Back in Business!

I am pleased to announce that Ask the Chinese Guy is back in business! Though it won't be a Chinese Guy. A new colleague of mine has volunteered to take your questions. She is a Chinese American who has been to China and lived there for months at a time. She has generously offered to take the place of TCG.

She will be attributed by the pseudonym: Yang

Though she will be answering the majority of the questions, I will still do 100% of the posting, as a convenience to her.

So lets get things going again! Send your questions here!

Take note that this is a new email address, if you sent a question to the old TCG email and never received a response, please do not hesitate to resend it to this new address.

Three questions

1.Why do Chinese people respect fish so much

It's like the number eight, in many dialects fish is very very close sounding to plentiful or abundance and thus is lucky. I don't know about fish much but apparently carp like fish of which gold fish are I think related are admired because I remember hearing about some sort of legend about how Carp like fish are like Salmon. It swims against the strong current and thus gives a middle finger (figuratively) to the crowd. But this is also not universally applied either.



(Cantonese tourists in Taiwan apparently)

2.Whats with Chinese people and plants why do they care so much about them

I have direct experience of this, when my dad buggers off somewhere he asks me to water his plants. This takes a long time because he simply has so many of them. He likes roses, peonies and money plants as well as Yukka. My understanding is that it is two fold for luck (which is why a lot of Chinese people have enormous money trees)


These things (Jade plants) not money money trees
This is not universal however! As the CCP pretty much ravaged the country in the 1960s. Whereby they thought they would deforest hills and mountains to plant vegetables on them. Then they got landslides and landslips and villages getting buried by mud slides and then planted them back. In modern day China tree surgeons are extremely brutal. While the tree surgeon climbs around my dad's cherry tree carefully cutting bits off in HK the tree surgeons pretty much chop all the branches off then skin it of bark and leave it to die. Though there are exceptions like the Lan Tseun wishing tree. But this is obvious because it brings them a shit load of money in suckers buying rotten oranges and throwing them over the branches to make a wish. The original two trees are nearly dead. But they have tons of house plants in an attempt to reconnect with their village like roots considering most people in China today live in concrete boxes on concrete streets where everything is covered in concrete.

3.and Why do Chinese people like rice so much

Rice is an easy one. Rice is not grown everywhere in China, in the past it is considered to be a wealthy persons food as it was in limited supply. Steamed bread, wheat cakes etc was the staple of poor people. Over years and mutant strains of hybrid rice created meant more people could eat it even though the arable land was the same. As I've said a few times before Chinese people don't eat that much rice. Northerners eat wheat and potatoes as it is dry up north. Southerners where there is more water eat rice as the climate conditions are more favourable to grow rice.

Mag

Names

Dear Chinese guy,

I am going to have a baby in the near future with my Shanghai-nese wife. Given that you have experienced both cultures, Could you recommend a boy or girls name that would share both British and Chinese culture. We have yet to decide if the UK or China is the best place to raise a family and giving the baby two names, I feel would be rather alienating.

David G

Dear David

That's a tough one namely because what may sound great in one language can sound shitty in another. And may well get your child beaten up (in the UK that is, I got beaten up a long and the kid who was called Wang was beaten up even more than me). Children can be so incredibly cruel, in fact children today are still incredibly cruel sometimes!

For example Ming 明

Which can mean shining or to indent/inscribe/write . In itself a fairly common upbeat name a neat Chinese name. Except in the UK this will likely get you called a Minger and thus violence and or insults and or humiliation of your child in the UK.

Or Dong 东

Which means East, but its pretty obvious as to what the connotations are in English. My dad has a friend who has a son called Dong. Southern Chinese say his name as dung. Also something with lots of potential for verbal abuse. Heh it is perfectly acceptable to put your dong in a woman's hand in the street in Vietnam.... because it is the currency of Vietnam.... I mean what else were you thinking of?


Brought to you by FileHurricane.com

Your child may hate you for this as well and will go to the deed poll office! Of course as they grow up it may or MAY not stop the verbal fun making for instance. My old boss who had me by the balls used to be quite nasty about it. My cousin Ho, yes Ho, still calls himself Ho, even though there are many negative connotations

On the flip side some coolish sounding Chinese names are also subject to odd remarks. My uncle for instance was called Yun (Wun in Cantonese) (云). Which means cloud, he was apparently made fun of because of this, what? You're named after a clouds? (Children being children will ALWAYS find a method in which to demean, humiliate or find advantage over somebody!).

Or simple ones like May 美, you have to be careful as to what the second part of the name is. I know a girl who is called May. The other part of her name is gold (I don't know how it is spelt. Hey baby can I have a look at your passport please?) Beautiful is also short for America as in
美國 (beautiful country). Gold as with silver is considered to be money. American ~ gold = dollar. Which makes her sound like a exotic dancer with a made up stage name. Her parents are 2nd generation Chinese in the UK and thus did not understand the implications of naming!

Those are a couple of limited examples I can think of off my head. There are many more. For instance a old friend I lost contact with 15 years ago (he went the 2.4 children mortgage route. I chose a different path) who shall remain unnamed had a name which in Sichuanese Mandarin from Chongquing meant Hero of ones family. At least thats what I think it meant as said it was 16 years ago since we last met. Oddly enough you move south a bit. And when spoken phonetically (not the characters themselves) it sounded like Chicken scent. Though only I am tactless enough to actually mention it, I am completely tactless foot in the mouth.

Think long and hard, and consider the pronunciation in the various flavors of Chinese and then the pronunciation in English and run it through urban dictionary and see what comes up. I comically remember over 20 years ago a kid called Feltch. 20 years ago it probably meant something else.




My other thought is there is nothing wrong with having two different names. Lots of people have multiple names. For instance my mum uses both her married name with my dad's surname and yet also in parallel uses her own name as per Asian tradition. While my dad has a completely different unrelated name in English as well as in Chinese.

Even famous people do it.

李小龍 Bruce Lee for instance - His Chinese name reads Lee Shi Lung (Lee , small dragon)
except that wasn't his birth name 李振藩 he was born Lee Jun Fan

It was fashionable in the 1980s and 1990s to have an English name as well as a Chinese name, they do not have to be the same or relate to one another.

Myself I have three names. With more unofficial handles. I'm considered weird because my English name and Chinese name are phonetically identical and mean exactly the same thing. But seriously do some research think long and hard and if you can't think of anything just use two different names.

Migration

Emigration is less a matter of the Chinese government, it is more a matter of the country which is to receive such migrants. The Mainland Chinese government has little control over people leaving. If you want to leave you can, the many many illegal migrants from China I encountered in Russia was a prime example of this. There is an old socialist jibe which is relevant. Whereby Socialists say if you don't like it leave!

Then people REALLY do leave and the government seeks to prevent people from leaving. The Berlin Wall and the Korean Border are excellent examples of this. The Great Wall under the Ming Dynasty is also supposed to have a secondary purpose. To keep the Barbarian hoarders out AND people IN. The UK used to have a totally open door migration policy, inwards because the government in the pocket of corporates like to lower wages. The migrants are happy because of wage arbitrage.

