ChinaHush was created first and mostly for personal reasons, as a way to record interesting learnings about China. Most of the posts were selected from Chinese websites, blogs and BBS sites, and translated into English. But now, we hope it becomes a platform to tell YOUR stories. They do not even need to be about China, as long as interesting and truthful.
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CC Huang, Nancy Wu, Annie Lee, Jessica Rapp, Mitch Blatt, Oliver Verot, Yang Yang, Nona Tepper
107 comments
It is pretty impressive that you still remember Chinese when your mom forbade you to read any Chinese literature
Thanks for writing all these stories, they are fascinating, you are a culture translator!
Great job, I am from Mexico lived in China for 5 years and I love it. This a great way to show the real China to western people.
Thank you Jose, hope you continue to enjoy ChinaHush and living in China!
Is this site hosted in the US or China?
Hey, KEY. Thanks for providing such a great platform. It’s really great. I am living in Northeast China, if your need any help here. You can mail me.
China is not as bad and America is not as good as people perceive. It’s good to tell the truth but even better to propose solution to the issues, instead of just mocking.
I agree. Also, remember China has more than 5000 years history- bad and good. Millions upon millons have suffered to the Chinese people to be here today. China has given so much to this world- even though many do not know yet. The important thing, you as a Chinese people know.
Well said, David. Thanks to key for bridging the gap with others. Great work.
China in recent decades have adopted many American ways, which is both good and bad. The US of A is pretty bad right now, and can great benefit from the adoption of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
I’m not bullshittin’.
wrong on BOTH counts amigo.
Great job…..
I retweet your links often….
Keep up the good work…
OMBW
It’s always a good thing to know more history. I wonder the suitability of the 4 following stories about China published on ChinaHush. Key, please translate them into English for those who are interested in China but know little about China’s history in recent hundred year. I think these people are the majority of the American people. But it’s of course up to you, since you are the owner of this website.
我想讲四个故事来结束我的发言。至于解读这些故事与科学工作者的关联，那就请诸位
年青的科技精英们见仁见智吧。
第一个故事发生在19世纪美国的Sacramento市。那里是加利福尼亚州的首都，是淘
金热的中心，也是华人聚居的地方，有很多华人到那里去淘金。那里有一条大河，叫三
acramento River，河上有桥。一天，满清政府有位领事，是一位武官，正在过桥。他
身后有两个美国农民，或者美国矿工，也在过桥。两人看着这个中国官员穿着满清花花
绿绿的官服，脑后拖着长辫子，很好玩，打赌这个中国外交官会不会游泳。于是两人一
使劲，就把这位官员扔进了Sacramento 河。他不会游泳，淹死了。然后，什么也没有
发生，也不会发生什么，就像这件事从来不曾发生一样。那个时候，中国人并不认同 ”
中国”。
前往索马里海域执行护航任务的中国海军战舰编队
第二个故事发生在1900年。八国联军只有两万个士兵，却打败了中国军队，占领了
北京城，太后逃到西安去了。结果是，中国赔款四亿五千万两白银。这个数字是按照当
时中国户部的人口统计得来的，也就是中国人不分男女老幼，一人赔一两白银。这笔钱
折合成八国各自的货币支付。八国之中，美国 “损失”（出力）较小，仅分得赔款中的7
.3% ，即四亿五千万两中的三千三百万两，估算为美元两千四百五十万元。后来，美国
政府方面承认，其半数赔偿要求属于”虚报”，故将该款之近半，即一千二百万美元，交
还中国，条件是用于兴办西学。那时的一千二百万美元是很值钱的。今天在美国买栋房
子要五十万；那时候，只要几百元。 1867年，美国仅支付了七百二十万美元就从俄国
买下了阿拉斯加。国会当时还嫌贵，差点就否决了。四亿五千万两白银能买多少个阿拉
斯加？能买4000个。阿拉斯加比整个中国东北还大，是美国最大的黄金、石油、和鱼产
品生产基地。庚款自1902年起付，38 年后的1940年付清，其间年利率为4％，总共支付
了将近十亿两。在1900年之前，中国刚刚赔完日本，是甲午中日战争的赔款，两亿两白
银，价值20个阿拉斯加。到了这个时候，中国人想不认同中国也难。
第三个故事大家都熟悉。1900年八国联军入侵之后半个世纪，到1950年，我国人口
依然是四亿五千万，但是把美国军队从鸭绿江边打回到 “三八线”了。这是中国自 1840
年以来打赢的第一场对外战争，而且是对世界上最强大的国家作战，而且是在外国的领
土上作战。那是中华民族崛起的最明显标志。为了别人能平等地对待自己的民族，为了
一份尊严，这就是像任新民院士那样的科技精英们回归祖国的理由。 第四个，也是
我要讲的最后一个故事。有一位国民党将领，从大陆败退到台湾后，因为是败军之将，
不被重用了。上个世纪六十年代，他辞职去了南非，做点小生意过日子。那时南非与台
湾关系密切，都自称是反共的坚强堡垒。与美国一样，那时候的南非还奉行种族隔离政
策，比美国还严格。黄种人是有色人种，在公共汽车上必须坐后排座，前排的座位属于
白种人。四十年前， 1964年10月17日，这位先生乘公共汽车，上车后他习惯地往车后
面走。司机对他说，你可以坐前排了，不用去后面了。老先生非常诧异，说：” 我是中
国人。”司机说，”我知道，我看出来了。”老先生说，”那，我不就应该坐在后面？”司
机说，”难道你没看今天的报纸？昨天中国爆炸了原子弹。能造出原子弹的民族当然是
优等民族。从今天起，中国人都可以坐前排座。 “老先生一下子就愣住了。过了一会儿
，他泪流满面地说，”这车我不坐了，我下车走路。”红色中国为他挣来了前排座，挣来
了一个民族整体的尊严，却永远断绝了他跟着蒋介石反攻回到大陆的希望，也就永远断
绝了他回归故乡的希望？？至少在那个时候他是这样理解的。 是啊，认同祖国不是
件简单容易的事情，那里面掺杂着无数个人的恩恩怨怨，爱恨情仇，委屈与失望。是啊
，家很丑陋，但那是我们自己的家。
毛主席万岁——那些站起来的和跪下去的 40多年前，纽约的华人区有这样一个
中餐馆，尽管利润微薄，老板还是要求所有服务人员都要向餐馆的客人卑躬屈膝地下跪
服务。日子一天一天过去，他们似乎麻木了，甚至习惯了。然而有这么一天，餐馆老板
却泪流满面地告诉他的职员，从今天起，我们再也不需要给别人跪着了！ 历史定格在
这样的一个瞬间—— 1964年10 月16日——这是整个地球上的中国人应该永远铭记的日
子。这是中华民族再也无须向强权跪拜的日子，这是全世界都在为中国人震撼的日子。
因为这一天，在世界的东方，在亚洲大陆的中部，在古老的罗布泊，一团巨大的蘑菇云
承载着一个民族一百年不曾死亡的信念在一声巨响中轰然升起，只是那样一个瞬间，中
华民族乃至世界历史的进程都要为这团神圣的蘑菇云而改变！
就在这一天，法国总理蓬皮杜在他的日记中写道：这个日子终于来了。现在是人们
讨论中国重返联合国的时刻了。因为，按照西方列强数百年的殖民主义历史培养出的强
盗逻辑，这个世界是根据实力划分的。如果说朝鲜战争使列强真正意识到人民中国的必
然崛起 ;那么正是那一团蘑菇云的升起令整个世界为之震惊地看到了：一个饱受磨难，
历尽坎坷的伟大民族以崭新的姿态重新踏入了世界强国的行列。 然而，当时的人们
似乎有意无意地忽略了这样一个事实：原子弹的研制成功，是在极端险恶，甚至难以生
存的条件下，凭着一种百折不挠不屈的信念和意志，克服了重重困难在得已完成的。世
界上没有哪一个国家向我们中国这样从一无所有的荒原上起步独立发展自己的战略工业
;世界上没有哪一个国家的高精尖技术人员甚至要忍饥挨饿，双腿浮肿地从事工作; 世
界上也没有哪一个国家的高级技术人才愿意终身隐姓埋名，甚至丧失了发表任何一篇学
术论文的权利。但是，在中国的六十年代，在美国和苏联两个超级大国为首的一切反华
势力都在疯狂地对华制裁和封锁的时代，英雄的中国人将这样的奇迹变成了现实。
历史整整过去了四十年。今天，当我们在我国第一颗原子弹爆炸成功40周年之际，
回首那段仍然让 人热血沸腾的历史的时候，我们不能不惊讶于中国核武器研究历程
的极端艰难困苦和慷慨悲壮，为其如此，我们也不能不敬佩中国人民已故领袖毛泽东主
席和周恩来总理为首的老一辈革命家群体的高瞻远瞩和远见卓识。 毛主席和周总理深
刻地知道：如果没有一声巨响，那么中华民族的国际地位是无从谈起的;而乞求洋人的
施舍和恩赐，是永远无法掌握关键的核心技术的。正因如此，他们在那样苦难的情况下
，坚决摒弃了直接来自中共中央内部的放弃开发核技术的消极主张，以大无畏的勇气，
毅然决定走自力更生之路。
历史证明：正是他们的英明决策，才使我国得以迅速成为举足轻重的核大国，极大
提高了综合国力和国际地位，有力振奋民族精神，增强了整个中华民族的自豪感和使命
感。不仅如此，核工业直接带动了一批相关技术产业的迅速发展，有力地提升了我国科
学技术的现代化水平，在一无所有之中杀出了一条民族战略产业发展的路子。可以想象
，假如当年放弃核武器开发的观点占了上风，那么我国是否至今还会在国家舞台上被视
为微不足道的角色呢？
I am very sorry for the way my people acted in the past and for your suffering in America. All I can say is I love and respect your people with all my heart. There always have been bad people and there still are bad people..all we do is pray they over come their sickness. We are one people.
It’s good that you made this site to expose those dumb-ass China Chinks for all the ill shit that they do to each other, and for being the low-lifes that they are. No one is as pathetic as them ! Good job !! Add oil !!!
Key, can you remove this piece of racist shiat?
He is probably just some obnoxious, Ignorant, racist kid has alot more growing up to do. Ok probably he will never change, thats pretty sad but… It’s ok just leave him be, it shows what kind of people are in the world.
Hi Key, You are right on the spot!
OK, let’s go on talking about some racist topics. But I am not a racist but a traditional Chinese which I will interpret it later.
During my several years of visit in the US, I found a very interesting phenomenon:
Most white people are friendly, at least seemingly, to China and Chinese.
Many black people are not very friendly to China and Chinese.
Almost all American-Born-Chinese (ABC) people hate Chinese and China (perhaps they hate their Chinese face and Chinese parents also), which in turn implies one thing that the US government/media has done a wonderful job to establish a social environment of distorting China and Chinese people. I do not want to state that those friendly white people are actually hiding their true opinion on China and Chinese because I know some of them think the best government is no government.
