Prejudice in the Open
The first time that the narrator ever sees a Chinese person other than her mother and notices how distinctly different in appearance they seem, she asks her brother if that is what they are like as well. A young boy who has been following them jumps in to provider the answer:
“Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman, yellow-face, pig-tail, rat-eater.”
It is just another layer of brick in the wall of ignorance and racism that the young girl has already been exposed to among the British.
A Job Well Done
In addition to an education courtesy of random children of the damned, growing up among the British has been a continual education for the young girl. Fortunately, being raised amongst her paternal culture has saved her from the damage which might have done under the opposite conditions:
“I am only six years of age, but have attended a private school for over a year, and have already learned that China is a heathen country, being civilized by England.”
Civilized Parenting
As mentioned, the narrator’s mother is Chinese and her father is England. Her father, raised to face the world with a "civilized nature," deals with the responsibilities of parenthood in likewise manner:
“peace is his motto, and he deems it wisest to be blind and deaf to many things.”
The Midwestern Christian
The British, turns out, do not hold the deed on the monopoly over racist ignorance toward the Chinese. Much later, the narrator gains employment as a stenographer and gets an up close view of Chinese racism Midwest-style:
“I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that the Chinese are humans like ourselves. They may have immortal souls, but their faces seem to be so utterly devoid of expression that I cannot help but doubt.”
For the Bible Tells Us So
Some time after actually receiving a noble and heartfelt apology from the man from the Midwest (proving to her that he actually did possess a good Christian heart) when she finally confesses to being Chinese, the narrator winds up in a tropical paradise, populated by peoples of all colors. Those colors, however, determine who is enjoying the paradise and who is employed in the paradise. She is moved to ponder the Biblical origin of much of the world’s pervasive racism:
“The environment is peculiar, for I am also surrounded by a race of people, the reputed descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, whose offspring, it was prophesied, should be the servants of the songs of Shem and Japheth.”