Thus it is actually a HK government issue. Although the CCP has powers over the HK government it is very rare for them to actually interfere overtly except in limited areas. So when the USS Nimitz docked, the HK government had to ask the PRC government. The PRC government said yes.... much to the delight of all the working women, bars and dealers in HK. But they have done some noticeable things. For example TV broadcasts first thing in the morning you get the PRC anthem, in schools soon children will be taught ONE China type thinking. But shadowy slight movements are harder to detect.

Boiling a frog is a very good example.

Hong Kong as said is a funny place, it is quite legal to buy your citizenship, you have to invest several million HK$ (I forget the exact amount) and you get citizenship right away. This is pissing off local HK people because there are many many wealthy people in China, this is causing lots of hot money to flow into HK stoking uberinflation where prices can and DO change daily (upwards) as the investment is often property. Which restricts supply and makes property which is already expensive in HK even more expensive.

Anyway as I mentioned in prior posts, Chinese people are internally racist to one another. Mainlanders are just another sect to which people can spit their bile to. As really there are benefits in HK, but it is rather low. $900-$1100 a month (HKD) but this is about the same as you'd get working in a shitty main lander job so it makes sense to them sometimes. Much like working for min wage makes sense for Eastern European migrants in the UK.

Anyway the HK government in 1997 one of the first things they implemented was the right to abode/return law. Meaning if you were born overseas but your parents were born in HK or the NT then you were granted 3* citizenship status. 3* status is full citizenship, which means uber subsidised health care (not dentistry) right to vote (in the rare occasions they do vote that is), right to government rebates like the $6000 stimulus thing (which is still not resolved) and also heavily virtually free education in HK. This law was overturned in 1999 on appeal. Which allowed a lot of people to 'return' as well as 400,000 people on the mainland also to take up residency.

This has been going back and forth for pretty much a decade about how there should be restrictions on mainland Chinese going to HK. It waxes and wanes. The last BIG issue I recall was the pregnant mainland women thing. Whereby mainland women who gave birth in HK their child would gain substantial benefits which you don't get in some parts of China. I.e. subbed health care, freeish education and many of the 3* benefits above. This annoyed a lot of people because it was seen that many people came across the border and got a free ride having not paid into the system. Such benefits to some looked attractive so the number of mainland women who did go to HK to give birth increased from about 4-8K a year to about 25K a year. The HK government responded by demanding a $5K bond if they were to travel to HK and were pregnant, though I'm not sure of the intricacies of this arrangement. Since I've never been pregnant or gotten anybody pregnant.... I think...

The issue that has flared up the tussle is the $6000 stimulus package amongst other things. I.e. people want to get the $6000 (a substantial amount in some areas of Mainland China) for nothing. TCG has and does pay into the HK tax system btw since a couple of my exist in cyberspace businesses are registered there. I.e people don't want to be paying it to others who are seen not to have earned it. Similar issues in the UK, if you've worked for ages and lose your job nobody is that fussed about if you are unemployed and claim welfare. However if you have never worked and claim it is seen as much less fair.

But to answer your original question, there are hoops to jump through which are increasing all of the time, but it is far from impossible for both HK and the wider world... I mean in Manchester China town there are many many restaurants staffed completely by mainland Chinese. 10-15 years ago they were staffed by Cantonese and Hakka migrants. Thus it WAS pretty easy for them to get in..... in a terrible irony I remember an illegal immigrant in the UK from Chongqing. He had hidden in a container to get to the UK. He was pretty pissed off to realise that the legal route was so much easier.

Questionable questions

1. How is the United States portrayed in China?

Depends on how the CCP wants at the time and who you ask.

2. What do native Chinese think about American people?

I covered this in an earlier post, although as said this is going to be a mass generalisation as my view is limited

3. What did you like most about Chinese Culture?

Very little these days. Maybe the go getter attitudes of people, i.e. you see people try and fail try again and fail again try again and fail and they keep on getting up and trying again.

On the flip side:

A lot of the traditional values of Chinese culture I do not share and I abbor completely. Like being a typical Chinese parents i.e. being a dick to your children. Automatic respect for being old which I hate even more. Veneration of the dead when I don't believe in life after death and stupid Confucian values like YOU MUST HAVE A WIFE AND children (my dad argues with me frequently when I say I want neither and he can't get his head around it). I also utterly hate the concept of face which means people do incredibly stupid things to save face. While apparently reputationless rascals like myself who apparently have no face do the eminently sensible thing, i.e. admit I am wrong and thus seek to correct my deficiency, or not starve to death type situation.

4. Was it easy to get an education in China?

Unknown as I've been in and out of private education there and in the UK.

5. Where did you live in China?

In the South, north of the Border from HK and in HK itself somewhere along the Pearl River.

6. What dialects do you speak?

A mishmash of Cantonese, Hakka, Wu and bits of borrowed Mandarin. People often ask me to repeat myself a few times because of this.

7. What about China would surprise Americans?

Up frontedness of many questions. Almost to the extend of people on the street asking how long your penis happens to be. People will be that abrupt and job interview you on the street. They'll ask questions about your life people in the western world are uncomfortable or feel impolite answering like their salaries and ages.

8. What about America would surprise Chinese?

Not sure not been to the US probably the huge amount of space as everywhere you go in other than the empty desert bits and the mountainous regions in the middle there are people EVERYWHERE. There is always somebody around in almost any city in China at all hours. Not even up mountains can you find peace, because there are tons of tourists clambering all over the mountains and Sherpas hauling things up the mountains as well for the tourist traps.

Thus privacy and isolation are a premium.

9. What is young life in China like?

Lots of school lots and lots of school because of the obsolete thinking that schooling = success. Which has been proven wrong many times over and over again but the belief is still ancient and ingrained in the people.

10. Are different dialects seen differently in China?

China is sort of like the USA, not in terms of politics but it is less of an entire country it is more like a union of provinces which form a.... non voting, non free press type republic. Europe would be a more apt example except Europe is not politically unified. They pretend it is but generally countries act unilaterally. In effect some dialects are very similar and quite close much like German, which is close to Dutch, Danish, and Scandinavian languages as well. For example a Cantonese speaker can understand a Hakka speaker as they are close somethings are even identical. Some things are different.

Ah Por = granny in Hakka on fathers side
Ah ma = granny in Cantonese
Nai Nai = granny in Mandarin
(all on the fathers side)


11. What is changing the most in China?

This is too wide a question tbh. But if I could stick it in a nut shell, I would say everything which happened in the USA between 1945 and 2000 has pretty much occured in the last 15 years in China. Sexual freedome (yay) , gold diggers (nay). General ownership of whitegoods in homes. Families becoming divided, credit, loans, abandoning parents in old folks homes. Food improving

12. What is a communist nation like?

This is pretty irrelevant, as China isn't communist. Much like the USA isn't a democracy (says my buddy from Illinois) it is a Republic. China is communist in name only and going through the notions but China represents more of a corporate state than anything else. With some communist leanings.

http://www.comtourist.com/

Has some interesting views. Of course the cynic in me says that it is exactly same as living in a western nation. I.e. we have tons of corruption and voting changes absolutely nothing as the corruption and pork barrelling still goes on. But people are fooled into thinking they can affect change by voting. When change can only come about via events which occurred post Boston Tea Party and the bloody war which occurred afterwards.

