THE MANY FACES OF FU MANCHU:WHITE EXPATRIATE COMMUNITY IN TAIWANAND THE GENEALOGY OF A RACISTSTEREOTYPE

Abstract

This study is the product of a four-year-long fieldwork in Taiwan. During that time,I examined the racist stereotypes of white, western people living in Taiwan on thenatives. I compared the data I gathered from the field work with the Chinese stereotypethat is prevalent in the popular culture. The results show the importance ofracist generalization in white westerners’ self-perception. The character called FuManchu, which emerges in various different media since 1913, appears to be animportant means in measuring these changing perceptions.Fu Manchu’s fear factor is formed after the character’s way of expressing its sexualitywhen it was first created. In the western world after the “sexual revolution” in60s, Fu Manchu is depicted scary because of the repression of its own sexuality.This research associates the philosophical causes of this change with the contradictionsin Freud’s corpus. It also shows the importance of gender roles in the formationof whiteness.The white mob describes their opposite Chinese, and therefore Fu Manchu, deviantwhen they want to perceive themselves as sexually purified, chaste and virgin. Lateron, when they want to create themselves from scratch as individuals who liberatedtheir sexuality, Fu Manchu is once more devised as a symbol of malignancy whorepresses its sexuality. The fieldwork during the research shows how this fluctuationappears in the daily lives of whites living in Taiwan.