So let me go back to the beginning. What is a traditional Chinese in Chinese people’s eyes? Why do I say traditional Chinese is not racist? The fact is China has such a long history. And Chinese people are in fact made up of a looooooooooooooooooooooooot of different races over the past thousands of years. The so-called Han Chinese is probably one of the most non-pure race in China because of lots of conquests by other nations. For example, in the Yuan Dynasty, 90% northern Chinese at that times were massacred. But most conquers adopted Chinese politics and culture and then turned themselves into Chinese. So nowadays, when you talk about Chinese, bear in mind that you are talking about a racial mixture accumulated over thousands of years. And it is a convention that Chinese people do not define Chinese with race. Instead, they define Chinese with the language one speaks and writes and the self recognition of culture.
After reading this, you may really feel pity on those ABC people. What a poor group of people in this world! Most western people define one’s nation according to the race. So in a typical American’s eyes, an ABC is just a Chinese which cannot be changed at all. But in a typical Chinese people’s eyes, an ABC is never a Chinese but an American/western people. See? What an embarrassed situation! And if a white/black/other-colored people is born and live permanently in China and Chinese is his/her primary language, he/she is really a Chinese.
In a word, Chinese people use culture and language to determine whether a person is Chinese. Unfortunately, ABCs who don’t speak Chinese lose the valuable opportunity of being a proud Chinese forever.
“oversea’s chineses” don’t care to be “chinese” or not, we don’t care at all what a “traditional chinese” or any other natives think about us, because we’re simply different and “particular”. Among us, like among any kind of human groups, there’s nice and abject ones, intelligent and stupid one. Don’t generalize, if you’re intelligent enough.
As a Canadian-born Chinese who grew up in America, I have to say that I’ve never met an ABC who “hated” Chinese. And I lived in North American for 25 years. (I’ve now been back in Hong Kong for 10 years).
Actually Chinese immigrants are known for preserving their culture — just look at the number of Chinatowns there are in every major city of the world.
I have no idea why you feel sorry for us. I think we have the best of two worlds and two cultures.
First off I want to say I love this site, as it is a good resource for me to learn more about China among the other resources I read.
“Many black people are not very friendly to China and Chinese…”
^However, this is not true. Maybe were you are from but that is not always true. When I was younger I was in a relationship with an ABC for three years and which I learned to respect her and cherish her for who she was. She spoke Cantonese, Fuzhou, and a little Mandarin. And later in life I also keep good relations with most of my friends who happen to be Chinese.
And it is common for Chinese to mix with Black people.
And if if it happens I would marry a Chinese woman.
I find a lot of the comments are very racist, if the admins here are ok with that then I guess they stay, but I find them distracting. We all know racists exist, I don’t need to read their ill informed words and would rather they had no voice.
Go back to Yahoo Comments where freaks like you hang out.
Truly first-rate blog that I’m quite happy I’ve found. Hopefully you can keep this going for a long, long time.
My first comment here, even though I was follow you quite often. I am Chinese too, but I moved in Italy when I was 8. It’s very nice to read your stories.
What to say, forza continuate così!
I am non Chinese (fench canadian actually) and I was led here by the article on pollution.
Yhis is an amazing and unique look into Chinese society, especially the little details on social conventions. It has helped see things from another point of view than western media
shows.I had to deal extensively with clients in Shenzhen in the early 2000s for my work and travelled there twice. Unfortunately my work was to deal with the rising number of frauds, scammers and counterfeiters ripping off US customers. I was left with a very bad impression and that everyone over there was somehow crooked. I am very glad to read here that I was wrong on this and a lot of other things but unfortunately right about others. Since my visits were to industrial sections of the country, I was extremely alarmed to see the levels of industrial devastation and pollution that was rising. I am very worried about China is being brutally industrialized at the expense of the people that have to live there. I truly hope things get better.
hope this makes sense it is very late here
Hello, I’m a Chinese-American currently trying to obtain data to complete my requirements for my dissertation in Consulting Psychology at Alliant International University. I am looking into acculturation status, filial piety expectations and how that affects work-family conflict in Chinese Americans.
If you are interested here is the link to my survey:
http://alliant.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_9t1MZG3alBdzB76&SVID=Prod
Thank you!
vanna, which campus of alliant university are you at?? smallworld!
hi Vanness…i attend the San Diego campus. but i’m currently back in LA. where are you?
Hi, It’s kay from Shanghai, China, say hello to you. It’s great to know this place to know your interest in China.
I was born in Hunan province -middle of China, studied at Nanjing cityand Shanghai – southeast of China, and now I live in Shanghaiand work for a US-based company .
In the past year, I was relocated to Shenzhen – just the city frankb00th mentioned – a fast-developing industrial area now as well as in the past 20 years. Up to today, when enjoying the huge achievements of industrialization, Shenzhen also faces the serious problems caused by pursuing higher GDP growth, like environment pollution, city safty,,,and so on
I’m pleased to share any experience with all of you. while, you may tolerate one thing – My poor English:)
非常不错的博客，继续努力。
As a Canadian Born Chinese of the post 90s generation i would like to thank you for creating a website that allows me read on the Chinese world. I feel disconnected everytime i visit China. The silence between my cousins and i. The language and cultural barrier. For me this site is a great way to read upon and catch up on some stuff.
@Jackie, @Jingbo, @JOSE, @Benji, @ToTo, @David Wu @acan @CK Chen @lonnie @ustcbbs @Wang Er @ Eldie @Tao Qif @Kay @Vanna @BruceGAo @CBC
Thank you all for the support and reading my blog. I am glad that you found value from this site! Let’s keep in touch.
Great site with a lot of variety & interesting perspectives – keep it up! 😉
目前为止,这个BLOG在兲朝仍能访问.
chinese culture gave you quite a shock and what you did for your blog also shocked me so much. You shared nice topics with us even we local people might ignore. I read almost all your articles these days and one talked about immigration is the most impressed. I have fun from your blog.
Any help if you need, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Cheers!
hi key,
this is a great website. most english speaking people read news about china from their own media, and don’t get to see the other side of china. of course all media are biased. but this website brings in some cultural aspects from a native (or emic) perspective, and that is important. because we need both stories from both sides to better understand the culture.
i’m chinese chinese, and currently finishing up my grad school in anthropology in the US. i’d love to write comments for your website from an anthropological perspective. let me know if i can help. 🙂
once again, great website, great idea!!! love it!!
cheers
a
@Amy, @Elaine, @hxm Thanks for the kind words, I am glad you guys liked the site! Let’s keep in touch!
既然逃出去了，就好好生活吧。
This a great way for me to get information about China and be exposed to it’s culture.
我非常感謝您已經創建了這個網站。
I want to work for ChinaHush, but I can’t find a place to contact you personally. I am American, have studied Chinese for 5 years and follow your site and Twitter religiously. Please let me know if you’re looking for anyone else to write/assist you!
这个网站我很喜欢上，我喜欢内容
With two daughters adopted from China (Hunan and Sichuan) I am thrilled to have found this site! We will be reading it often. Thank you! Have you done any articles on adoptees from China?
Thanks for reading!
Here is one story about a Chinese orphan adopted overeas but later find his way home
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/09/05/chinese-orphans-adopted-overseas-finding-home/
Also, may I link to you from my site?
Yes please do
毛主席万岁——那些站起来的和跪下去的 40多年前，纽约的华人区有这样一个中餐馆，尽管利润微薄，老板还是要求所有服务人员都要向餐馆的客人卑躬屈膝地下跪服务。日子一天一天过去，他们似乎麻木了，甚至习惯了。然而有这么一天，餐馆老板却泪流满面地告诉他的职员，从今天起，我们再也不需要给别人跪着了！ 历史定格在这样的一个瞬间—— 1964年10 月16日——这是整个地球上的中国人应该永远铭记的日子。这是中华民族再也无须向强权跪拜的日子，这是全世界都在为中国人震撼的日子。因为这一天，在世界的东方，在亚洲大陆的中部，在古老的罗布泊，一团巨大的蘑菇云承载着一个民族一百年不曾死亡的信念在一声巨响中轰然升起，只是那样一个瞬间，中华民族乃至世界历史的进程都要为这团神圣的蘑菇云而改变！ 就在这一天，法国总理蓬皮杜在他的日记中写道：这个日子终于来了。现在是人们讨论中国重返联合国的时刻了。因为，按照西方列强数百年的殖民主义历史培养出的强盗逻辑，这个世界是根据实力划分的。如果说朝鲜战争使列强真正意识到人民中国的必然崛起 ;那么正是那一团蘑菇云的升起令整个世界为之震惊地看到了：一个饱受磨难，历尽坎坷的伟大民族以崭新的姿态重新踏入了世界强国的行列。 然而，当时的人们似乎有意无意地忽略了这样一个事实：原子弹的研制成功，是在极端险恶，甚至难以生存的条件下，凭着一种百折不挠不屈的信念和意志，克服了重重困难在得已完成的。世界上没有哪一个国家向我们中国这样从一无所有的荒原上起步独立发展自己的战略工业;世界上没有哪一个国家的高精尖技术人员甚至要忍饥挨饿，双腿浮肿地从事工作; 世界上也没有哪一个国家的高级技术人才愿意终身隐姓埋名，甚至丧失了发表任何一篇学术论文的权利。但是，在中国的六十年代，在美国和苏联两个超级大国为首的一切反华势力都在疯狂地对华制裁和封锁的时代，英雄的中国人将这样的奇迹变成了现实。 历史整整过去了四十年。今天，当我们在我国第一颗原子弹爆炸成功40周年之际，回首那段仍然让 人热血沸腾的历史的时候，我们不能不惊讶于中国核武器研究历程的极端艰难困苦和慷慨悲壮，为其如此，我们也不能不敬佩中国人民已故领袖毛泽东主席和周恩来总理为首的老一辈革命家群体的高瞻远瞩和远见卓识。 毛主席和周总理深刻地知道：如果没有一声巨响，那么中华民族的国际地位是无从谈起的;而乞求洋人的施舍和恩赐，是永远无法掌握关键的核心技术的。正因如此，他们在那样苦难的情况下，坚决摒弃了直接来自中共中央内部的放弃开发核技术的消极主张，以大无畏的勇气，毅然决定走自力更生之路。 历史证明：正是他们的英明决策，才使我国得以迅速成为举足轻重的核大国，极大提高了综合国力和国际地位，有力振奋民族精神，增强了整个中华民族的自豪感和使命感。不仅如此，核工业直接带动了一批相关技术产业的迅速发展，有力地提升了我国科学技术的现代化水平，在一无所有之中杀出了一条民族战略产业发展的路子。可以想象，假如当年放弃核武器开发的观点占了上风，那么我国是否至今还会在国家舞台上被视为微不足道的角色呢？
+1
I like this website…..
