At around 7:30 a.m. on Nonsensical Thursday, Karl Donauer will put on a golden robe, put a golden hat on his head with pearls dangling from it, and paint a long line on his eyelids with black kajal so that his eyes appear a little more pointed. Thousands will acclaim him and his wife as the Chinese imperial couple. They will wear yellow robes with black characters, eat Chinese donuts and Chinese pretzels, maybe even with chopsticks. And have great fun. And then there will be those who don’t laugh, but post on Twitter about racism and dangerous stereotypes, and it will start again: the debate about the Dietfurt “Chinese carnival”.
It’s been almost a hundred years since a carnival band in Dietfurt decided to dress up as Chinese. Up to 20,000 fake Chinese are now celebrating Nonsensical Thursday. What began with fun in a small town in Upper Palatinate has become a public spectacle that is openly discussed. To put it simply, the front runs between people who are familiar with gender asterisks and those who call all of this overly sensitive. But it also runs between a minority and the majority society. The two camps rarely sit at a table. Time to try an argumentative approach.
On the one hand there are the people of Dietfurt. The “Chinese carnival”, “you pull it up with your mother’s breast”, says Mayor Bernd Mayr (FW). He always has to laugh. Why did they keep yelling “Kille Wau”? “It doesn’t make any sense!” It’s just funny. Or their first emperor in 1954 “Ma-Ler-Gie”, was – drum roll – a painter! But actually the topic is serious. He’s talking about the woman on Tiktok who accused them of racism and, thanks to the Bild newspaper, once again made the headlines. Then he got an email saying he had to be put up against the wall. “That’s crazy.”
Most critics don’t even know where their carnival comes from. According to legend, they called themselves Chinese ever since a chamberlain to the Prince Bishop of Eichstätt complained that the people of Dietfurt didn’t pay any taxes and were hiding behind their wall like the Chinese. In 1928, a carnival band put on straw hats. Being from Dietfurt means, for Mayr, being Chinese at carnival, and then he accuses his critics of what they accuse him of: wanting to take away the identity of the people of Dietfurt. The Chinese Consul General is a guest and thinks their carnival is good, they are organizing a cultural exchange with China, how one can talk about devaluation is a mystery to him. They’ve been talking for a while now, and Mayr thinks that’s “crazy,” too. Children are no longer allowed to dress up as Indians, and Dietfurt residents as Chinese: “Don’t we have any other problems?” And – at the risk of “being put through the shredder” – he says something else: if someone paints their face yellow, then personally, they don’t think it’s that bad.
This might be a good moment to introduce Kien Nghi Ha, political scientist and activist from the korientation association, which works against anti-Asian racism. At least if you are interested in the greatest possible noise. But it is more appropriate to let Karl Donauer, this year’s Dietfurt Emperor, have his say.
Regina and Karl Donauer appear this year as the imperial couple DiMucki and DaKaRe. According to his own statement, Donauer dealt intensively with Chinese dynasties.
(Photo: Michael Müller)
To find the right costume, he spent a long time in the city library studying Chinese dynasties. The golden cap and the collar shape are all references to history. He has several friends in China and has been there several times himself, all connections that came about through cultural exchange. He’s already thought about it. He didn’t want to give himself a real Chinese name for fear of pronouncing it wrong. That would be an insult to a Chinese, wouldn’t it? He asked his Chinese friends what works and what doesn’t. Not straw hats and yellow faces, they said. He doesn’t anymore. “What we don’t want is to discriminate against or ridicule anyone,” says Donauer. Just saying it’s not meant that way, doesn’t help. If it hurts someone, then change that.
Sounds kind of forgiving and like a possible solution. Or not? Kien Nghi Ha doesn’t want to deny the people of Dietfurt that they seriously believe in upgrading Chinese culture. What really comes out of it, however, is still “highly problematic”. Faces painted yellow, eyes narrowed with make-up, a troop that calls itself “the yellow ants”. Ha thinks it’s strange having to explain what could be derogatory about that, he tries it: Many are old stereotypes that Asian-looking people still have to struggle with today. The Chinese are portrayed as a homogeneous mass of industrious workers, like ants, who are denied an emotional life. The pointed straw hats came from the colonial period, including the German ones, by the way, from 1898 to 1914 the empire ruled a Chinese province. And yellow-facing was done in Hollywood when Asian actors were barred from playing Asian roles, yellow-faced white people did.
No Nghi Ha is against the Chinese carnival. He is a cultural scientist and researches German-Asian relations.
(Photo: private)
What are typical characteristics of the Chinese for some are symbols of their discrimination for many Chinese. And what sounds funny to some – a Dietfurt group is called “Ching Chang Chung” – is a corruption of their language for others. Ha speaks of “exoticizing racism”, i.e. a racism that does not openly devalue, but “only serves the consumption and amusement of white people”. Can it then even exist, the politically correct “Chinese carnival”? No, says Kien Nghi Ha. No matter how authentic the costumes are, it stays the same: “What Chinese is is not defined by the Chinese, but by the people of Dietfurt.” The Nonsensical Thursday is nonsensical by definition, how to succeed in not making ridicule of Chinese culture, he lacks the imagination.
Time for a neutral moderator’s words: Lars Distelhorst, professor of social science and author of a book on cultural appropriation. The “Chinese carnival” is all about respect. Many costumes and names are borderline. He doesn’t accept the argument that the Chinese dress up as Bavarians at the Oktoberfest. Or would Bavarians be discriminated against if they wore lederhosen? The vulnerability of the 1.1 million people with an Asian background in Germany is indeed increased if they are made fun of. He is critical of the fact that carnival is always such a public uproar, which is probably the only point on which he and the mayor of Dietfurt agree. Asian-read people find it harder to find an apartment or a job. The media should report more on structural racism and less on carnival.
But there is one thing you want to hear at the end. And by a man who is considered the only real Chinese from Dietfurt: Kam Wing Yuen. He serves dim sums in the sports restaurant and experiences year after year how the people of Dietfurt pretend to be like him. Terrible? “Wonderful,” he says. The “Chinese carnival” is a tradition, not a joke. And what about Ching Chang Chung? Yuen thinks. On Nonsensical Thursday, there was “a lot of alcohol in the head”. That’s okay. On any other day, however, be it: an insult.