filipino domestic helpers. . He said that in this play, in addition to hiring Chinese actors with dual backgrounds from Canada and Hong Kong to paint their faces brown (Brown facing), the characters are also very rigid and even eccentric, using Filipino witchcraft, the background is mysterious, and will change back at the end of the plot.” Chinese” and other settings have deepened the impression of the Filipinos’ marginal position in Hong Kong.
image source,Getty Images
Filipino workers march on the streets of Hong Kong for their rights (file photo).
Another teacher who has been in Hong Kong for many years, Nathalie Blanco, also explained to the BBC that in this TVB incident, the problem is not only that it is discriminatory to paint your skin color deeply, but also how mainstream TV stations and even Hong Kong society continue to discredit Filipinos. Treat all Filipinos in Hong Kong with stereotypes.
She said that she is fair-skinned like many Filipinos, so she would be considered Chinese in Hong Kong if she did not speak up. But her husband, who works as an IT engineer, is dark-skinned and often encounters a lot of troubles: “My husband has several experiences of being stopped by police officers on the street or in supermarkets, but as long as we walk together, we have never been stopped and checked. “He was asked many times when he was paying with his credit card, why do you have this card? Or he said he was an engineer or no one believed him, they all thought he was a takeaway driver.”
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Natalie also told reporters that it is not easy for their husband and wife to rent a house in Hong Kong: “We always hit a wall when we rent a house. But finally a landlord is willing to rent with us. Her reason is that although she is from the Philippines, she is relatively elite. I was very sad, as if in her mind Filipinos equaled negative people.”
In the past few years, similar discussions have emerged one after another in Chinese society. In 2018, in the Chinese CCTV Spring Festival Gala program, the actor painted his face black and put on fake buttocks to perform “Black Aunt”, but the African-American actor who shared the stage with him played the monkey, causing a racial discrimination controversy. The performance broadcast in the 2021 Spring Festival Gala once again featured actors “painting black faces” to perform African people, which once again caused a lot of discussion. Taiwanese TV circles have long been in the variety show circle, and they also like to exaggerate the accent of aboriginal people, or play the Minnan ethnic group who are not fluent in “Mandarin” in TV dramas with exaggerated accents, which often causes controversy.