Thank you guys so much for starting such a great website. I, too, am a Chinese American and moved to the States when I was 9. My parents forbade me to read anything Chinese (at that time I could fully read and understand almost all chinese novels) and even restricted the language to be spoken at home to only English. I know that they did this to help me learn English faster so that I wouldn’t be behind in academics, but I truly regret everything I’ve lost during that time period. Now, I can speak Chinese fluently, but have been learning back the characters that I’ve forgotten slowly and painstakingly. I still sympathize with a lot of Chinese ideals and feel like that I’m different than other Chinese kids who were born in America. I guess I’ve always been stuck in between two cultures and have always been trying to find a balance. But thanks so much for posting such interesting stories. I’ve always wanted to learn more about the country that I love, but sites such as Wenxuecity are too complicated for me to go through.
Keep up the great work!
Found here through your twitter post. I think your idea for this site is wonderful. Keep up the good work!
Hi, i just wanted to thank you for creating such a great website and for all your hard work- I’m chinese american too but I was born in china and lived there long enough to consider myself half and half as well. I’m fluent in chinese but have never been completely comfortable with neither chinese (difficult lingo) nor U.S (limited coverage) but I’m glad I was able to find your website because it makes me closer to my family back home reading it.
nice story man.
China is one tasty country, but bitter with their damn rules.
And it’s good your mom forbid you from learning Chinese, without her you wouldn’t be here today.
Just wanted to say great work guys!
I stumbled across the site and have been hucked ever since!
Coming from similar backgrounds i totally understand the need for such a site and hope it goes a long way to explaining China, Chinese culture and the way we think!
Keep up the good work!
I have been browsing tru Chinasmack and Chinahush separately and it is only today that both have been created by the same person. I am one of the Chinese diaspora. Great grandparents left mainland for Nanyang many, many years ago. But I have been lucky because I have visited China for almost ten times in the last few years. I have uncles and aunties living in Guangzhou.
Thank you for bring non-mainstream Chinese news to yellow bananas like me.
Hi, I am from India, I like your blog, It give me knowledge about Chinese people. You people are doing great job keep it up.
when are you gonna cover news on Black Jails in china and black people living in china. since chinese are racist to blacks.
很8错的一个网站，加油~！
I’m a native Chinese and never had a chance go abroad，现在在北京工作，我利用你这个网站学习英文，感觉很好，尤其是你把那些回复也翻译了.
Anything I can help , please mail me.
我想讲四个故事来结束我的发言。至于解读这些故事与科学工作者的关联，那就请诸位
年青的科技精英们见仁见智吧。
第一个故事发生在19世纪美国的Sacramento市。那里是加利福尼亚州的首都，是淘
金热的中心，也是华人聚居的地方，有很多华人到那里去淘金。那里有一条大河，叫三
acramento River，河上有桥。一天，满清政府有位领事，是一位武官，正在过桥。他
身后有两个美国农民，或者美国矿工，也在过桥。两人看着这个中国官员穿着满清花花
绿绿的官服，脑后拖着长辫子，很好玩，打赌这个中国外交官会不会游泳。于是两人一
使劲，就把这位官员扔进了Sacramento 河。他不会游泳，淹死了。然后，什么也没有
发生，也不会发生什么，就像这件事从来不曾发生一样。那个时候，中国人并不认同 ”
中国”。
前往索马里海域执行护航任务的中国海军战舰编队
第二个故事发生在1900年。八国联军只有两万个士兵，却打败了中国军队，占领了
北京城，太后逃到西安去了。结果是，中国赔款四亿五千万两白银。这个数字是按照当
时中国户部的人口统计得来的，也就是中国人不分男女老幼，一人赔一两白银。这笔钱
折合成八国各自的货币支付。八国之中，美国 “损失”（出力）较小，仅分得赔款中的7
.3% ，即四亿五千万两中的三千三百万两，估算为美元两千四百五十万元。后来，美国
政府方面承认，其半数赔偿要求属于”虚报”，故将该款之近半，即一千二百万美元，交
还中国，条件是用于兴办西学。那时的一千二百万美元是很值钱的。今天在美国买栋房
子要五十万；那时候，只要几百元。 1867年，美国仅支付了七百二十万美元就从俄国
买下了阿拉斯加。国会当时还嫌贵，差点就否决了。四亿五千万两白银能买多少个阿拉
斯加？能买4000个。阿拉斯加比整个中国东北还大，是美国最大的黄金、石油、和鱼产
品生产基地。庚款自1902年起付，38 年后的1940年付清，其间年利率为4％，总共支付
了将近十亿两。在1900年之前，中国刚刚赔完日本，是甲午中日战争的赔款，两亿两白
银，价值20个阿拉斯加。到了这个时候，中国人想不认同中国也难。
第三个故事大家都熟悉。1900年八国联军入侵之后半个世纪，到1950年，我国人口
依然是四亿五千万，但是把美国军队从鸭绿江边打回到 “三八线”了。这是中国自 1840
年以来打赢的第一场对外战争，而且是对世界上最强大的国家作战，而且是在外国的领
土上作战。那是中华民族崛起的最明显标志。为了别人能平等地对待自己的民族，为了
一份尊严，这就是像任新民院士那样的科技精英们回归祖国的理由。 第四个，也是
我要讲的最后一个故事。有一位国民党将领，从大陆败退到台湾后，因为是败军之将，
不被重用了。上个世纪六十年代，他辞职去了南非，做点小生意过日子。那时南非与台
湾关系密切，都自称是反共的坚强堡垒。与美国一样，那时候的南非还奉行种族隔离政
策，比美国还严格。黄种人是有色人种，在公共汽车上必须坐后排座，前排的座位属于
白种人。四十年前， 1964年10月17日，这位先生乘公共汽车，上车后他习惯地往车后
面走。司机对他说，你可以坐前排了，不用去后面了。老先生非常诧异，说：” 我是中
国人。”司机说，”我知道，我看出来了。”老先生说，”那，我不就应该坐在后面？”司
机说，”难道你没看今天的报纸？昨天中国爆炸了原子弹。能造出原子弹的民族当然是
优等民族。从今天起，中国人都可以坐前排座。 “老先生一下子就愣住了。过了一会儿
，他泪流满面地说，”这车我不坐了，我下车走路。”红色中国为他挣来了前排座，挣来
了一个民族整体的尊严，却永远断绝了他跟着蒋介石反攻回到大陆的希望，也就永远断
绝了他回归故乡的希望？？至少在那个时候他是这样理解的。 是啊，认同祖国不是
件简单容易的事情，那里面掺杂着无数个人的恩恩怨怨，爱恨情仇，委屈与失望。是啊
，家很丑陋，但那是我们自己的家。
毛主席万岁——那些站起来的和跪下去的 40多年前，纽约的华人区有这样一个
中餐馆，尽管利润微薄，老板还是要求所有服务人员都要向餐馆的客人卑躬屈膝地下跪
服务。日子一天一天过去，他们似乎麻木了，甚至习惯了。然而有这么一天，餐馆老板
却泪流满面地告诉他的职员，从今天起，我们再也不需要给别人跪着了！ 历史定格在
这样的一个瞬间—— 1964年10 月16日——这是整个地球上的中国人应该永远铭记的日
子。这是中华民族再也无须向强权跪拜的日子，这是全世界都在为中国人震撼的日子。
因为这一天，在世界的东方，在亚洲大陆的中部，在古老的罗布泊，一团巨大的蘑菇云
承载着一个民族一百年不曾死亡的信念在一声巨响中轰然升起，只是那样一个瞬间，中
华民族乃至世界历史的进程都要为这团神圣的蘑菇云而改变！
就在这一天，法国总理蓬皮杜在他的日记中写道：这个日子终于来了。现在是人们
讨论中国重返联合国的时刻了。因为，按照西方列强数百年的殖民主义历史培养出的强
盗逻辑，这个世界是根据实力划分的。如果说朝鲜战争使列强真正意识到人民中国的必
然崛起 ;那么正是那一团蘑菇云的升起令整个世界为之震惊地看到了：一个饱受磨难，
历尽坎坷的伟大民族以崭新的姿态重新踏入了世界强国的行列。 然而，当时的人们
似乎有意无意地忽略了这样一个事实：原子弹的研制成功，是在极端险恶，甚至难以生
存的条件下，凭着一种百折不挠不屈的信念和意志，克服了重重困难在得已完成的。世
界上没有哪一个国家向我们中国这样从一无所有的荒原上起步独立发展自己的战略工业
;世界上没有哪一个国家的高精尖技术人员甚至要忍饥挨饿，双腿浮肿地从事工作; 世
界上也没有哪一个国家的高级技术人才愿意终身隐姓埋名，甚至丧失了发表任何一篇学
术论文的权利。但是，在中国的六十年代，在美国和苏联两个超级大国为首的一切反华
势力都在疯狂地对华制裁和封锁的时代，英雄的中国人将这样的奇迹变成了现实。
历史整整过去了四十年。今天，当我们在我国第一颗原子弹爆炸成功40周年之际，
回首那段仍然让 人热血沸腾的历史的时候，我们不能不惊讶于中国核武器研究历程
的极端艰难困苦和慷慨悲壮，为其如此，我们也不能不敬佩中国人民已故领袖毛泽东主
席和周恩来总理为首的老一辈革命家群体的高瞻远瞩和远见卓识。 毛主席和周总理深
刻地知道：如果没有一声巨响，那么中华民族的国际地位是无从谈起的;而乞求洋人的
施舍和恩赐，是永远无法掌握关键的核心技术的。正因如此，他们在那样苦难的情况下
，坚决摒弃了直接来自中共中央内部的放弃开发核技术的消极主张，以大无畏的勇气，
毅然决定走自力更生之路。
历史证明：正是他们的英明决策，才使我国得以迅速成为举足轻重的核大国，极大
提高了综合国力和国际地位，有力振奋民族精神，增强了整个中华民族的自豪感和使命
感。不仅如此，核工业直接带动了一批相关技术产业的迅速发展，有力地提升了我国科
学技术的现代化水平，在一无所有之中杀出了一条民族战略产业发展的路子。可以想象
，假如当年放弃核武器开发的观点占了上风，那么我国是否至今还会在国家舞台上被视
为微不足道的角色呢？
This is a very cool instant Chinese English online translator, completely free! My favorite.
http://free.chinesetranslationpro.com/
this is an interesting blog… stress reliever actually 🙂
I’ve spent the greater portion of the day pouring over this website and I am absolutely fascinated. The media mostly teaches people to fear China in the United States.
Perhaps there is just cause for that fear, perhaps not– but I don’t trust what I’ve been told and I don’t have any control over what the monsters of our governments are doing. I have taken to heart these unforgettable pictures of children and adults alike toiling away amongst garbage, factories and pollution. NOBODY needs a fucking Happy Meal toy THAT bad.
Humanity needs to re-evaluate it’s priorities before we destroy ourselves.
my english is very poor
but i think this is a good site
go ahead
Cheers! Love your site!
I am a Chinese native, and have read a lot of your articles, most are interesting ones and hope you will continue to do your job. I find your site a very good place to learn English for your English is very professional. Thanks.
