By INDERIA SAUNDERS, Guardian Staff Reporter

Inderia@nasguard.com

XI TANG, China – The locals stared as the woman with the cocoa-colored skin sauntering down the street, smiling and waving at each one of them as they gaze at her in amazement.

The children, unaware of their actions, run up close to her, touching and smelling and laughing, as if they are wondering if she will also taste like the dark chocolate her skin so strikingly resembles. But, with her head held high and an unworried look on her face, she continued on her way, as if this was just another day of being a black person in the People's Republic of China.

"They look at me and I look right back at them, they take a picture of me and I take one of them," said Anisa Abdilahi, the Miss Somalia representative in the 2007 Miss Tourism Queen International Beauty Pageant taking place in China this month. Despite the fact that China is considered an emerging superpower with some of the world's cutting-edge technology being made in the country, China, in some ways, is still far behind the rest of the world.

Judging by the oriental features of "Colonel Sanders" on a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant's wall in Shanghai, many Chinese people have not been exposed to people of other races and ethnicities.

And if their reactions to Abdilahi was anything to go on, they are truly amazed by the existence of people with different skin complexions, eye colors and curly or colored hair.

"You see China has been closed off for many, many years [and] they have just opened the door to the world around 20 years ago," said Sean Chia, one of the organizers of the pageant. "It's not discrimination or whatever, they just have never seen a white, they have never seen a black, they have never seen a blue-eyed girl and so they find that strange."

"If you have never seen yellow-skinned people you will find that a bit strange."

In 1989, after students and others activists protested against the communist Chinese government and demanded more rights and freedom of expression in the infamous Tiananmen Square, China was condemned worldwide and sanctions were brought against its government.

Because of this, and the many reports of substandard and inhumane conditions during that time, many people may have developed negative impressions of the country, contributing to a reluctance in many people to visit.

"Some westerners have given a negative image of China, but it's not so terrible as it seems," Chia said. "Other countries are still very strange to China, they are very [secluded], so that's why China has brought Miss Tourism here to try promote their tourism and try to bring more foreigners here to China and know them more [and] understand their culture so they will they will be understood more in the future."

Although it may seem odd at first to be stared at, one can easily recognize that the interest Chinese have expressed is not necessarily a negative one and that many Chinese people are indeed quite friendly and accepting.

It's noticeable in the way that some of them try to say "Hi" in English, in an effort to put one at ease.

And like Abdilahi, you love and relish the attention, smiling and posing with the locals as they snap a picture of you to keep in their albums, and you walk away with the best part of the deal: An experience of a lifetime.