13. How did people in China handle the attention from the Olympics?

Another too wide question tbh,

14. In America wealth and fortune are high priorities is it the same case in China?

Pretty much except in China it is MUCH MUCH more overt and people show it off for face issues. You see 50 cent show off his bling bling? In China a LOT of people are like this.

15. What is the climate like where you lived?

Insanely hot and humid 24/7 from March to October with regular hard rain from April for a few hours a day. Cool(er) in the period from October to February but still fairly humid and uncomfortable.

Jessie Ventura as the ultimate boy scout, yeah Predator was on last night

Dear Chinese guy

What are the young pioneers of China?

Lucy


Dear Lucy

The Young Pioneers of China is sort of like boy scouts and girl guides, and erm brownies, girl scouts type organisation. The Chinese version of boy scouts was banned about a year after the PRC was formed. It was reformed as the communist version. Though I forget the exact year even the communist version was disbanded during the cultural revolution. It was replaced briefly with little red guards.

Much of the same things are done, group activities except with a communist sort of slant and of course loyalty to China rather than the US. Which is kind of laughable really as China is NOT a socialist communist country. Its more like an ultra corporate state. A bit like the government Corporate type from the game master of Orion 3

Have a gander at the American Boy Scouts motto's, or is it Boy scouts of America.... I forget (TCG was NEVER a boy scout as I grew up in the inner cities)

Scout Oath

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country;
To obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.[27]

Scout Law

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. The original version by Lord Baden-Powell had only 10 points to the Scout Law (the last two of the BSA version were added when the BSA was founded).

Scout Motto

Be Prepared

Scout Slogan

Do a good turn daily

Outdoor Code

As an American, I will do my best, to be clean in my outdoor manner, to be careful with fire, to be considerate in the outdoors, and to be conservation minded

　　三、我们队的性质：是中国少年儿童的群众组织，是少年儿童学习中国特色社会主义和共产主义的学校，是建设社会主义和共产主义的预备队。

Which pretty much means for Children to learn communism and how to promote communism and socialism.

　　四、我们队的目的：团结教育少年儿童，听党的话，爱祖国、爱人民、爱劳动、爱科学、爱护公共财物，努力学习，锻炼身体，参与实践，培养能力，立志为建设中国特色社会主义现代化强国贡献力量，努力成长为社会主义现代化建设需要的合格人才，做共产主义事业的接班人。维护少年儿童的正当权益。

Blah blah, I will be loyal to the mother land, country work hard etc etc. That kind of thing, in effect through my cynical eyes it is a form of indoctrination sort of like :

Robots which build robots which build robots..... etc...

Commies to produce more commies which produce more commies. Which is supposed to be common in communist states. Except of course China ain't communist! By my half assed extrapolation I reckon they'll grow up and become disillusioned pretty much.

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

For a bit of balance here:

I'd note indoctrination and propaganda is NOT limited to China. In UK schools Children are brainwashed into believing everything hook line and sinker about Man made global warming. Even when it was discredited here. Hell UK children are FORCED to watch Al Gore's Inconvenient truth DVD.

Fingers

Dear Chinese Guy

Why do some men here in China have long finger nails on their pinkies, but short nailes on the rest of their fingers?

Ruth

Dear Ruth

Erm pinky? (Had to look this up) first thought was this:



little finger.

There are many reasons for this:

Fashion and status.

Fashion is self explanatory

Status is to do with not appearing to be a peasant type who has to make a living working in the fields or as a manual laborer in the sun. People in China town were a tad arsier to me the other day after hanging around sunny drop zones and getting a funny tan. You know the kind where your sunglass covered bits don't get tanned but the rest of your tace does. Anyway I mean if you had long nails like this it would be hard to work in an agricultural environment right? That old chestnut again.



Next is excavation, not just this



But people digging in their ears, teeth and more horribly their arses..... i.e. smell my finger.


Finally there is another luck/superstition reason as to why many men keep a long fingernail on their little fingers. It goes back to palmistry. According to palmists folklore and the bloke down the pub, if your little finger is longer than one of the joints on your ring finger (it varies from who you hear it from) say the first or second joint then you will become prosperous. Men will often cheat by growing their finger nails so that it is sort of longer than their ring ringer joints since it is probably cheaper than limb lengthening surgery (which incidentally is illegal in China).

Looking at my hands and the fact I don't have a pot to pish in currently and the fact that my finger is a good 9mm shorter than the last joint on my ring finger. If folklore is to be believed then it is the second joint. Which means I'm a bit fookered then, of course this is merely folklore as I know plenty of Yakuza like types who are missing bing chunks of their little fingers through accidents rather than cutting off of. And they are loaded.

Horror films

Dear Chinese guy

Why are there no good horror films from China or Hong Kong? I can only find zombie films or comedy horror films which aren't scary at all. How come Koreans can make scary films but Chinese people can't?


George K


Dear George.



A bit of background.... a big reason as to why China doesn't make horror as we see it is simply because the censors don't like it. You know the kind of thing. We don't want people to see things which may upset social harmony. Stabby stabby psycho films such as erm..... American Psycho (a master piece the book anyway).

Scream 1 and 2 (less so 3) Saw I,II,III etc or I know what you did last summer, hell even The Fog (the 1980s version not the crappy 2005 remake). People can be very impressionable for example A better tomorrow. When A better tomorrow came out (not a horror film) loads of people copied Chow Yun Fat's character dress minus the guns of course.

China being China didn't give much credit to the people. You know the kind whereby newspapers and headless Chicken types blame movies for making people violent. Thus China's censors tended to not allow such things and or films of the super natural. It was something like 1979 when Deng Xiao Ping talked about removing the shackles from writers and artists. It was just talk though for many years. With the law about if we make a film to be shown in China then you really shouldn't make a different version sort of rule, unless we want to censor it get around double standard.

Thus when the government in China tells you NO, you simply don't do it. Unless we say so..... such is the will of a one party state....

Today writers skirt the issue by going all Dallas.



Oh it was just the imagination or it was just a dream or he took drugs (remember Winners don't take drugs!)



Which again promotes the ideology of drugs are bad m'kay....

..... while a western film would have the psycho lunge from a hidden corner when waking from such a dream just to scare people a bit more, they go all Dallas.

19 Levels of Hell for instance did a Dallas, it was all just a dream. Those that died didn't really die. Thus you get comical films about Zombies, Like Mr Vampire and Spooky encounters. Or modern day ones like erm The Phantom Lover which is sort of tense sometimes Romeo and Juliette remake. But not in your face lunging killer arrrgh make you jump kind of fear. Anecdotal I remember some might have been hell raiser or something. Which wasn't scary at all the scariest bit was when something fell out of a cupboard. Or Painted Skin, which is a knock off of Silence of the lambs. Where the protagonist goes around wearing other peoples skin.

Secondly the horror that is out there IS scary to older Chinese people. Like the dead coming back to life. While western influenced people like me see Zombies as a great opportunity to grab thy shotgun pump it like this.