What to say?umm…this site should keep its neutral side.I’ve noticed that too much negative information is being delivered.
situations may be always like this…
Even though there are much more positive videos than negative ones about China, YouTube is still full of anti-CPC videos…
Or maybe your being long away from China makes you most unfamiliar with this country.I hope you can come to your homeland more often and go further into more works of society and find what China really is like.
correction:”works” should be “walks”.
Thanks~
My mother and her mother are Vietnamese and my father’s side is Tamil. I am light-skinned, brown-eyed, Muslim and fluent in Tamil and English.
Am I Oriental?
greetings from Toronto, Canada!
I was born in the well-loved city of Chengdu and was about 14 when my family emigrated from China to North America. I’ve lived in the U.S. as a teenager also. I consider myself bilingual. After years of living here, when my “indigenous” friends and I bemoan the cruelty of the Canadian winter and other things while watching news on CBC, I always find myself paying close attention to China. Some of my most wonderful childhood memories are associated with the beautiful land its people. It’s great to have finally found your site-it offers interesting, casual, and current articles about a wonderful place-for someone like me. I’ve read the author’s biographies and some of them have very similar upbringings as mine. I suspect this is the reason why I enjoy their writings, because they are just like me-the skin color, the ability to excel in math, and the Chinese-speaking parents suggest their ever-lasting relationships with the Middle Kingdom and are proud of it.
I’m happy to have discovered your excellent site through Twitter. I have a bilingual blog http://www.guo-du.blogspot.com on which I post stories and essays. The most recent posting is “Democracy Mission – A conspiracy theory”. The merits and demerits of democracy has been exhaustingly deliberated. But I do wonder why the political system is being promoted with such uncanny fervour.
this blog is totally ruined by trolls, very disappointing. Any personal attack and racist/fascist’s comment should be punished
waaahh someone doesn’t share my opinions on the Internet waaahh
you want some french cries with your whamburger?
Don’t forget Big Brother has an organised troop of Brown Shirts out on the world to make sure nobody says anything bad about them, or any of their banners. Oh, just a neurotic conspiracy theory, just like there’s a planned effort to wipe out the impossible debt but systematically creating hyper inflation, and to replace the USD, so never mind.
Introduction
Everything has a good side and China has a lot of good things. The
food is delicious if you know where to eat, though you will often find
yourself the victim of diarrhoea that lasts a week. Or more. The
historical architecture is unique and pleasing and the people are
generally friendlier than in Western countries.
But everything has a bad side too and sometimes, the negative
outweighs the positive. Coming from a different culture, I made many
mistakes in China because I did not understand the rapacious and
greedy nature of the people, their greed perhaps caused by the sudden
embracement of capitalism in China and the desire to get rich quick. I
hope that other foreigners who read this can learn from my mistakes,
recognise the deceptive ploys of those Chinese who want to profit off
of you, and avoid the painful predicament into which I have fallen.
In this book, I’m not inclined to be kind to China and Chinese
culture. In fact, I intend to be as harsh as possible. Partly because
the good aspects of China have all been trumpeted far and wide by the
one-party Chinese government and Chinese people, and the not-so-good
aspects glossed over or simply lied about, repressed and covered up.
And also because, as you will see later, at this moment, I am rather
pissed off with China.
Some will think I am too insulting to China and Chinese people. They
can put it down to mental illness brought on by the frustrations of
living in China. And anyway, after three months of anxiety, sleepless
nights and anger caused by the crooks who are Chinese government
officials and police officers, and who have stolen thousands of yuan
from me, I have earned the right to be insulting. This book came about
as the way in which I could vent my rage at being cheated and toyed
with by these criminals in the absence of being able to get justice
for myself.
If Chinese people do not like what I have written, they have only
themselves to blame. For in this book, there are no lies, just the
truth about the actions of a large number of Chinese, and deductions
about Chinese culture from those actions. Note: not all Chinese have
the bad habits I am about to describe and some Chinese are the best
kind of people in the world. But the number who do exhibit
Neaderthaloid tendencies certainly are no minority, and at the worst
of times, appear to make up the majority.
Dirty, dirty, dirty
The Chinese are very superficial – they care mostly about how things
(and they) appear to the rest of the world instead of what the quality
of that thing or themselves is really like on the inside. Your face
and clothes, and the person you seem to be, are the most important;
your character and what you actually are inside comes a distant
second. Thus they have become masters at advertising, but producers of
low quality products, products that are even poisonous with their
unsafe levels of lead content. You can go into a supermarket in China
and buy a Chinese product wrapped in the most wonderful packaging, but
the thing inside tastes like crap. If you buy the same kind of product
manufactured in a foreign country, it may not be as attractively
packaged, but the odds are that it will taste a lot better.
And so it is, when you step off the plane and into the airport, you
should find yourself in a clean surrounding. But once you get outside
onto the street, it’s a whole different story. The first negative
thing I noticed about China was how unbelievably dirty it and some
Chinese people are. Now, not all Chinese people are dirty beyond
belief but so many of them are that at the worst times, it can seem
so.
By far, the most noticeable dirty habit of many Chinese people is
spitting. Chinese men especially have a disgusting habit of making
loud hawking sounds and spitting the contents of their actions on the
road. While it is mostly men, I remember lots of times when I looked
at what seemed to be an attractive woman, then was completely turned
off when I saw her eject a white ball of spit from her mouth onto the
sidewalk or road as casually as if she were a bird ejecting shit from
her bottom. In the winter, it is even worse because everyone gets the
common cold and then the spit usually has yellow or green mucus in it.
When I am walking to the bus stop on a morning in winter, I wonder if
it would be less disgusting if I didn’t look down and didn’t care
where I stepped, but then I think it’s less disgusting to look down
and see the spit so I wouldn’t step in it. And to make matters worse,
in winter, the spit freezes and stays there for months.
So maybe some may think spitting on the road isn’t so bad, even though
it’s literally every 5 seconds that someone is hawking. But get this:
many Chinese people even spit on the bus, and onto the floors of
restaurants and public toilets. One day, I got really angry. I was
eating in a restaurant and a Chinese man sitting some ways from me
hawks and spits; the spit lands less than a foot away from where I am
so I turn around and ask him if he is nuts. He stares at me like if
I’m a madman, then gets up and leaves the restaurant. Spitting on the
floor in restaurants is not unusual; in fact, it is common and no-one
takes the slightest notice when it happens.
Restaurants happen to be some of the dirtiest of places in China. In
the West, we can be very particular about what goes into our bodies
and how it is prepared. But in China, cleanliness and hygiene, like
common sense, aren’t all that common.
I have often thought I should start a curio cabinet filled with all
the strange things I and my friends have found in our food. The
cabinet would quickly fill with the weirdest assortment of both
organic and non-organic matter: everything from human hair and
fingernails, to things of animal origin like bugs and a spiky
caterpillar, to stones. But that is a project still in the making. One
of the reasons is that I’ve been occupied with many things in China;
another reason is that there simply is no recourse when you do find
strange things in your food. This is the dirty way it is and probably
has always been so it is simply accepted and ignored. Once my wife,
who is Chinese, and I went into a restaurant and ordered noodle soup.
She started eating it and discovered a bug in the soup. If this was a
Western country, there could have been lawsuits costing the restaurant
millions of dollars. But in China, well as my wife asked me, “What can
I do?” Besides get a new bowl of soup which I refused to touch.
Yet really, what can you do? You still have to pay for the soup, bug
or no bug, and there just isn’t any official or non-official agency
you could complain to when you do find unsanitary conditions. Most
likely, you’d get laughed at if you attempted it.
Once I was in a restaurant near my home and there was dried blood from
some poor animal, on the floor. The chefs themselves had dried blood
on aprons, which were also stained with a myriad of black marks. I
think it would’ve been cleaner not to have worn an apron that’s
probably never been washed in the first place. In England or the USA,
a restaurant wouldn’t let you enter if you’re bare-backed. In China,
it can turn into something of an embarrassment when your host takes
you into a restaurant to treat you for a meal, and suddenly, you’re
turned off eating because the chef, waiters and patrons are all be
barebacked.
And then there was the time when I went to eat barbequed vegetables on
a skewer and saw the chef using one end of a skewer with food already
stuck on it to scratch his head. After that, he put it on the coals to
cook, then served it to me. It’s a wonder I haven’t died from food
poisoning. Yet. But I have, several times, had the worst diarrhoea in
my life. When you get diarrhoea here, it can run for 2 weeks and not
less than 3 days.
It is no wonder that the diarrhea is so bad when it comes. But it is
the most amazing thing that China is one of the world’s most populous
countries. With the dirtiness and lack of safety standards, you’d
expect people to be dying like flies here. In England, I used to work
for a grocery store. If meat was left unrefrigerated for 15 minutes,
you were supposed to throw it away as a food and safety measure. But
this is China. When you go to markets, the meat is lying out on the
counter and the vendor is using bare hands to handle it. In summer, it
lies out in the sweltering heat all day.
Dirtiness is a daily, year round phenomenon in China. Every winter in
the north-eastern city in which I live, people start preparing for the
long, cold winter by drying cabbages and leeks. The put the vegetables
to dry on the sidewalks without seeming to realize that these are the
same sidewalks on which people incessantly spit and blow their noses,
and on which dogs pee and defecate. Cars also constantly pass by,
dumping the heavy metals and other pollutants in their exhaust fumes
on the vegetables.
Now I can finally see some good in KFC and McDonalds. They have the
cleanest restaurants in China. But those are foreign restaurants, run
on foreign standards of hygiene. The average Chinese person knows
little and cares less about cleanliness.
Something else attesting to this, yet that no-one manages to notice in
China is when Chinese people blow their noses. Not that there is
usually anything special to notice, except that many Chinese do not
use napkins to blow their noses into and they do this everywhere. They
use their thumb and forefinger, press their nose in between and loudly
honk the contents out onto the street. In China, you can be walking
down a busy street and all of a sudden, the person in front of you
abruptly stops and indiscreetly spews snot onto the sidewalk, and
you’d better be quick to dodge it. Talk about living in filth. They
will often do this too on to the floors of restaurants and buses,
especially in winter.
Littering is another habit that is accepted. People in every country
litter, but the Chinese do it with a much, much greater frequency. In
winter of 2006, I took a boat trip along the Three Gorges. The scenery
was magnificent but my “cruise” was marred by the pigs I traveled
with. There were a group of Chinese people next to me sucking sugar
cane. They threw the sucked pieces on the floor. When they had a piece
of litter, they tossed it over the boat into the river. In keeping
with the Chinese tradition of doing things in a nonsensical manner,
they tossed everything over the side of the boat except their own damn
selves. Such beautiful mountains, such a historic river; how could
anyone be so thick-headed? There was a huge bin 3 metres, yes 3 metres
away. But many Chinese people cannot use their brain if they have one.
They don’t think about others or their environment. They can’t think
for themselves. The rubbish will be staring them in their face and
they still can’t make the connection between litter and ugly, or
litter and bad for the environment and eventually, for us and our
children. The only thing they care about is themselves and others in
their circle who they feel can help them. If you’re part of their
circle, they will break their neck and put themselves through all
kinds of trouble for you. The Earth is hardly ever in that circle. The
floor of my boat became so dirty, I was mystified as to why they even
bothered painting and carpeting it for these animals.
