SHANGHAI - EBONY-SKINNED Chinese girl Lou Jing got a rude shock when her participation in a talent show sparked racist invectives on the Internet against her and her mother.
The attacks began after Ms Lou's mother revealed at a preliminary round of the national contest Let's Go! Oriental Angel early last month that her daughter was the result of an illicit affair she had with an African American man some 20 years ago.
Ms Lou's mother, who is a Shanghainese and known only as Madam Lou, said her Chinese husband divorced her when he found their newborn looked African instead of Chinese, the Chinese media reported.
After the affair, Madam Lou's lover returned to the United States. She said she did not hear from him again and brought up their daughter single-handedly.
Ms Lou, who was with her mother during the interview, said that despite her unhappy past, the person she loves and respects most is her mother.
Their story seems to have struck a nerve among many Chinese netizens. They expressed indignation that Madam Lou had committed adultery, 'an act all the more disgraceful as it was done with someone from another race'.
'She is from the concentration camp of shameless women reserved for foreigners,' said one hateful posting on Chinese Web portal kdnet.net.
On popular website tianya.com, a netizen named dunkez wrote that 'Ms Lou's mother obviously thought she could get out of China by flirting with a black man, but it turned out that she was left with nothing but a black kid'.
Another called both mother and daughter 'morons', saying the younger one had inherited the genes of vanity and felt no shame in publicising her background.
After weeks of silence, Ms Lou, who did not make it to the final 12 in the talent show, released a public statement last weekend saying she 'reserves all rights to sue anyone who insults the colour of her skin'.
Commenting on the issue, city blog Shanghaiist.com noted: 'Perhaps because of China's status as a mostly mono-cultural giant that is only just opening up to the world, the topic of racism in this country is always a landmine-infested war zone.'