| Ex Pats
In China |
| Some Thoughts
On Stereotyping |
| By Daniel Wallace |
| May 2005
I opened the
door of a cafe's toilet the other day, and a middle aged Chinese woman
was inside, about to unbutton her jeans and crouch down. I blinked and
politely closed the door. One of my Israeli friends was in the cafe, so
I went and sat with her and recounted how the woman hadn't locked the door.
My friend replied casually, "Oh, they always do that". There are
difficult things involved with living in China. Beyond trivial things like
toilets and chopsticks, there a lot of deeply strange differences. Like
- Chinese dinners usually require the host to order/cook twice as much
as food as is actually necessary, leaving you feeling desperate to try
and finish it, annoyed because you can't, and frustrated because your host
will keep insisting you eat more, long after you're completely full. |
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| The level
of trust between strangers here is frequently very low - it seems fine
to behave harshly towards people you don't know. Chinese people seem
to have a poor idea of how to enjoy themselves, rarely apparently taking
the time to relax and enjoy the simple things in life - instead preferring
to spend huge amounts of money on things just because they're expensive.
Young Chinese men get bossed around an incredible amount by their elders,
then when they grow up, inflict the same shit they had to swallow on to
everyone younger than them.
I hate writing
stuff like this. It makes me wonder how stereotyping I've become, how
much I'm really seeing the country as it is and how much I'm already decided
in my mind.
Ex pat society
is a very fertile environment for stereotyping. When you travel solo
in a country, you have little choice but be involved in the culture all
around you. You may find things you dislike, but on some level, their world
is the only game in town for you. But, with a few dozen friends from the
West living around you, teaching English, learning the local language,
you can develop your own mini-culture, a bubble protecting you from the
ocean. |
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| Chinese things
become amusing, pitiful - suddenly you are the superior one again. I've
made great "foreign friends" here since I moved to this city of
Kunming, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Sometimes,
however, I'm shocked by how crudely derogative we can be to the country
we've chosen to visit/live in.
Some lunches,
we recount funny Chinese failings:
Why don't
they just order a sensible amount of food at dinnertime? Why can't
they stop spitting, littering, staring at foreigners? Why do some Chinese
people spend lots of money trying to more or less buy you as a friend -
why can't we just have a nice dinner/drinks with them in a bar? Why aren't
there any good Chinese cafes, with a nice atmosphere? The women are slim,
meek and really easy, lots of them want a western boyfriend. |
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Offshore
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| The men
are unattractive, immature, they treat their women really badly, visit
prostitutes all the time. It's sad really. Maybe this is the kind of
thing bigots back home believe in, but we're supposed to be the people
with open minds, people that came here to experience the country, find
its good and bad. There certainly are bad things about China, things I'm
sure would frustrate anyone, but there's got to be another way of relating
to the country than forming your own pleasant ghetto. I've tried to decide
to myself, in the time I've got left in this country, to try and understand
a bit more. Find some exceptions to stereotypes.
To contact
Daniel Click Here
The following
are Daniel's previous articles for the magazine:
My online diary
of living in China: www.suitcasing.com |
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