Could it be that the Chinese are practicing for the littering
Olympics? Maybe, though a glance around China would prove otherwise,
they feel that to win first prize in that event, they need more
practice and so everywhere becomes a target for litter, including bus
and train floors. Once I traveled from Wuhan to Beijing. At the end of
that journey, the train’s floor was covered with spit, wrappers of all
kinds, tissue, sunflower seed husks, apple cores, banana peel, orange
peel, piss, more sunflower seed husks, egg shell, plastic bottles and
bags, and bread that some bitch didn’t want to eat.
If you tell them not to litter, they look at you like you are a weirdo
and ask you what you are doing in China. You are a foreigner; it’s not
your business.
Chinese people refuse to accept that they have a problem. They will
deny it. As an example, when I was teaching a class on cultural
differences, spitting came up and one lady vehemently denied that
Chinese people spit more than in any other culture. She noted that her
husband had been to Germany recently and saw people spitting on the
street too, with a greater frequency than Chinese people. So I
questioned my German friend: do people in Germany spit like the
Chinese? My German friend was vehement: that’s bullshit. You will
hardly ever see people spitting on the street in Germany, except maybe
the Chinese there.
Because of my experiences, I chose to believe my German friend over
the Chinese lady. Similarly, in the USA or England, there are some
people who spit on the street but that is not very common. Later, I
thought I should’ve asked the Chinese lady, “If spitting is not a
problem in China, then why have 4 cities banned it?” But I wasn’t
thinking quickly enough.
Accepting that there is a problem is the first step to solving it, but
the Chinese haven’t gotten this far. Despite having, as they will
often boast, a very long history of 5,000 years, modern China is not
as evolved as the rest of the world and the modern Chinese are not
mature enough to admit that their society has a lot of problems. So
nothing gets done to fix their problems. Yet, the Chinese do have a
very big problem with basic standards of cleanliness. Often, I look at
them and think, “What is wrong with these people? Can’t they see how
disgusting the ground looks with white blobs of saliva? Don’t they
comprehend that there are serious public health issues with blowing
your nose onto a bus floor? Don’t they love their country enough to
use the trash can, instead of littering and destroying the
environment?” But after two years of living here, I have come to the
conclusion that most of them can’t and don’t. Something is seriously
wrong with their brains and their logic in thinking.
Even Dirtier – Chinese Toilet Habits
Apart from the germs spread by spitting and blowing your nose
everywhere, there are other things you have to contend with in China.
Perhaps the vilest of these are the toilet habits of the Chinese, so
vile so that they deserve a chapter to themselves.
Some may argue that these are cultural differences. But I beg to
differ. There are cultural differences that can and should be
tolerated, and there are just plain nasty habits that hark back to an
era of primitiveness when we still walked on all fours. China has
squat toilets and Western style toilets. The squat toilets are
traditional and are a cultural difference. But the toilet habits of
many Chinese are not. They are extraordinarily dirty. Sometimes, I
think even a dog has cleaner potty habits than many of them.
A toilet in Chinese countryside is usually a harrowing experience and
one you will unfortunately remember for the rest of your life (unless
you’re Chinese). First, the smell: you can usually smell a Chinese
toilet from far off. When you enter, you may run back out. What greets
you are a row of rectangular holes in the ground and all around them
are strewn lumps of stale feces and used toilet paper. There are no
doors on the stalls, sometimes, even no partitions between the holes.
But those are just the very sometimes when you’ve eaten some of
China’s finest prepared laxatives, prepared in a dirty restaurant by
dirty people. So you quickly glance around, then run back in,
clutching your aching stomach in agony. You very gingerly step towards
the toilet, taking utmost care not to step on any stale shit or used
toilet paper and do your business.
If you are lucky, you will use the toilet in privacy. But if you
aren’t, some Chinese person will enter, see you, a foreigner squatting
and start giggling. If you’re in a school, then you may very well die
of embarrassment when the kids see you and not only giggle, but beckon
their friends, loudly proclaiming, “Waiguo laoshi shang cesuo” –
Foreign teacher using toilet, and the whole lot come running in and
trying to see if your bottom is blue in colour.
Yet, I feel the behaviour of the kids is tame compared to the animals
whose are so primitive they can’t defecate into the toilet and throw
toilet paper in the toilet or wastebasket provided for the purpose.
You start asking yourself if they know what a toilet is to be used for
in the first place. What is wrong with these people? Is this how they
behave in their houses? Do they like to see stale shit on entering the
toilet? Or do they get woozy from the stench and accidentally position
their rear ends wrongly.
City people will claim these are dirty countryside habits but this is
a blatant lie. For two years, I lived in a provincial capital in
China’s northeast. I worked in a modern high rise building on the
eleventh floor in the most cosmopolitan area of the city. You could
smell the toilets when you got off the elevator, despite the doors to
the toilets being shut. The act of going to use the toilet was filled
with apprehension, because 75% of the time, when you entered, the
toilet was unflushed by the last occupant and full of reeking shit.
Judging by the amount of shit, sometimes it was the last 2 or 3
occupants. On many occasions, I almost puked. And even in the squat
pots, they spit on the floor, not in the pot. So when you go in and
squat, you’re staring at frothy spit in front of you.
Children learn bad toilet habits from young. They will literally stoop
and pee or defecate on the street, despite there being a public toilet
10 metres away. The vast majority of Chinese children have never worn
a diaper. Instead, they have a big slit that, when they stoop down,
opens and allows them to pass whatever. Or if it’s a baby, the mother
will hold the baby up, and indecently open the baby’s legs as wide as
possible. Once I was on a train and there was a toddler who wanted to
use the toilet. Rather than take the child to the toilet 5 metres
away, the mother opened a bottle and had the child pee in that. Have
some of these people no shame, no sense of what is decent and
acceptable to civilized people? Really, what do these people think
sometimes? Is there shit in their heads as well as in their lower
parts?
The state of Chinese toilets is the one thing most repulsive to
foreigners in China. And this is the thing I most cannot understand
about China: the toilet habits of not all but so very many. I can
understand the lack of privacy – Chinese people grow up with the
community and family so they do everything together, including using
the toilet. So to them it doesn’t matter if there are no doors. But
for the filthiness, there is just NO excuse. When I went hiking about
the countryside in England, I came to a conclusion that humans are
different from animals. Animals shit everywhere and don’t care.
Humans, on the other hand, have a sense of decency, self respect and
an appreciation for hygiene.
Chinese people are human right, so why can’t they realize that the
sight and smell of shit that’s weeks old is repulsive? That toilet
paper thrown everywhere is unsightly and disgusting? Really, you don’t
have to have a brain to realize this. But like obeying traffic laws,
littering and queuing, this is just another example of the Chinese
state of mind where common sense and what is practical and beneficial
to the society takes second place to uncivilized impulsiveness,
selfishness and stupidity. And dirtiness.
To be or not to be impolite?
Of course, not to be; this is China
The warmth of Chinese people is like sunshine on a cold day. I am
always gratified when someone goes out of their way to help me. But
this too often is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to
dealing with Chinese people. Impoliteness and the lack of common
courtesy are another common trait in China and in which the Chinese
differ from other peoples in the rest of the world. If China had a set
of watchwords, chaos would be one of them.
No where is this better manifested than in the behaviour of many
Chinese when it comes to queues. Many Chinese people either do not
understand the concept of a queue, or more likely, they do understand
but are too rude and selfish to respect queues. At supermarket check
out counters, bank teller windows, and train station ticket offices,
there are always a few assholes who will go straight to the front of
the line and push you out of the way so they can be served first. To
the novice, the crush at bus stops as animals push to try to get on
the bus is beyond belief. Bag straps are burst, glasses are knocked
off faces and there is the occasional physical injury. But still it
continues.
Chaos is also ever present on the street as taxi drivers maneuver,
ignoring lanes and weaving like fish in a net. Everyday I go to work,
there is at least one accident on the street, and I myself have been
involved in three although I do not drive. Chinese drivers also
possess the annoying habit of constantly blowing their horns, till it
seems like a terrible orchestra assails your ears constantly from 7am
to 7pm. And what effect does blowing horns in the midst of gridlock
have? Can it really make you go faster than an inch a minute when
everyone else is also trying to move forward regardless of everyone
else? But TIC: this is China, where simple solutions like allowing
others to go first and clear the way for you to go are passed over in
favour of the more complex ones, full of frustration- me first for
everyone- that waste incredible amounts of time.
Even when you patronize businesses and are a customer, you are still
served up with rudeness. When I used to work as a supermarket cashier
in London, I always greeted those who came to my till, then thanked
them when they handed me money, then wished them goodbye as they left.
Customer service is terrible in China. When you go into the bank, the
teller doesn’t look at you, far less acknowledge you with a friendly
“Hello”. Instead she keeps looking at her computer like if the
computer is the customer she is serving. Hellos, Thank you and
goodbyes are non-existent. Supermarket cashiers are similar; they
don’t even hand you your change but drop it on the counter for you to
pick up.
At first I tolerated all this. Then I had this incident in Xiamen. I
wanted to buy a train ticket to Guangzhou so I joined with other
people in the queue. When it was my turn, a man pushed in front of me,
saying, “’Help me, help me.” After having waited in line for half an
hour, I was obviously going to help myself first. The ticket seller
criticized the man, telling him to go to the back of the queue but he
insisted and shoved his money under the window. So she sold him his
ticket. Then when it was my turn, she checked her computer, told me
her shift was up, and to join another line. I had to wait an
additional 45 minutes in line to buy my ticket and was so annoyed, I
texted my wife and told her this was the last straw- after I finished
teaching that term, we were leaving China.
There was another incident that I always think of when I think maybe I
can live in China. My parents came to visit us and when we arrived at
the train station, a woman hassled us to take her taxi. The Chinese
think one thing about a person: how can I use him or her? Foreigners
are a magnet because the Chinese all think we have money. I refused
the woman because I don’t like hustlers. My wife said she wanted to
overcharge us on the taxi fare because she saw foreigners and thought
money. So this taxi driver started shouting abuses at my wife as the
inevitable crowd of Chinese with nothing to do gathered, even though
this was at 4am. Later, because my Chinese was poor, my wife told me
she was saying over and over “F*** your mother. Look, a Chinese
helping the foreigner. You sleep with all the foreigners in town. F***
your mother.” My wife was never so humiliated before in her entire
life!
The Chinese are very selfish and this is what has lead to their
impoliteness and inability to treat others like humans. My Chinese
father-in-law told me many Chinese people are bad mannered because
China has too many people. Everybody is struggling to make a living so
people look out for themselves mostly. Like many rats in a very small
box, each fighting for food and space. Which I think is a poor excuse.
You may be competing with many others but you’re not an animal.
I read on a website that the selfishness has to do with the group
structure of relationships in China. In the West, there is
individualism and individual rights. So you’d think this would lead to
more selfishness than the group structure where everyone cares for
everyone else. But it has the opposite effect. In the West, you
recognize the person next to you as being an individual like you and
therefore, entitled to the same rights as you, so you show your fellow
man equal consideration.
