http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/asia/china-henan-stereotypes-lawsuit-discrimination.html 2016-10-11 10:41:26 Henan Province, a Butt of Jokes in China, Gets a Champion in Court After an aspiring TV celebrity ridiculed the province, a science journalist from the region resolved to sue for damages to his reputation as a resident there. === BEIJING — Henan has a P.R. problem, but Jing Changshui has an answer. He’s suing. A province of 100 million on the flat, brown expanse of central China, Henan suffers from a blighted reputation. It is not the prettiest part of China, to be sure. But much worse, some people from other parts of China treat residents there with a disdain and mistrust that approaches racism. If you believe the slurs, Henan is crammed with thieves, ruffians, grifters and con artists. After a recent round of mockery of Henan from an aspiring television celebrity, Mr. Jing, a science journalist from the province, decided he had had enough. He “As a Henanese, I’m duty bound to defend the image of Henan,” Mr. Jing said in a telephone interview. “He’s been insulting Henanese for a long time.” A court in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, has accepted the case. But Mr. Jing knows that even if he wins the damages he has demanded — 1,000 renminbi, or about $150 — it will not go far in scrubbing the offensive stereotypes. “Henan has so many people, and a lot go out to do migrant labor on low-end jobs,” Mr. Jing said. “All it takes is for a one or two of them to do something bad, and then many people make a hullabaloo that Henan has a rotten image.” The name Henan means “south of the river,” after the Yellow River, which cuts across the province’s northern reaches. It prides itself on being the birthplace of the early dynasties that make it the “cradle of Chinese civilization.” But it is crowded, heavily rural and not as polished as coastal regions. The rough charms of the province are not for all travelers. Its people also face discrimination. Migrant workers from Henan have complained about being A decade ago, the police in one district of Shenzhen, in southern China, When AIDS spread across Henan through the illegal blood trade in the late 1990s, rumors spread that vengeful victims had For years, residents have tried to But the mockery has continued. Mr. Jing said he decided to do something after Hu Wei, the aspiring television celebrity, unleashed the latest of a succession of slurs on Weibo, a popular Chinese microblog service. Mr. Hu Critics have suggested that Mr. Jing might have trouble proving he has the standing to sue against such a broad slur. But Mr. Jing said the court in Zhengzhou had Mr. Jing said that Mr. Hu, who has appeared on TV contest shows, appears to have gone into hiding and has not responded to phone calls and messages about the case. The court has not set a date for a hearing, but Mr. Jing said he hoped the case would make a point, even if the judge awards only token damages and orders Mr. Hu to apologize. Calls to Mr. Hu’s phone were not answered. There is one catch: Mr. Jing is not a born-and-bred Henanese. He was born in Shandong Province, on the eastern coast. But Mr. Jing, 46, said he had made Henan his home since 1992 and was unfazed by that association. “I’m also Henanese now, a first-generation migrant,” Mr. Jing said. “The hospitality and acceptance you find in Henan has changed my personality, made me less irritable.”