ABSTRACT
Shortly after my arrival in Hong Kong in 1991, I went into a local supermarket to buy some supplies. I was dumbstruck when I rounded a corridor to encounter a shelf with a prominent display of "Darkie" toothpaste. The Darkie toothpaste tube had a picture of a very Black-faced man starkly contrasted against his huge, wide, red grinning lips to show his very white teeth. I stood for a few minutes staring at the display. 2 People came and went but no one appeared to be bothered by this. I felt that I was the only person who was upset and I wondered to what kind of country I had come. I was to find out in very intimate ways over the next 12 years.