In the group structure, you are part of a group so if you advance,
then the whole group advances. Despite your being selfish and
advancing at the expense of your fellow man, because you have
advanced, the whole group has advanced. So selfishness and
non-consideration of others is okay.
Yet, how people can live with this behaviour (and the rest-spitting,
littering, the chaotic way of life with no order…you know what I’m
talking about if you’ve been here long enough) as to stick around here
in China for 10 and 11 years, I don’t know.
Lying, cheating and stealing –
A culture of dishonesty
Chinese people care very much about face and as a result, most of them
have two faces. Most people lie sometimes of course, but in Western
countries, there is a general sense that lying is not a good thing,
and there are some things that are universally respected, like
employment contracts. In China, the Chinese lie about everything all
the time and there is no stigma against lying. It is as common and as
acceptable as drinking water. And nothing is exempted from being lied
about or disrespected.
I first read about the habit of Chinese people lying in my travel
books but didn’t pay much. Coming to China was an overload on the
senses. However, I had not long to wait before my first brush with the
dishonesty of most Chinese. Three days after I arrived, I met my boss
to sign a contract. Before I had come to China, we had agreed by email
on a salary of 4,500 RMB for the first three months of work and 5,000
RMB for every month worked after that. When we got to talking about
the contract, he suddenly informed me that he would have to offer me a
lower salary because I was short, thin and not white. Therefore, it
would be hard to contract me out to teach in schools. I initially
protested but seeing that he was firm, I bargained and was awarded a
salary of around 3,900 RMB for the first 3 months and 4,400 after, and
my salary was not a flat salary anymore but based instead on the
number of hours I worked each month.
I accepted as I was new in China, couldn’t speak the language and had
no idea how to go to the police station and inform them. Later, my
boss didn’t even respect that contract and paid me less during the
holidays, and then I was forced to sign a new contract altogether for
even less money. I was not smart about China back then, but even if I
was, I still don’t think there is much anyone in that situation could
do, or can in present day China.
My boss later told me that Chinese people are not really lying because
a native Chinese person could read between the lines and figure out
the truth. Which leads me to wonder, well why lie in the first place
if you know the other person will guess the truth from what you’re
saying? Wouldn’t it be easier just to tell the truth openly in the
first place? But remember, this is China where people do things that
would seem stupid to rational persons. Supposedly, lying helps in
saving face if you have something difficult to say.
A great example where you can see how Chinese people lie to cover up
their faults is with sex. The Chinese will claim that they are a
decent people and a harmonious society. Pornography is banned, porn
sites are censored and sex out of marriage is unacceptable. Parents
will not utter a word about sex to their children, and anything
suggestive is banned from the media as China promotes its image to the
world as full or morals. All of the immorality is from the West,
imported along with capitalism. Yet all through China’s history, sex
has played a part. I mean, how do you think the population got so big?
Seriously, if you read some of the ancient Chinese novels, you will
see mention of courtesans – a euphemism for prostitute. Even the
Emperor did the hanky panky with some of them.
When I first came to China, I bought the deceit and thought China was
a very traditional society and people all kept in the traditional
bounds of no sex outside of marriage. However, after living in China
for 2 years, I know this is not true. Even some of my Chinese
relatives play around with all different sorts of partners, and they
are uh . . . traditional countryside people.
She has a new boyfriend again??? Whatever happened to the old one?
Wasn’t he new just last week?
The Chinese government will stand on a box with a megaphone and shout
that China is free of sexual immorality. But a stone’s throw away,
there will be a brothel. Prostitution is rife in China and the streets
are dotted with so-called massage parlours with red lights. Everyone
knows they are there in big cities and villages and you could go in
and get anything from a massage to a full night where anything goes,
but the Chinese government will toe the official line: prostitution is
illegal in China, while its own officials are going in these brothels.
I heard a story about a man who had some boxes posted to him from the
USA, and in one of them were pornographic magazines. The post office
workers had opened the box and confiscated them and when he went to
collect his boxes, they gave him his stuff but without the porno. So
he sarcastically asked the young male worker, “So, how do you like the
ladies?” The worker didn’t understand but a female worker nearby did
and made him pay a 50 RMB fine.
Why is a mystery. I used to work in a school on a busy shopping street
and there used to be a street stall selling porno. In full view of
every man, woman and student passing was a rack on which were
displayed 15 or so magazines with full frontal nudity on the cover. In
my travels throughout China, I have often come upon the same thing:
sex stores selling all manner of sex toys and paraphernalia. But the
Chinese will claim they do not have this kind of thing in China.
Their denial has led them to ignore AIDS which has spiraled into a
serious problem. And what I don’t get is this: why does the government
filter out internet porn sites from which you cannot get AIDS, but it
allows all these little sex bars to continue unregulated, from which
you could very well get AIDS? It’s because the government, like the
average Chinese person, is hypocritical and cares more about its face
than what it really is inside. So it puts itself out to convince the
rest of the world that Chinese people always keep within ‘accepted
moral sexual boundaries’ while problems get bigger and bigger until
they’re out of control.
In any case, with the spate of news about the bad quality of Chinese
products, I’m not sure regulation of sex bars will do anything much.
Using Chinese condoms, you may still end up with AIDS or twins.
This phenomenon of lying carries on from the lowest levels of Chinese
society, right up to the highest. So let’s jump to the next level:
government officials and the police. Dishonesty is best manifested
here in corruption. Now, every country in the world has corruption but
the difference is that corruption in China has infiltrated all walks
of life, such that you can get nothing done in China at the government
level unless you pass money under the table. And if you don’t or you
are late in doing so, it’s the worse for you.
To give some background, paying bribes has been part of Chinese
culture and society for a very long time. So long that it is now
accepted, like many other things wrong with this society, as the
natural way of things. Money greases the workings of a relationship
and this institutionalized bribery is even given its own sanitized
euphemism: guanxi. Guanxi is more than just money; it is having good
relationships with people in power and you can improve your
relationships by taking your boss or whoever out for an expensive
dinner, or helping your friends, expecting that in return, when you
need their help, they will help you. But money does play a large part.
If you live in China, you know that if you pay the right people and
maintain good relationships with them, you can get ahead. In one of
the schools I worked at, a Chinese teacher can only work there if he
or she first pays a huge sum of money. 200,000 RMB I’ve heard to
secure a job for the rest of your life. Or if you know someone, like
he or she was your classmate in school and long-time friend, you can
also get in through the back door. People who hold respected
positions, like the principal of a school, regularly do things that
are corrupt. Like accepting bribes (if you’re Chinese, read ‘gifts’)
in return for a job. Even when you have your job, you have to pay the
leaders in a school to keep the relationship oiled. One teacher told
me she paid her headmaster 500 RMB a year. And my former boss, the one
who lied and cheated me out of several thousands of RMB, regularly
paid the police in case he ever ran afoul of the law. Like if I ever
went and reported him, nothing would come of it because, through his
bribes, he had developed a relationship with the police.
A hilarious case of corruption erupted recently: in Shandong Province,
a Communist Party boss preferred sexual favours over money. He slept
with 11 of his subordinates wives, and in return, gave them lots of
money or gave their husbands contracts worth lots of money. Their
husbands were also corrupt and some of them were sentenced to death
for it, but the leader wasn’t. The 11 mistresses were upset that their
husbands were punished, but the leader wasn’t so they banded together
and broke the story. As a side note, sentenced to death doesn’t
necessarily mean execution in China. If you’re poor, then it probably
does, but if you’re rich and have good relationships with people in
power, you will most likely get out of jail easily.
But as I already mentioned, I think this integral part of Chinese
society has probably been going on for a long time. Of course it must
then be acceptable because as we all know, China has a 5000 year
history so everything this country does is perfect. Guanxi is like a
kind of glue that knits Chinese society together. But to me it’s the
root of corruption. Can we really expect not to have corruption if we
have guanxi? Yet, Chinese society is so difficult to change so will
corruption ever decrease substantially? Maybe the new economy and the
new wealthy middle class will be a catalyst for change. And China will
change much faster than expected. Then again, considering many Chinese
can’t even learn simple things like flushing the toilet after
shitting, I have a great many doubts.
The Chinese government pays lip service to fighting corruption, and
that is the reason why it still goes on on a very large scale. It is
often said the government can turn on a dime because there are no
lengthy democratic processes to waddle through. This is true because
if the Communist Party says, “Jump!” and you don’t jump, you will end
up being harassed, beaten up, in jail, tortured, and / or at worst,
killed. Yet almost 20 years after the Tiananmen massacre, in which the
students were partly demonstrating against corruption, bribery,
institutionalized theft, call it what you will, continues to be
rampant. Common people are angry at this: recently, there have been
lots of protests against corrupt government members. It simply points
to a society filled with greed and selfishness, where everyone looks
out for himself and not for each other.
Finally, let’s jump to the top level, the biggest deceiver of all: the
Chinese government. All governments lie and cover up facts, but if all
governments were on a world stage, the Chinese would take a trophy
home. Or preferably, a rotten potato because lies and deceit are
nothing to be proud of, a lesson the Chinese still have to learn.
The Chinese government lies to the people and the rest of the world.
It continuously trumpets that China is a harmonious society and all is
well and good. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most Chinese
people do think China is a harmonious society because the government
deceives them. There is a blanket over the media that censors anything
considered subversive.
There was a story in the news: an undercover reporter filmed a bun
vendor mixing 40% meat, 60% cardboard picked up from the street, and
caustic soda to use as filling in his buns. The world was shocked and
the story rebounded around the world, though having lived here for two
years, I thought it was tame and humorous. Hey, how does the cardboard
taste? Two days later, the press reported that the cardboard-in-buns
was a false investigation. The reporter had recanted and was jailed.
Experience from living here tells a different story that says the
Party forced the reporter to recant because it made China look bad in
the eyes of the international community, and as a warning to others
only to report harmonious stories, jailed the reporter. Seems like
I’ve lived here too long: I know the Chinese well enough to detect
when some of them lie to me.
Current events, what’s happening in your country-everyone should know
that. But do Chinese people really know what goes on in China? Even
many foreigners who just watch CCTV9 get the idea that everything is
hunky dory in China. Protests are illegal. They undermine the current
regime. So when they do happen, they get hushed up. Imagine my
surprise when I got censorship bypass software and read on the BBC how
many protests in rural areas there were. And violent ones too with
cars being overturned and burned out.
Foreign media sources report that 50,000 protests take place in China
every year, partly in response to corruption. In one recent year,
approximately 97,000 Party members were hauled up for graft. Yet
whatever happened to these people? Were they suitable punished? No-one
knows because the government hides it all from the people. The blanket
over the media is total. Anything that gets shown on TV must be
reviewed by the Communist Party cronies. And it’s apparently willing
to hush up many things the public should know about. The modern
history of China – well everyone should know their country’s history
but in museums, Chinese history stops at 1949. Most Chinese have no
idea how many people died during the Great Leap Forward, or of how
China was thrown into chaos during the Cultural Revolution, or even
what occurred in Tiananmen Square only 18 years ago.
