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Apple's online photo of an employee has netizens up in arms over claims that the person was chosen to mock China.
The complaints swept Weibo on Sunday, hitting 180 million views and reaching the top of the platform's hot topic list.
The anger was directed mainly at the braided hair and facial features of an Apple Watch tech support employee.Online users accused Apple of featuring the employee to perpetuate Western stereotypes of a Chinese person, saying their braid resembled a traditional Chinese pigtail.Chinese people often object to depictions of "Fu Manchu," a villain in early 20th-century Western media. He is often represented as an East Asian man with a pigtail, drooping whiskers, and narrow eyes, and local media has blasted his appearance as deeply racist."I don't know if it's because people at Apple are so stupid and watch American movies that deliberately demean China and depict Chinese villains with pigtails, and then think this is the image of a Chinese person," one blogger wrote.One poll by Pear Video, a Shanghai-based media company, asked viewers if they felt "uncomfortable" after seeing the employee's photo.As of Tuesday, at least 123,000 voted in agreement, while 58,000 indicated that they felt nothing was wrong with the photo.Much of the online rage seems to stem from the misconception that the employee's photo is featured only on Apple's website for China.However, it was revealed that the employee in question works in California — not in a store in China. Moreover, the employee is not even Chinese but Native American.Han Peng, a US correspondent for CGTN, also wrote that the employee is Native American — not Chinese."An Apple employee's photo has caused a wave of online nationalism in China over the weekend. Netizens accuse Apple of discrimination for posting an allegedly "ugly" Asian employee's photo on its Chinese website." Wrote a user on X.The same employee's photo was also found on Apple's web pages for the US, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, according to multiple Weibo bloggers.When reporters checked Apple's store home page for various locations on Tuesday, the photo of the employee was no longer shown, though it's unclear if the image was replaced or was one of several photos cycled through by the website.Still, some on Weibo continued to defend the complaints. "I don't think there's a big problem with Chinese people's reaction," one wrote blogger."Apple probably didn't mean to insult China, but it just shows that it doesn't care about Chinese people's taboos."Hu Xijin, a popular columnist, called for calm and urged online users to wait for Apple to clear the air."On one hand, we must safeguard our nation's dignity and fight back against obvious malicious provocations; on the other hand, we shouldn't indulge in our own sensitivity," he wrote.But he also issued a warning to American companies, saying they should be "more careful and cautious" and to avoid "pictures and texts that may cause misunderstandings among Chinese people."
*The opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author.* Follow Us
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