One Handed Shotgun Pump

Shawn | Myspace Video

And go a Zombie huntin' ker chak! (Shotguns of the pump type are legal in the UK 3 shots maximum though)

Chinese have a general dislike of death and the undead, you know no number 4. Which goes far beyond the western fear of death maybe its the way three or four generations living under one roof is still common and Chinese people get to see their elders deteriorate. Maybe its the way many Chinese still venerate their ancestors or the way the recent dead tended (in the near past) to be buried nearby. (My grandad is in my uncles house in a jar). Such stuff about walking dead and or corpses being reanimated or ghosts is scary to many older Chinese people I know. A ridiculous movie I almost demanded my money back and the seconds of life I wasted watching had three seconds of CGI where his wife who turned out to be a ghost morphed a CGI monster mouth.... now if it were a morphed CGI dentata that would scare the hell out of me.


While I'll scoff at such films because I am a jaded city slicker. Who has met far too many weirdos to be phased much by anything.

It's like this back in 1984 audiences were awed at what was going on. While people born today see a big latex looking head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNpb8KQ-OQ0

But with the censorship and skirting around like Dallas the true horror genre probably won't take off in China for a while. Now Koreans and Japanese people on the other hand. They make pretty decent horror movies.

Long lists of Korean films and Japanese films

Decent enough for Hollywood to copy remake such films and quietly pretend they thought of the idea themselves. Ok so they aren't as gory as western horror films but pretty decent regardless.




Except this one



Where they appeared to steal the plot from the Simpsons

One of my faves happens to be Candyman 1 probably because I really like the score to the film

5 times lucky?

Hello!

I am expecting my fifth daughter on the fourth of July. I am writing to ask if there is a Chinese tradition that five daughters is lucky. Before I knew I was pregnant again, my family went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Everybody who worked in the restaurant made comments about our four daughters and how five daughters was lucky. I had heard this before, at the beauty salon I go to that is owned by a Chinese woman. I would go in to get a hair cut and during the get to know you chatting, every Chinese employee would comment about how five girls is lucky! I tried to google it, but I have found nothing! Please let me know! Thank you!

---Rebecca M

Hi


Several reasons about this, firstly, IIRC it stems back to ancient folklore and the mishmash of Chinese religions and belief systems which is a mishmash. For instance HK has a massive Iron Buddha on Lantau, yet the people mostly believe in ancestry worship and or reincarnation.

My mad granny who gets madder by the day believes in all of these things as a way to hedge her bets for the inevitable. Hell you should see how contradictory peoples' homes happen to be. My dad's place in HK has lots of Japanese lucky cats. An altar to my grand father. Several lucky sycree charms and a load of jade carved into lucky shapes as well as more than a few Ba gua as well as a ghost hunting sword made from Chinese coins. There is linking into Buddhist traditions.

The number five is intimately associated with the Chinese theory of the Five Elements the olde fire, water, air, earth and metal (some add mind to this as well). This is an old concept used for the underpinning ofthe Zodiac Calendar, the latter serving as the former calendar of old-world Asia. Next you move away from 4 daughters and we all know 4 in Asian languages tends to relate to death and it is unlucky. Call it negative reinforcement if you will. Heh again my granny got lucky and had twins the 4th time she was pregnant.

Secondly children in Chinese society have always been considered a good thing. no matter what their sex and or number, since I've heard you're lucky comment on all sorts of combinations of children being daughters and or sons. This maybe related to the extreme mortality rate which only changed quite recently in Chinese history and the 30 day rule. 2500 years ago Confucius said something about it. About the family unit being the most important thing ever.

Also as you might have read from Amy Chua about tiger moms. This comes from an old style thinking that Children are YOUR chattels IIRC from somewhere obscure no doubt 5 sons 2 daughters is supposed to be the ideal family make up.

Thirdly though I have doubts these are the reasons but you might be interested to read them anyway. This is the actual influence since most of the Chinese overseas are migrants who left in the early 1960s or earlier and thus the influences of modern day China do not really apply. It is that women in China actually are more desired than sons for various reasons.

It used to be son, kept family line and would be my pension pot as he would provide for me in the future. Namely as sons inherited the land for farming daughters would not. Though the CCP abolished land ownership meaning this no longer mattered.

Such things are vanishing quick and China is modernising, such that it is the daughters who are the ones who look after the parents as they age. EVEN if they are married off to another family. It is like this in HK, the daughters all look after their mums and dads alongside the parents of their husband. The one child policy hasn't helped either meaning the shortage of women mean the women can pick and choose (up to a certain extent) rather than take anybody who is willing which is what the men have to do.



Another point is that parents are supposed to lend a hand in buying a home for their sons. The price of property in China today is horrendous and buying property for a son = a ruinous experience financially. Thus although tradition dictates men were more popular to have than daughters since the benefits of men (name pension and being able to toil in the fields) has largely vanished. There is a trend to move to want girls instead of boys.

China education

Dear TCG

Why are Chinese families so obsessed with grades and school?

My [Chinese] friend rarely has time out to have fun with us and hits the books all the time.

Snippety snip.

Edward J



Hi

Still working on the minor back log here apologies for the late reply. But simply there is an age old ingrained into Chinese society that education = success. This has been indoctrinated into Chinese society quite literally for centuries. Hell this probably even applies to today as well. In modern day China and outside of China too.

You may have often heard the jibe against public sector workers that there are plenty of public sector employees but no such thing as public sector workers (though really it is a different debate since the government holds a gun to my head to force me to pay for their wages if I want whatever the provide or not unlike Walmart which I choose to avoid). In Modern day China graduates only get paid marginally more than the workers who get sent down coal mines or who work stupid hours in foxconn factories.

The same came be said about the UK where public sector types are paid shit loads more than the private sector types, it is pretty much a closed shop where you need to know somebody to get a job there. Also the pensions are obscene (TCGs pension fund consists of a bottle of vodka and a loaded revolver.... until they banned guns in the UK). Thus if people study well in China they could well get such more comfortable public sector/civil service type jobs.

Around 1200BC China attempted to stop being a nepotistic society (it failed). Nepotism for mad uncle bob is all nice and well for the family but seriously would you want this person to be in charge of your country? Or to be in charge of your armies?

No no

They did this by introducing for the time rock hard exams. Tsk exam you say? Yes a rock hard exam. Except that this was no ordinary exam, unlike today where you can resit modules where you fail or redo exams this was a make or break exam. Whereby this one exam would determine what the rest of your life would be. Do well and you moved upwards in social hierarchy. Do badly and you were doomed to be a farmer type and to be poor. This continued for quite sometime, sometimes vanishing completely only to resurface sometime later.

Which is why it sort of got stuck in Chinese society that exams and grades are the path to success. Thus it is almost like a religion to traditional Chinese types. I mean look at holy books, one happens to be 2000 years old another happens to be 1400 years old. And yet they cause people to have almost unshakable beliefs about them. This Chinese education = key to life thing is reputed to be over 3000 years old.

Stephen Chow lampoons the entire concept in the film King of Beggars (1991)



Whereby his dad was a civil servant who wanted his son to go into the civil service. He fails (because he cheated) and is condemned to a life of being a beggar.


