N-word products in China are commonplace

Branford Marsalis has a song called "Dance of the Hei Gui" on his record entitled, I Heard You Twice the First Time. Scrolling the Internet, no one asked the question, what exactly is a Hei Gui?

Let me explain with a basic Chinese lesson.

Hei or 黑 means: black. Gui or 鬼means: ghost. If you put them together, they translate into the n-word.

Slideshow: Black 'Sambo' stereotypes in China

Why is this important? Well in this case, Marsalis is surely being ironic and using foreign racial epithets to make an artistic statement. The music was solid, but the title flew over most people's heads.

In the 1920's the company Hawley & Hazel Chemical Co. from Hong Kong developed a toothpaste called "Darkie," with a logo of a man in blackface with gleaming white teeth. Upon the company's acquisition by Colgate-Palmolive in the 1980s its logo changed to a race-neutral top-hatted man, and was renamed "Darlie."

The problem, as people noted at the time, was that changing the English name simply absolved westerners of having to see a racial slur on a piece of consumer packaging. In Chinese though, the name stayed the same: "black man's toothpaste."

Why the name wasn't changed in the Chinese version is a good question, considering maintaining such a name only serves to reinforce racial stereotypes. Today, I can go into a shop here in Beijing and buy "Black Man" and "Black Sister" toothpastes.

Recently, I was doing some research into the n-word here in China, and found some startling stuff.