The Party maintains its grip on the Chinese populace and keeps them
from knowing everything that is happening in China. It tries to do the
same with the rest of the world. Note also all the ‘putting on a show’
for the 2008 Olympics so everybody will have a nice rosy picture of
China. Oh yes, China is very clean- in Beijing, we didn’t see a single
person spit or litter, and they all formed queues at the bus stops.
Rubbish!
Will the Chinese ever change their attitude and demand openness and
honesty from their government?
One day, I gave a class on internet censorship. One of the students
remarked that the government made the decision to censor the internet
so we shouldn’t question it. She had no idea why we were discussing
this topic.
This demonstrates another aspect of the Chinese: they often cannot
think for themselves and Chinese culture trains you to blindly follow
and obey. One of the chief figures in Chinese history is Confucius who
taught that citizens should obey their leaders. Rulers in turn
promoted Confucius’ teachings because obedience in their subjects made
their subjects easier to control (and exploit). Thus the root of blind
obedience to rulers took hold. In modern day China, it has been helped
in no small degree by the threat of jail, torture, and perhaps even
execution if you ‘divulge state secrets’, a term arbitrarily applied
when no proper charge is present.
But if the Chinese want honesty from their government and they want
corruption to decrease, they first have to learn to change themselves
and their habit of lying towards their fellow men. And as the Chinese
are stubborn to change, except to make things more complicated and
life more difficult, I think most of them will have two faces for a
very long time yet.
In-laws from hell
I was initially happy and comfortable in China. When you are new to
China and can’t speak the language very well, you feel as if you are
in a bubble. You can’t even do simple things for yourself like
understand how to read or speak anything intelligible to most of those
around you. You feel like you’re a baby. But this has the advantage
that you walk around and don’t really know what is happening around
you so you just pass it by and don’t care. Of course, later when you
find out that a school principal told your boss in front of you that
she didn’t want to employ you because you were not white, but you
didn’t understand what she was saying because you don’t speak Chinese
well, you do get very angry. But for all that, life in China for me
was relaxing. There was a lot of dirtiness on the street but at least
when I came home, I was comfortable, and my house was clean. That all
changed after I got married and my in-laws moved in with us.
Picture a day in the life of some foreigners living with Chinese
in-laws and having Chinese relatives: it’s Sunday and you are
sleeping, hoping to sleep late on your only day off from work.
Suddenly, at 7:00am, the doorbell jangles and you are startled awake.
Who could it be? You’re not expecting anyone. All this time, the
doorbell continues ringing, like a siren. So you throw on your clothes
and go downstairs to open the door. A pack of what seems to be 10,000
Chinese relatives tramp into your living room and you want to ask who
is dumb enough to ring the doorbell 4 times in 1 minute, but you’re
just too tired and return to your bed.
You’re hoping to snuggle next to your wife and go back to sleep, but
already your wife is out of bed, dressing herself. Why? She tells you
that though she is sleepy, she still has to go downstairs and keep her
relatives entertained.
So you try to go back to sleep by yourself. But downstairs, the
inconsiderate relatives carry on noisily and you get annoyed at their
rudeness and wonder why the hell they can’t keep their voices down
when they know you’re trying to sleep. The phone rings, making you
jump. Who is calling at 7:15am? Who else but another relative. You
can’t go back to sleep because like all the other 10,000 days when you
hoped to sleep late, you know there will always be some disturbance by
some impolite Chinese person.
So you get up and go downstairs. On the dining table are half-eaten
dishes, used cutlery and glasses, and refuse like bones that your
Chinese relatives spat out onto the table at last night’s dinner. No
one has bothered to clear it up or wash the dishes. The kitchen
counter is cluttered with an assortment of things like dishes, a
battery charger, keys, cell phones, paper, an anything goes category.
In the living room, the relatives are still carrying on. On the couch
is a blanket that has not been put away. It was used last night by the
freeloader who has been living in your house for five weeks now, even
though he never once asked permission to stay one night. And he, being
Chinese, doesn’t even have the courtesy to fold up his bed sheets in
the morning. People are smoking cigarettes. You do not smoke and know
second-hand smoke is bad for you but you want to be polite and you
still want your impolite guests to feel comfortable so you don’t say
anything. So you go upstairs to your bedroom and close the door,
feeling like a prisoner in your own home.
You start reading a book. The door suddenly opens and the Chinese
relatives from downstairs barge into your room. They have no concept
of privacy and so do not knock the door before entering. Eventually,
those relatives leave, giving you a brief respite because you know
more will turn up announced later.
You go downstairs to make some food and see that the living room has
been left in a mess by the animals which were just there. The couch
doilies have been scattered, the living room table is covered with
garbage like sunflower seed husks, used tissue paper, apple or pear
cores, wrappers etc, and there is cigarette ash on the floor. You
clean it up but you are getting angrier: why are Chinese relatives so
messy? Why do you always have to be cleaning up after them? This is
about the 50th time this has happened in the past 3 months you have
been living here.
This is just too much; you must have a drink of liquor to soothe your
nerves. But the glasses have not been washed properly, if at all. You
count to 10 and during that time reflect on why Chinese people are so
nasty. Why can’t they use soap and water to wash the glasses? How is
it that Chinese people will use a glass to drink from and then put it
back without washing it? Even on the odd occasion when the glasses are
washed, they are just quickly rinsed with water. They are always
translucent with grease and other stuff, and there are curved spots
where the last person drank. You can’t believe how people can live
with this dirtiness and resist the temptation to smash the glasses.
When you open the cupboard and get a knife to cut bread, the knife is
grimy, coated with some yellow substance. Some jackass has used the
knife but put it back into the cupboard without washing it.
Later, as expected, more relatives show up. They actually have a
reason for coming. They want to borrow money from you, the rich
foreigner who has money streaming out of his mouth. You argue with
your wife about it and depending on the sum, you may lend it, if only
to keep the peace between you and your wife who will lose her face if
she refuses to lend her relatives money. And they will probably go and
tell all the other relatives that we didn’t treat them properly. So
the other relatives wouldn’t think highly of us and your wife would
lose even more face. You don’t care about face but you care about your
wife who, being Chinese, cares about face.
You decide to clean up the house and clear the dishes from the table.
Your lazy brother-in-law sees you but doesn’t offer to help. Instead,
he thinks you are his personal servant so he turns on the computer and
commences playing computer games. When he is finished, he gets up and
goes out, leaving candy wrappers and grape skins next to the computer.
You clean that up too.
Then upstairs to prepare your lessons for the upcoming week.
When you are finished, it is evening. You are hoping to watch the
television but your Chinese relatives are watching it. They have been
watching it all day non-stop and you expect that they’d offer the
remote control to you when you sit down on the couch in front of the
TV. But they don’t care: they are too absorbed in what they want. You
go back upstairs, read a book and go to sleep, miserable and wondering
how you managed to get yourself in this situation.
My father told me very clearly, “Do not let your in-laws live with you
or you will have a lot of problems.” So how did I come to live with
them?
I met my future wife in October 2005 and we were attracted to each
other. But her parents wouldn’t agree to us being boyfriend and
girlfriend. I was too short, that was the worst thing. Then I was a
foreigner and maybe they were afraid I would take their daughter
abroad to live. When they knew in November 2006 that their daughter
was interested in me, they kept trying to introduce her to boys,
including one whose father was very rich. They admonished her and said
there was no way on Earth that they would allow her to have a
relationship with me. She didn’t like this pestering and it caused
both of us a great deal of distress, but they kept up trying to push
Chinese boys on her for several months.
In February 2006, it turned out that the city was going to build a
park on the land of my future parents-in-law’s, and planned to break
down their house and the surrounding ones too. When my parents-in-law
had bought their house, it was too expensive to get a deed so they
didn’t have a deed for their house. No deed meant no compensation from
the city government. I found this a bit fishy: who would let such a
large amount of money, the value of their house, lie in jeopardy like
that – not possessing a deed for your property? So they were on the
verge of being homeless and penniless.
Mr. Rich’s son really had his eyes on my wife. He kept going to her
house and being a nuisance. Couldn’t take the “Fuck off, mate,”
message. He, being Chinese, bought things for her parents to develop a
good relationship with them. They in turn kept harassing her to accept
this boy as her boyfriend. Little Rich’s father was principal of a
school and they devised this plan: my wife would accept Little Rich as
her boyfriend and they would get married soon. In return, Big Rich
would give my wife a teaching job in his school and a salary of 2,000
RMB a month, which is a good salary in China. Rich had a big 3-storey
house and he and his wife would live on the first floor, the
parents-in-law would occupy the second floor, and my wife and Lil Rich
would be on the third floor. Of course, my wife’s parents were
ecstatic with this proposal. They would be getting a place to live for
the rest of their lives and they thought the boy was good.
From my viewpoint, I thought he was a sneaky, conniving mouse who
thought he could buy a wife with his father’s money. Not much
different were the parents-in-law: they didn’t care that their
daughter didn’t want this and wanted to be with someone else instead
of Lil Rich. They mostly cared about what they could get out of their
daughter’s marriage. This I think was very wrong of them. Arranging a
marriage is one thing; forcing your child into a marriage is criminal
in many Western countries, and in China too if I am not mistaken, but
who cares about this law in China? Everyone should be able to choose
whom they will marry and not have a spouse forced on them so their
parents would benefit.
In the West, marriage is between two people – my parents had no
objection whatsoever to my choice of marriage partner, and if they
did, it would have made no difference. In China, marriage is between
two families and money is very much an issue.
With this situation of my wife’s parents trying to force her to marry
Lil Rich and she feeling that she had no choice but to obey her
parents, we were both pressed tight. Things are so different from the
West. Chinese children are brought up with Confucian ethics and the
most important one is to obey your parents.
The question was this: could we get married? We’d only known each
other for five months, but if we didn’t get married immediately, she
couldn’t hold off her parents for long. They would surely force her to
marry Lil Rich to take advantage of the bastard’s cheese. We decided
to get married.
I would have to buy a house, partly because the custom in China is for
the man to buy a house (some women demand more things like a car and
money in the deal) when getting married.
Renting or buying a cheap house wouldn’t be acceptable because it
would make my wife’s family lose face in front of their relatives:
“Oh, your daughter married a rich foreigner (the Chinese think all
foreigners are rich) and she’s living in a small house??? Why did you
let her marry this poor foreigner??? Boy are you dumb! But haha, at
least you didn’t get one up on us.” Buying a big house would raise
their status however.
They had been looking at a house – it cost 480,000 RMB. I didn’t have
enough money and I never believed in spending money you don’t have.
But truly, a man in love is blind and will do anything for the girl. I
borrowed money from my family, who were all against me making such a
snap decision on such an important issue. My father told me my wife
was being used by her parents to lever me into doing something I
didn’t want to do, and I would regret it.