HTH

New classmates from China

Dear TCG,


Hope you had a nice holiday. I was talking with my history teacher today and he mentioned that two students had just moved into the district from Fujian, China. I thought this would be a great opportunity to make a new set of friends. He introduced me to them and they were quite friendly but totally helpless. Their English was very poor and they have had trouble adapting to an American school. They were a boy and a girl, my age, and were cousins. The boy was more outgoing but a bit of a goofball who might not be too sharp, the girl was more reserved and looked constantly exhausted. I am hoping to get to know them better and do whatever I can to help them adapt while at the same time making Chinese friends of my age.


My question is, what is the best way of helping them and getting to know them? Language barrier is one thing, they can speak simple english words slowly in addition to their native Min as well as Putonghua, but my Chinese is nowhere near good enough to carry out a full conversation. What would be the best way of communicating with them? How can I understand where they're coming from and what would be the best way to help them?

tl;dr: New classmates from China, how can I befriend them and help them assimilate?

KaiWen



This is a tough nut to crack because most non Chinese people find that Chinese people are incredibly insular and stick to their own rather than integrating and mixing in. Koreans OTOH TCG made a ton of Korean buddies in Seoul by virtue of extreme amounts of alcohol. If they were born overseas these traits STILL show through but not to such an extent. If they were born in China as you say they will have this sort of thing honed into them.

The crappy 1990s film Dragon the Bruce Lee story lampshades this. Where Bruce opens up a school and he is berated by the community elders for teaching the enemy Chinese secrets. Also a lot of my peers tend to say they were the weird nerdy children at school who did not mix because of their perceived differences.

Oddly enough I know quite a few laowai who teach in China (proper teachers not flip floppers) who have incredible troubles in making friends. Due to this insular nature when they do corner somebody to talk to often the response is mono syllabic. While conversations make Conan the Barbarian in the film appear to be a chatter box



(Arnold playing Conan mentions his first word 23 minutes into the film and says little over 80 words for the whole movie). And such people walk away pretty damned quickly.

To get to know them it is the usual stuff. Talk to them using questions which cannot be answered with a yes and a no or simple answers! Ask them out to do things in groups so it seems less threatening.But plan ahead, spontaneity is rare in China even in overseas types I am a huge exception but this is more to do with my mental state more than cultural things. Although it sounds like advertising tripe. I do attempt to do something amazing now and again.

Anyway back on track I'm sure your university will have lots of clubs and associations sports has an excellent equalising effect I find. TCG is an ELITE badminton played (hidden underneath this beer belly I returned with) you can tell because I wear jeans to play badminton. Whereby doing a sport of some kind removes the need to communicate with words and afterwards you can laugh about how good or bad you were. Beer of course always appears to work all around the world. Except this maybe a problem in the US what with the drinking age being 21.

HTH

Kai Tak

No I've not gone to Hong Kong, it's much too far away for a week off work since it takes a whole day just to get there when you consider the time differences as well. Plus a lot of airlines are flying much slower to save gas.

I remember Kai Tak with great amounts of glee as you could watch airplanes land from where I used to stay in Kowloon as a young child. Granted it is no St Marteen.



But you could reach up from a tall Kowloon building and nearly touch the aircraft.



Of course it was scarier when you were actually inside one of those 747s as you swear with night landings you could see televisions and people eating noodles inside their flats from the air plane windows.





On a related note:

Why was Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport closed? (asked elsewhere)

• It was full. ALL of the landing and take off slots were full up, so it was filled to capacity this strangled trade and tourism.
• It was dangerous, the Kai Tak landing required special training to land due to the mountains around HK look at videos on youtube. Even taking off was iffy as the end of the runway was sinking, you would hear the engines splutter on take off due to water splashing into the engines it was that bad.
• As part of #2 with Kai Tak gone Kowloon land was freed up. With Kai Tak nothing on the approach to Kai Tak could be built more than 14 stories high. Once the landing flight path was gone buildings could pop up at any number of floors.
• Kaitak's land itself was also freed up for residential buildings to ease the uber overcrowding of HK.
• Pork barrelling. The HK economy was great in the 1980s and 1990s, they simply could not take the money away as the PRC and HK people would hate them for this. So the colonial government built a massive airport bring in expensive British contractors to do much of the work. Therefore funnelling much of the surpluses of HK into British pockets.

Views

Dear Chinese Guy,

What does the average Chinese person think about Americans?

Is it true that most Chinese people stereotype us as stupid or arrogant? What do they think about our debt problem?

Also I just wanted to say most Americans are not blaming the Chinese themselves for outsourcing. We blame corporate America and the government. You can't blame Americans for not buying American because it is nearly impossible to buy American. I try to buy American clothing but I can't find electronics.

Brittany


Dear Brittany.

Sorry for the lateness and the general scatter brainless of this post, I spent half a day doing stuff and thus rather than write in one cohesive lump it's has been done bit by bit.

As I cannot really ask all 1.4billion people and the 10 or 20 million who live overseas I can only really generalise. In generalising I'm um...... generalising....

Anyhow it varies. It varies a lot. Lots of factors play into how it varies, where they live, where they work and how much of the world they see. As in every country and society there are good people, bad people ambitious people and those who are content. I would however make a big distinction between government and people though. In university (college) I knew quite a few Muslims who would get all het up and angry about Americans. But they really meant the American government rather than the people themselves.

For starters people in small villages outside the main cities of China will never really have seen Americans in the flesh since tourists tend not to go there and these people tend not to travel overseas either. You could probably make one of those videos about them where Americans are lampooned for their ignorance though these videos are purposely edited to remove all of the good and correct answers from them. Even I TCG have suffered from this.


I am very wary of cameras as I had a nasty run in with a TV reporter years ago. Where there was this smarmy get who was wandering around town poking a microphone in peoples’ faces. He asked me what APR was and equivalent APR. I told him what it was. The reporter looked disappointed in my response in knowing what they were. He then asked me, “Do you think other people know what APR and equiv APR are?”
“I have no idea,” I said. On the evening news they ran a banks are ripping us off as the UK public is retarded feature. It showed numerous apparent numpties saying they did not know what APR was. I was waiting for me to show up to blow them away, at which a cut of me saying, “I have no idea.” Making me look like a numpty and the feature ended


While the exact polar opposite say somebody working in a tourist trap in Beijing or Shanghai will probably have a grossly negative opinion of Americans. Even I got a grossly negative view once or twice when a large bunch of whats the word frat boys came into the bar I was sat in and started to take the place apart after a large number of beers. But seriously it's the bad things that stick in your memory and of course not all people are like that.

While if you are a factory worker pumping out tons of plastic shit for the export market you'll also get a very skewed vision of foreigners. I mean if you were working in a sex toy factory all day and were making I dunno animal dildos. It is TCG's policy not to imply ownership of the aforementioned item only that a dildo. You'd think WTF are these people like. Or even more innocent things like this thing I found in a Christmas cracker once. A squirty water bar of chocolate. I live here and think WTF! I would say however that much of what is seen is portrayed via Hollywood and the media that lands in China.

In the UK for instance we have lots of stereotypes about Texans. Even my sister has joked about it with me. Because this steers and queers joke has been thrown around in the media for decades. IIRC it appeared in an officer and a gentleman, then in the classic full metal jacket.



Even though full metal Jacket was actually filmed entirely in London,.. there are some extremely non PC scenes in FMJ though like this one. These stereotypes have been played out in sitcoms through the media and tend to be hard to rub off.

