Scans_Daily

"You're from Tibet? You must be so spiritual!"

For example to exploit this, and to dodge racism, in the 1960s, some African American performers pretended to be of any other nationality, like Korla Pandit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korla_Pandit).

Fun Fact that ties into the whole tangle of Magical Other and Mighty Whitey tropes: Pandit’s “Trance Dance”(1) served as the theme song for the radio show Chandu the Magician, whose (white) titular hero studied the Mystic Arts under Mysterious Masters in the Mysterious East, as one did; see also the Shadow, the Green Lama, and Doctor Strange (Chandu served as a lot of Ditko’s inspiration for the character.)

Pandit’s 1948-1951 TV show, Korla Pandit's Adventures In Music, was television’s first all-music program, with an avid female viewership; Liberace’s career was launched when the network Powers That Be decided that a white pretty-boy keyboard player would be even better.

(1) With bonus male exotic dancer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW-Gb-JYFJE