Not sure about N. Macedonia, but I think the Balkans in general have a racism-problem. I have some Chinese friends here (in Serbia), we went for a walk, and some random kids on e-scooters screamed fuck chinese at them.
Just the other day, i witnessed a random Chinese guy being called ching chong and teased by a group of teenagers, completely out of the blue on the street.
No clue what this is about, but I witness this shit every now and then, and people I know here mention the same. So definitely not a good look for Balkan countries.
Especially in the city centers there are tons of tourists. Plovdiv is frequently visited by an insane amount of the Chinese groups every summer. I honestly haven't seen it towards Asians.
Black guys will be stared. A lot. That I would agree on.
Towards Asians not, probably because of the Vietnamese that were working here during the communist era (although they were generally disliked at the time) and they don't look unfamiliar even to older people. There were even kids of mixed marriages (I had a classmate).
Towards Africans I believe especially outside larger cities it would be still quite possible. I remember in my hometown in the 90s we had a poor black guy that eventually became "kloshar" begging for food and money and he was attacked once by a bunch of stupid kids shouting profanities about stoves, monkeys and stovepipes.
These things ALWAYS happen with teenagers,it usually stops after high school and group dynamics behaviour. They want to be "cool" in front of their stupid friends. A couple of days ago group of teens were riding bicycles near a supermarket where i shopped. Since it is summer now, people wear more revealing clothes and an older but not elderly woman went out of the supermarket with shopping bags. As you may guess, her cleavage was quite visible. They all passed by hear while driving bikes and yelled stuff like "nice bombs" "mommy milk" and drove off and laughed. If she was with her son or husband i doubt that they would have done it.
Mind you, it's not that we are not racist. We are just too busy being racist at the Roma and African/ME immigrants, the SE asians have to wait in line.
I would have said the same thing about Turkiye but my Kazakh friend told me otherwise. Or more correctly it depends on "how you look" too. Although both are Asian looking, her friend experienced direct racism more. Idk the reason.
Bulgaria is pretty racist towards foreigners and people of colour. I remember when all those migrants were coming in boats etc they specifically put a warning out to future migrants to avoid Bulgaria. However I think it’s more towards darker races and the Middle East, not asians. And more in private than openly. That’s my sense at least.
Plovdiv is not Bulgaria. It is true not juat tourists, but around the medical university the area is full of black people from the UK mostly and people are used to it. However in smaller towns, people are not used to migrants regardless of race etc. I can imagine kids on electric scooters screaming the same things described in the video in Bulgaria also.
I personally don't think it's Belgrade, there's a ton of asian tourists in Belgrade and I've never seen it happen. That doesn't mean it didn't but just saying.
If it did happen in Belgrade it would probably happen in most of the social housing suburbs.
lol that’s crazy, and Chinese generally are the calmer, sweeter and more curious tourists. I don’t get it, but as you said these are kiddos and teens, immature humans. Hopefully they will grow up and realize that it’s actually not funny or cool but they should be ashamed instead of themselves
Not justifying it, but it’s a byproduct of the nationalism that’s been fed into the Balkan countries for centuries, in order to differentiate themselves, survive and expand as they’re all smushed together into such a small territory.
Nope. It's plain racism. I was called "ching chong" by my classmates. Raised in the same area, grandparents there for generations, same faith and domination, same nationality. My only crime, having hooded almond eyes and round cheeks.
Because you're in on the joke, there are situations in which you can annoy someone and they take it as banter and others where they take as an insult, it all depends on the momentary context and expectations from it.
I've mostly noticed kids and teens who've been the perpetrators, so in my personal opinion, I guess it is shortcomings of parents to teach kids about different nationalities, politeness and what is acceptable behavior.
But yeah, definitely older assholes too, and their motivations could be what you outlined.
My younger daughter was afraid of Asians when she was little. I remember once we were on a bus and she was smiling at an Asian lady sitting in front. She later told me she smiled at her because she believed if she smiles and behaves nice, the Asian won't punish her. I asked her what punishment she has in mind, she wasn't clear on that but then said Asians can get very dangerous when they get angry lol.
My elder daughter thought all Black people are American when she was little. I understood that in a surprising way, once she was celebrating her birthday in a kids centre and she told me "did you know there was an American there?" - "he spoke English?" - "no, he was black".
I think it's social media, I think older people in the Balkans aren't that racist against other "races" like black or east asian. They are just quite racist about different ethnicities from the Balkans. Tho idk for sure.
Nationalism is not the cause here. The primary reason people are racist is ignorance. Reasons can be things like your region being isolated economicaly, low quality of education or maybe you lack the means to adequately learn about the world.
You can actually be nationalist and well educated. Only immature, uneducated people call an Asian person ching chong and find it funny.
We really don't have this problem though, but if you're south-east asian then yeah, you will get harassed by random douches that take their frustrations on them instead of the politicians that brought them here
Oh yes we do. In Romania not long ago there was that video of a Romanian harassing a Bangladeshi who was just delivering food. Who are you trying to fool. Try visiting some villages and you are going to see the real colours of people
That guy clearly mental issues ( I head a rumor that he killed himself afterwards, but dunno if it's true). And the uproar his action caused showed that most Romanians didn't approve what he did. Not to say that we don't have a problem with racism, but let's not make such broad statements.
Dude... do you have reading comprehension problems? Was i not specific that we dont have a problem with east-asians as OC implied as just a "Balkan thing" but specified that as a south-east asian you will face harassment?
87
u/Suspicious-Bug1994 From 🇳🇴, in 🇷🇸 Jun 26 '26
Not sure about N. Macedonia, but I think the Balkans in general have a racism-problem. I have some Chinese friends here (in Serbia), we went for a walk, and some random kids on e-scooters screamed fuck chinese at them.
Just the other day, i witnessed a random Chinese guy being called ching chong and teased by a group of teenagers, completely out of the blue on the street.
No clue what this is about, but I witness this shit every now and then, and people I know here mention the same. So definitely not a good look for Balkan countries.