Since a lot of heroic movies tend to go to China (and get pirated) there is often a fascination about American culture where everybody is rich enough to drive cars, have large homes and eat lots of meat. China of course only the very rich drive cars, and everybody lives in small homes. Also until recently the diet consisted mostly of vegetables with meat being a rarity. This is why Chinese people in China don't understand vegetarians. Meat is so cheap today that they don't understand why people'd pass up a good thing.

This is reflected heavily in lots of things like ESL because of the fascination with American culture. ESL in China, in fact I could say all of Asia they want image above all else, which is why schools of all levels state and private prefer their ESL teachers to look a certain way. Have a read of this advert. It wasn't till quite recently adverts specifically asked for WHITE people. Thus highly qualified people would be passed up for completely unqualified people of varying quality (I've seen Russians be ESL teachers in China). Primarily due to image as the children think America is better than here. I'd tend to agree with them on various levels. Because in the USA people are told anything is possible. While in China opportunities are limited and social mobility is very limited. I mean the US had a bloke from Austria become Governor of California.



I'd say however the image is deteriorating. Due to various factors.

Online life of what western nations are like, again lots of negative media along with the Hollywood version of things gets to China. Such as this video which even makes me in the fairly liberal UK think blimey. Or those Are Americans stupid type videos that float around youtube regularly.

Secondly CCP nationalism. Although China is a one party state with limited participation in decision making the CCP has to be bloody careful whenever it does anything. An easy way out as the Nazis found out and the USSR used is to externalise your problems. Those freakin' [insert nationality here] doing nasty things to us! It's called rallying round the flag I believe Mr Bush did this a few times.

This is pretty normal though. Remember back in the wild year 2010 when an oil rig exploded off the coast of Florida? Those evil British companies we'll make them pay spoke Obama. Generally to distract people away from the fact that Obama wasn't doing too well in the polls and the economy was on the ropes. They kept on saying British Petroleum, except BP isn't British Petroleum and hasn't been for a while it's just BP with the slogan Beyond Petroleum. Even though it may well have been Haliburton's fault.

Thirdly Bernanke. Who loves the printing press and keeps on printin' those dollars. Because China has limited social welfare, (welfare is only claimable if you go to the village of your birth_ and non socialised medical care people save. The saving rate in Asia is pretty high, if you save loads of money then you have um lots of money. Since RMB is pretty much the US$ due to the nearly immovable peg. This means that when Bernanke hits the print button it devalues the savings of millions of Chinese people. Which peeves them off a tad. This links into the debt problem as you asked originally. China is the creditor to the USA (along with UK,Japan, Korea and other nations) . Again it varies, some of the people I've met around Beijing think it is neat as it helps their exports. While others think it is less so because the $ held by the PBoC can be devalued by the printers. A big example of this was back in 2008 when I was in China for some reason I can't remember. A a radio talk show about this back in 2008. Where there was a huge amount of anger from the money printing. Comments like CCP policy gifted the USN several carriers due to the debasement.

But keep up the non buying of China made stuff, I do probably because I have some pretty neat made in Europe stuff and do to my strange physical shape.

Height vs food

Dear TCG,
I went to a Chinese buffet today and I notice they charge you based on your height. Like people over 5ft are $x.xx and those under 3ft are $x.xx. Why do they price this way? and is it legal? (In the US, UK, China or anywhere)
K



In the UK we have children under 12 or something eat for X everybody else more...I doubt it has anything to do with culture or anything. Merely that it is an easy way to discriminate prices without going into ethnicity, age, weight etc all of which are rather subjective and can’t lay claim to being racist, ageist fatist etc.I have no particular idea of the legality of this, if you see this in China legality seldom matters anyway.

I mean it would be really unwise to put something like black people pay X white people pay Y. Similarly with age it is both subjective and also not easy to prove as this case with an Iraqi proved to be. He claims to be 16 and has paperwork but the UK government claims he is 20. Age is also risky because of fake Ids and probably the need to check paperwork, which is both intrusive and time consuming.

Age checks annoy me greatly in the UK, drinking age is 18 in the UK (though it was fun to go out clubbing when I was 14) but supermarkets will regularly challenge everybody and ask if they are 21. My dad who is much older than myself gets challenged all of the time. But then they force the cashiers to check as the liability and responsibilities are burdened onto their shoulders. You can look see their height and quickly work it out. It is probably based on the assumption that people under 3ft are probably children and therefore can’t eat as much. Therefore they charge them less.

Dating

Hi,

So the other day I was at a BBQ and I saw this Chinese guy (Obviously I didn't automatically know he was Chinese, I found out later), he was talking to a friend of mine and I thought he was kind of cute. I asked my friend about him after the party (I wish I would have just asked to be introduced then) and my friend got his number and gave it to me. Now I don't know what to do. I am pretty shy and not forward with guys, for example I DO NOT call up guys I've never even been introduced to and ask them on dates.

But now he knows that some girl from the party asked for his number so he is expecting, and asking, for something to happen. My friend mentioned "his English is getting better". So I am a little worried about some linguistic, but mostly cultural differences and expectations. I am wondering if you had any advice for a white American woman for a possible date/dating a Chinese guy.

Thanks,

Amber

P.S. A speedy response is most appreciated. I would also like to mention how little info there is out there for white women in this area compared to how much there is for white men and Asian women.

Dear Amber

I typed out a lot of stuff, which I deleted because I felt was irrelevant and tended to stereotype a bit too much and might no longer be relevant. I was also going off on a way far out tangent, which was irrelevant and was funny only to a niche group of readers.

Perhaps you would like to ask Jocelyn instead?* Since my view of the world is very similar to that of the Korean guy. Whereby Chinese men are men first Chinese second. Therefore the usual things will apply i.e. it is quite plausible that he will lie and cheat and be deceptive to get you in the sack. And the 1% being Chinese is massively overridden by the Y chromosomes in his body.

Unless you get a freaky one.... an old gf I once dated had a freaky ex-husband.... he had sex with her ONCE... to have a son, and never touched her again. This was unbelievable, because she had a body and personality which was soo soo sweet. I mean she had this tri.... erm back on topic...

Perhaps you might want to try an indirect approach, whereby a bunch of you or just yourself ask on an unrelated issue. Some good excuses are my friend wants a Chinese language tattoo, Or how do you write in Chinese type excuses are excellent. You can either set this up yourself or get somebody else to set it up for you... (TCG has some nasty Chinese friends and thus more than a few people are walking around with tattoos which say Chicken fried rice, or the worst one which says big man small cock), then see how it goes from there on in. Though this may have the problem that he simply be too shy to move it any further. Though you might want to monitor his body language as to if he wants to take it further since Chinese has this pain in the ass thing wherby people say one thing but their body language says something else completely.

Regarding cultural issues, simply don't make him lose face or come on too strong. I'd note attacking jokes will not work well either! My HK and China born friends don't understand my mannerisms and jokes.

For example in the UK people will say to me:
"I hear Chinese people can't drink much."
I can zing them back with, "yeah well it means I'm a cheap night out."
While when I was in Shenzhen with Simon, instead of him zinging us back he took it as an insult.

