Lessons About China and Race from a Detergent Ad

Here’s an origin story that’s likely unfamiliar to Western theologians, but that I was told in kindergarten in the city of Chongqing. A long time ago, God decided to put intelligent creatures on Earth. How would he make them? Over a heavenly fire, naturally. But God was so eager to examine his creations that he removed them from the heat too hastily. The first batch was therefore undercooked, pale of color, and pasty of mien. He made a second batch and left it in longer, but was dismayed to find that he had overcompensated: the figures were burnt a dark brown, which was not at all what he had intended. God resolved to try a third and last time, having learned from the failed experiments of his first and second efforts. This time, the figures were colored honey-gold, neither blanched nor burnt. “Ah!” God cried in delight. “Perfection!” “This is how the Chinese were made,” our kindergarten teacher said.

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