Hey, strayenglishman. Thanks for your commenting and expressing your feelings. It's always nice to hear experiences from others. I totally understand your situation.
I was accompanying my Belgian friends to travel to China and got many stares and requests of taking pictures together with my friends. Even me can feel annoying. I had many expat back home before but yes now I can feel their anger a bit more after living abroad. But I'm not one of expats in China so I could never imagine how many this sort of situations ever happened to you.
I understand your mixed feeling with China. I'm a victim of racism myself. Regarding the ones ( Asian princess fantasies/yellow fever), nuh, most of those who shout Nihao to me were more of either teenagers or lower educated ones.
Thanks for mentioning the effort of us learning English, it was not easy if you are familiar with China's English education. I'm doing my studies mainly in Dutch though.
Have a good day!