*also if it all goes tits up you can blame HER instead!

What is it with hairy moles people in China have?

Dear TCG

Visiting China recently I kept seeing old men with moles on their faces and invariably long thing wiriny hair growing out of them which was longer than the hair on their heads... what gives?

Daisy G

Dear Daisy

Moles in Chinese society are something to do with luck, it is much like the superstition of Cantonese people around Chinese New year, the lack of 4th floors or any other floor with a number 4 in it. Moles too can determine, luck and life. Thus if you have an unlucky mole on your face you get it removed. If you have a lucky one then you don't remove it simple as, and you especially leave it alone.

Have a look at the list above and compare it to this list

1. Cannot get along with parents, boss, or the elderly. Try to keep a respectful distance with them.

2. Same to 1. No respect to parents, boss, or the elderly. Try to keep a respectful distance with them.

3. Same to 1. Try to keep a respectful distance with them.

4. Lack of planning, and have unstable life.

5. (above the eyebrow) – May encounter misfortune brought on by family or friends, or may have bad luck with money.

6. (in the eyebrow) – Very smart, creative or artistic. Will have wealth and fame, and have good luck with money.

7. (on the eyelid) – Tend to have conflicts with family, and have problem keeping money.

8. Have financial hardship. Need to prevent unwanted sexual advances.

9. Need to prevent unwanted sexual advances, and prevent accidents.

10. Unlikely to have or to be with children or grandchildren.

11. Tend to be troubled by long term or severe illness.

12. Tend to have problems related to diet or food.

13. Always worry and work hard for children, but may not be able to enjoy a good relationship with them.

14. Have high risk of food poisoning or allergy.

15. Do not reside at one place for long, move around a lot or have unstable environment.

16. Need to prevent unwanted sexual advances, and prevent food poisoning or diet problems.

17. Be cautious with your actions to prevent loosing good reputation.

18. Be mindful of your well being when traveling abroad.

19. Need to prevent unwanted sexual advances.

20. Life may be short, so live it to the fullest. Avoid any criminal acts.

21. Tend to have foot problems. Need to prevent water-related accidents.

22. Need to prevent accidents while traveling.

23. Prominent and rich.

This does not apply only to the face as it also applies to the body too.

• A mole in red color on the chest is a good mole. It implies passion, generous, love and good relationship with children.

• A mole on the buttocks hints the person with enthusiasm, vitality, meeting people and money luck.

• A mole on the back indicates a person with outgoing personality with strong communication skill.

• A mole on the lower leg implies working hard, responsible personality for business and family.

• Moles on the palm are all good moles, which shouldn't be removed.

• Moles on the neck around Adam's apple implies the person has hard time to get along with family.

• A mole around navel with red color represents the person is a gourmet. It is also a good sign of fortune and wisdom.

• A mole on the shoulder hints the person needs to work hard for the family and have more argument than people.

Therefore the moles you see on the faces of people are most probably ones for fortune and or good luck. My mum had several removed from my face small ones 7, 17 and 21 ish type positions on my face. Probably like palmology sort of thing or cranialology etc. But old habits die hard in China.


-Patrick

One of those weird days

(originally written on Tuesday 13/07/2010)

Oh man it's 11.15pm and I've just spent the last 16 hours working. I can't see straight until I saw this post, TCG's post has been getting weirder and weirder for a while. I read your questions but then tap a few sentences and put them aside for a few days until I get some more time. I promise to answer some of your questions when the busy period wears off significantly. Of course I'm not as discriminating as our Korean chum. I post most things on the blog because I can. He obviously doesn't.

But this one stood out a mile off, just to demonstrate the weirdness of my post:

Dear TCG

I really love your blog man [snip] I'm having trouble with my Chinese girlfriend. She's not acting like I was told she would when she arrived[Snip]

TCG's spider sense detects trouble....wait a sec as I''d been told? What the fuck do you think she is a fucking machine? Erm let me re-phrase that, as you'll probably take it the wrong way. What do you think she is a bloody machine? This girl friend if she is a real girl friend is a human you don't own her indenture ended when Abe Lincoln's side won a certain war.

Arrived? this sounds even dodger

I love Xiao alot [sic] and she loves me alot[sic] too, I'm quite happy with her but it's getting youknow boring? [snip]

Ok love is all fine and dancy, but happy with her? Sounds rather objectified, TCG is happy with his motorbike (though it does use a lot of fuel)

How can I get my girlfriend from to take it in the ass, I just don't know to get her to do it I asked her and she told me I was a freak. [snip]

Oh dear....
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Erm James? Do I look like a dating agony aunt?/ Uncle And seriously do you think I am an appropriate person to ask to get your girl friend to participate in your desires? No seriously does this thought process really go through your head?

"Ah yes I want to fuck my gf in the ass lets ask a random stranger who happens to be the same (questionable) race as my gf. A strange dude sat 1000 miles away in a rainy city ought to have the answers."

Seriously, well since you asked you must have seriously thought this then. Unfortunately it got weirder still

I've seen it in Jap porn all the time the girls seem to love it.[snip]

Ok this went from weird and nuts to downright creepy

Aside from the term Jap being somewhat offensive, are you serious? No really you're not just my mate fucking with me are you? Are you Stewie? The guy I met on the train from Beijing? No really in my tired state what the fuck? Do you seriously think porn is real? Have you considered the possibility that porn is not real and they are highly paid actors?

I was told Beijing girls love it [Snip]

Oh dear, so geographical location and place of birth defines a person's sexual preferences does it? Ok granted Essex girls are easy but...... no too weird

James C

Even though TCG is not an agony aunt, such things are inappropriate to ask perhaps you should talk to your girlfriend about it.... I mean come on you think TCG has some magic bullet which will resolve your problem?

3rd Generation

Dear TCG

I'm curious, do overseas Chinese (I'm 3rd generation Chinese American) get the same preferential treatments like other foreigners (caucasion) do? For example, Chinese women going for foreigners because money and leaving China for a better pasture etc.

Frog Splash.


Dear Frog.

What do you mean by preferential treatment? I'm uncertain. Are you saying because you have an American passport you are more desirable to women in China?

I would say possibly however because you look the same. TCG curiously if stood in a line of Chinese people even though I look similar everybody can see that I don't really belong curious eh? The women won't go looking for you as the lets say more motivated women will when looking for Caucasians who are obviously not Chinese. Therefore even though you may be more desirable it doesn't mean you will be spotted. What is hidden cannot be seen.

I would note the architype of submissive femenine women is about as accurate as your piss after 10 pints of Carlsberg special brew. I won't name names though!

Enough fucking around though!

My own personal experience has been effectively YES as long as they know you are not a local... as said in my recent past I have been treated like a piece of meat even by HK women from not fantastically wealthy backgrounds as a good catch or somebody to bring them better opportunities than they would have in HK/China.

OTOH As I said in another post earlier on, you may well suffer racism comments such as banana I'm sure you've heard before. But the racist abuse from Chinese everywhere against other Chinese is.....shall we say several magnitudes harsher.

However this desirability comes with a terrible price.... I ranted a lot and got bored but suffice to say: Deng Xiao Ping's famous quote

"no matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. "

Is a complete and utter lie.

Americans vs Chinese?

Hi there!

So, I shall bombard you with a vague question. I'll try to make it specific, but I don't now much about the topic to zero in on a certain point or anything. I am aiming to work in the US's Chinese embassy one day!

So, what do citizens in China think of the US? I've heard the Chinese people are extremely nationalistic. Is this generally true?

And, just to make this even more vague, would you have any advice to give me?

-John Galt


Dear John

This answer is not particularly lucid as it has been typed in the dribs and drabs of time I have between busy things here and there. But you;ve been waiting a while so I'll try tie it up.

Quick answer - depends...

Long answer:

This is not an easy question to answer.

Curiously as a people I tend not to collectively judge.

This is in huge contrast to my communist goose stepping dad who still worships Mao, for some reason he regularly visits Mao's mausoleum conveniently forgetting that Mao killed loads of people. He has two factually incorrect anecdotes he constantly spouts he has been telling since 1984.

About how the US has collectively destroyed the rattlesnake population.

How Americans are shit drivers, he once read Joe Connelly's book bringing out the dead and assumed because petrol (gas) is so cheap in the US people drive like Tom Walls.

Tom Walls is Frank Pierce's co-driver in Bringing out the dead, where they drive an Ambulance in Hell's kitchen. The Tom Walls driving technique is where a brick is put on the gas pedal to red line the vehicle and to regulate speed you press the brake.

Though my dad is prejudiced...its funny though cus he won't buy made in China anymore after the tin opener incident where in one day he broke 4 made in China tin openers and phoned me to borrow my German one.

There certainly are probably some types like my dad in China.

While OTOH there are going to be those who are prejudiced, indifferent or pro USA.

I would say it simply depends where they come from. The problem is negative image, many Americans I met on my travels (who for some reason pretended to be Canadians) who travel overseas are douches and tend to reinforce the negative stereotypes that they are told. Therefore in touristy areas there may well be a negative outlook of Americans. This cuts both ways as there are specific tourist trap areas for you to go into and as a non douche tourist you may get tourist trapped.

But travel a bit further out and Americans? They're ok but their leaders are cunts though. Bush was a very good laugh in China when he was in power. But what you see of Anti American protests is not what meets the eye! Many of these are actually hired actors, quelle surprise!

But this is not universal! In China as in Korea there is a big unemployment problem. The Korean describes the status of ESL teachers in Korea. One of his points is of unemployment.

The local Chinese have been suckered into going to university en-masse and when they come out there are fuck all jobs for them to do. Many of them really do end up shovelling shit after going to university. They see predominantly American types stroll in on ESL tickets.

NOTE TCG is pretty indifferent about proper ESL teachers. Those who do really teach and have skills and or ability. However TCG has a severe dislike of holiday ESLers. Which make all teachers look terrible. You know the kind the ones who get a 3rd class degree even fake degrees and go out there to 'teach' and do a massive disservice to the students because they don't know how to teach properly. You know fill in blank spacers massive Teacher talking time vs interaction and thinking types. They go off to China on ESL meal tickets party and drink their asses off in China and Korea and act like douches which makes the locals think if Americans and British folks are like this here? They must be absolute fuckers back home, since this is all they see of Americans or UK folks ever and it leaves a bad impression.

Anyway Jokes on you guys! Because when you return (visa situations can change quickly) you are essentially 100% unemployable! Smart cookies who teach in Seoul or China go do their masters or PhD's so when they return they are employable.

Anyway what am I getting at? The point I am getting at is the point the Korean made is the same, that you get ESL types who stroll in and get paid way more than the natives who are often more qualified than said ESLers which to them seems terrifically unfair. This breeds resentment.

OTOH Americans are seen as meal tickets by the local women, no seriously.

You think about it as a woman in China your options are shit.... as a man your options are even worse!

As a woman you have bog all options:

You can work on a farm and earn nothing.

You can be worked to death in a foxconn factory and earn nothing.

You can go and become a working girl.

The 4th option is to marry a westerner and go away to the land of seemingly unlimited opportunity.


Thus really it depends on where you go and who you meet as to how people think about others, much like if a Chinese person went to the USA there would be a wide range of oppinions as to what people thought about this person. Hell there is a huge wide range of oppinions about ME in the UK and it's a small country!

Racist Chinese?

Dear TCG

I'm a British Born Chinese my parents are originally from Kowloon. I get the impression that my parents give to me that they are racists, not just against clearly different people but against other Chinese people too especially mainland Chinese people, Taiwanese and other Southern Asians whats the deal?

Is what I am experiencing normal?


Chan


Dear Chan

Chinese are prone to racism as much as any other ethnic group. I found that Chinese like to differentiate themselves as Hongkies vs Mainlanders growing up. And this view remains to this day as HK people consider themselves to be a tier above the mainland Chinese. And consider the mainlanders to be bumpkins or terrifically backwards. This infects the expats too as BWG makes un-flattering remarks about mainlanders sometimes. Those that venture out of the Gweilo ghetto of the mid-levels that is.

Though some of them are completely deserved of course, as stereotypes are often grounded in some form of reality. The way Mainland Chinese are incredibly wasteful. You hang around Beijing and you see cars with their air conditioners on yet the windows open. Or way back in Hangzhao when I managed to stay there for a week. The guy I lived next door to was nuts.

In winter he would turn the heating on, nothing abnormal about this right? But he'd just twist the thermostat to maximum. Still nothing wrong with that either. Yet when it got too hot he turned on the air conditioner again to maximum and again when the air conditioner lost the battle opened the windows. Some very strange behaviour is reported by others too when they open windows and turn on the air con unlike us westerners with high electricity bills that shut the windows and keep the cold air in. And yes this is Representative of what I've seen in China

Anyway as an anedote from one of my friends "As I began working overseas, I saw segregation between Malay, Singaporeans and Hongkies, while South and North China are prejudiced towards each other, and don't get me started vs Taiwanese!"

But all of Chinese (esp gals) tend to extend otherwise unjustified high-regard for Gwailo. White supremacy. Likewise, anybody darker-skinned (Indian, SE Asian, black) are lower-class. It's like their world is monochrome.

Answer then is: Yes they are racist, but this is simply human nature tbh.

However I don't think it's limited to a Chinese phenomenon. People of the same race but from different geographical locations always have hatred and rivalries.

In the UK for example:

• Mancunians (Manchester) and scousers (Liverpool) hate each other.
• Geordies (Tyne Side) and Scots hate each other.
• People from London seem to hate everyone north of the Watford gap, etc.
• Aussies always rip the British. British hate Americans etc.

Wider:

• Sunni Muslims hate Shiite Muslims
• North Koreans and South Koreans hate each other even though they are the same people.

Even in Hong Kong itself. The Cantonese hate the Hakka but hate the Mainland Chinese more.

The Mainland Chinese hate us S.A.R types as we come over as snooty cunts to them.

The Hakka pretend to be Cantonese but bitch about the Cantonese in private and hate some of the Mainland Chinese.

Curiously there are even more subdivisions.

The Hakka are split between the fishermen and the farmers, they used to hate each other and celebrate completely different festivals. While my dad's village the village next door hated them and vice versa.

But that's just human nature.