Pressure came from the other side too. Another woman was said to be
interested in purchasing the apartment. And the seller wanted the
money urgently for business ventures. My wife’s mother told her she’d
be waiting forever for me to buy this apartment. (Later, she told my
wife she had been wrong about me, and that I was a decent person.) The
money came through and I bought the house. I did not see the house
before I bought it. Who would be so stupid to buy something for half a
million yuan without seeing it first? A man in love. My wife told me
that if the seller met me and saw I was a foreigner, he would demand a
higher price. The Chinese would dig out the eyes of anyone if they
thought it would make them richer.
The second part of the deal was that I would allow the parents-in-law
to live in my newly bought house. Big and Lil Rich were offering them
accommodation so they thought the Rich family was good and kind. It’s
always about what other people can do for you in China. Build up
relationships not because you like someone but so that you can use
them to get something someday. No wonder corruption is so rife in
China. Corruption happens everywhere but in China, follow the golden
rule: Do everything to the extreme.
The parents-in-law accepted this offer and that is how, from April
2006 to November 2007, I came to live with my in-laws. I thought it
would be interesting and culturally educational to live with Chinese
people, and eventually, after 2 or 3 months, they would move out into
a place of their own. Little did I know of the shock and unhappiness I
was in for.
You would think that guests in your home would act with a certain
level of courtesy and decorum, and would treat your home with decency
and respect. When I lived with other people, I always kept their place
clean, and did chores like washing the dishes or taking out the trash
to help them out.
But my Chinese family showed very little respect for me or for my
home. Mostly, there was conflict because they are not clean people.
The whole house except my bedroom was a clutter and a mess. They would
use something and never put it back but leave it wherever. Lunch and
dinner would be eaten but the table wouldn’t be cleared until 2 or 3
days later. They would use knives and pots caked with grease and stale
food because no-one washed them after use. And the knives didn’t get
washed before use either. The pots were afforded the luxury of a
rinsing before use, but without soap. I found this to be quite alien:
as with the glasses, how could you not wash things after using them?
How could you put a used sanitary pad exposed on top a full pile of
garbage in the kitchen, only 3 metres away from the stove where we
cook? Uggh! But this is the way my in-laws live.
They stored vegetables and fruit on the ground right next to the
garbage. They also could never take a hint. I would cover the garbage
can with the lid so the smell wouldn’t permeate through the house.
Someone would take off the lid to throw something in, but could never
put the lid back on. After 18 months, they still wouldn’t use the lid.
Only my mother-in-law treated me well enough that I will not slag her
off, despite some shortcomings, the likes of which you could probably
guess from the tale at the beginning of this chapter.
But my other in-laws and Chinese relatives, being the sloppy vermin
that they are, do not get off.
My first bone to pick with them is their lack of consideration for
others. Like most other Chinese, they do not think about others or
anything for that matter. They would unexpectedly show up at all times
of the day – as ridiculously early as 6am to as late as 11pm – and I
was often prematurely awaken by the doorbell. I got really angry with
that. They knew perfectly well how to use a phone but did not know how
to be courteous enough to phone first and ask, “Are you busy? Is it ok
to come over?” Apparently, another person’s sleep is not important;
only they have a life to live and whatever plans you have made for
that day don’t really matter to them.
I cannot understand how anyone can visit without calling first (unless
you want to give the occasional surprise.) It’s common sense- I mean,
if the person isn’t home, then you waste your time. Also, it’s simple
politeness. What if the person you want to visit has something
planned? Then, by visiting unpredictably, you’re creating a nuisance
of yourself. But Chinese people don’t understand this. They are dumb
beyond measure and do not think about things like this or about
others.
Second, most of them were absolute pigs when they came over. They made
a mess and didn’t clean up. They made a lot of noise so it was
impossible for you to go back to sleep. And when they left, the mess
was all mine to clean up. In my own house, I felt like a servant,
picking up after hogs who thought my house was their hotel and walked
all over me.
Their hotel. Yes, that it what my Chinese relatives thought my home
was. How else could I explain the freeloaders squatting in the living
room for weeks, without so much as an, “Excuse me, can I stay at your
place for a week?” Not even that but 1 week turned into 2, which
turned into 3, which … I am a very reasonable person. Even if you
unexpectedly show up and stay for two or three days, I will not get
angry. Maybe even a week. But 5 weeks- you gotta be kidding. I started
wondering when the freeloaders were going to get married and have
babies and bring their wives and kids to squat in my house with them.
Additionally, my Chinese relatives and other Chinese people always
wanted to borrow money. Once, one of my wife’s friends asked her to
borrow 50,000 RMB because that friend’s parents (who were unemployed)
wanted to buy a house for their son who was going to get married. Her
friend thought that since I am a foreigner, I was stuffed with dough.
50,000 RMB? I nearly dropped when I heard it. We didn’t even have half
that in the bank and why would we lend it to people with no jobs and
consequently, no prospects of repaying us? When my wife refused, her
friend got angry.
Another time, one of my aunt-in-laws called my wife on the phone and
asked to borrow 10,000 RMB. My wife told her I didn’t like to lend
money to relatives anymore so her aunt told her to lend her the money
without telling me. I got outraged that a person who cannot even
communicate with me and doesn’t greet me properly when she sees me
would try to go behind my back to borrow my money. It reminded me why
I started refusing to lend money to relatives and other Chinese
people: because I am not a person in their eyes; all they see me as is
a big ATM they can exploit at will.
My wife cannot understand why I get upset at little things like this.
I told her the first time, it is little but when these things happen
consistently, as they do, my patience is bound to run out. I am a very
patient person. Other foreigners who have had similar problems with
in-laws and relatives couldn’t tolerate it for two months. My patience
ran out and I began to crack after three or four months.
I spoke to my wife several times about her relatives. In the
beginning, she wouldn’t say anything to them because she didn’t want
to damage the good relationships she had with them. So we quarreled a
lot. After a while, she started to tell them off, but really, what
does go on in some people’s minds??? After numerous times of telling
them (count 3 – 20 times or even more) to do stuff like wash the
glasses properly using soap and water when they’re finished drinking
instead of leaving the used glass on the table (for who, me? to wash),
they still didn’t listen.
Finally, after fifteen months, I got so fed up one night after
discovering that her parents were using the trash can to store
vegetables (yes, the actual trash can which I previously thought was
only for trash, not for storing things you intended to eat), I flipped
and told her to ask her family to vacate our house. They were too
dirty, had given us too much trouble, our marriage was nearly
destroyed because of them and they still persisted in being nasty and
inconsiderate.
Well, two days later, after my poor wife worrying over this she
suffered an epileptic fit. I know her whole family blamed me for this.
Her mother told the Chinese doctor to tell me not to get angry because
that will make my wife sicker. I almost exploded and told her mother
it’s her (together with the other relatives) bloody fault I get angry
because for 15 months, they’ve ran over me every which way. I bought a
house so my wife and I could live comfortably, not so others can live
off of us and give us problems. I was kind to them, opening my house
to them but they had repaid my kindness with ingratitude and abuse.
ONLY because I have gotten angry have things changed a bit.
My Chinese relatives caused us to have a very rocky first year of
marriage. The first year is supposed to be the happiest but I hope our
first year was the unhappiest we’ll ever have. Since we were always
unhappy so we decided to move to another country to try to rescue our
marriage.
But yes, I feel very angry that I bought a house, was good enough to
let my in-laws live with us because their old one was torn down. I
tried to be tolerant and nice, putting them up and feeding them
instead of throwing them out on the street. You would think that they
would act differently and be grateful for our generosity. But to the
contrary, they have been such terrible guests that I feel I can’t live
in my own house. I have been forced out of my own house and my
marriage is unhappy. So I’ve wasted a whole lot of money and the very
people who caused me so much trouble, frustration, and worry, are the
ones benefitting because they continue living in my house even after I
have left.
In every culture, there are idiosyncrasies and cultural differences.
In every country, there are people who will impose themselves on you.
However, we can accept cultural differences to a certain point but I
don’t see why we should accept things we don’t like in our own homes.
Your home is a place where you can feel comfortable. It’s your
sanctuary where you can chill out from China if you ever need to.
Getting married to a Chinese wife and having in-laws live with you
dramatically changes that. All of a sudden, the dirtiness and rudeness
of Chinese people on the street is brought into your home if your
relatives are inconsiderate. There is no escape when you need it. And
no matter how many times you admonish them, some still persist in
offending. What goes on in the Chinese brain? Why is it so obstinate?
So frustration and misery boils over.
Hosts should be kind to their guests but Chinese guests tend to follow
the basic Chinese rule: take it to the extreme. When we are annoying,
we must be as annoying as possible to our kind host. When we are
dirty, we must revel in how filthy we are. And when we stupid and
stubborn, we must surpass even the biggest ass. When you are
inconsiderate and dirty in another’s home, you have abused your
privileges as a guest. You cease to be a guest; rather, you are a
pest.
I am not merely rattling about Chinese relatives. I have found out
that my situation is not unique, but a story that has repeated itself
over and over as Chine
This article below is taken from here:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5c369dba0100b896.html
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If you want this site to be successful in any way and provoke intellectual discussions, then you better start moderating the comments.
Every “expression of freedom of speech” baseless in logically formulated arguments simply detracts value from this site. If you want to “share this knowledge with those who also have an interest in China,” then do so with those who have a genuine interest. If you think “the Western media does not do a good job of presenting China to the western world,” then do a better job, and not focus on the dark end of the spectrum.
All you’re doing right now is allowing racists to come in, reaffirm their beliefs, and spread them to others.
I really enjoy your site and the articles you post, but I am having a huge issue with the racism in the opinions of every story. I’m as white as it comes and I get offended by it. Its not helpful criticism or anything related to the article, its just straight out derogatory and really ruins whatever you were trying to start as a discussion. This isn’t free speech we are talking about, it just internet trolling at its finest and belongs more on the KKK website than here.
The integrity of the site is compromised because of posters like korean_guy who add nothing to the discussion except for remarks he would be too scared to say in person. At the least could you use a system like disqus that keeps those comments lower rated if people like me get more involved.
Thanks for the support bro. Hope the authors are reading this. Gonna give this site another week or two before I remove it from my RSS feeds.
I agree 110%. I rarely visit this site any more do to the vitriol spilled in the comments section. I don’t mind differing opinions, but at least offer up intelligent dialogue to discuss and debate. This site has become nothing more than a hot bed for weak minded people that hide behind the computer. Can’t IP addresses be banned? Sadly enough, I don’t think the site owners care that much to implement some kind of control. I understand they probably have day jobs, but they’ve allowed this site, which began as a labor of love and passion for Sina-related topics, to be hijacked by a minority of ignorant racists.
Total agreement. I suggest you send a personal email to Key, as I have just done. Doesn’t have to be long, just a few sentences reaffirming the same viewpoints. We know we’re not alone.
Key, do you see this? Your website is being destroyed by trolls. People don’t want to be here anymore. Not because they’re afraid “someone has a different opinion”. That’s a trollish response to a troll problem. They don’t want to be here anymore because they aren’t getting enjoyment out the articles given the content of the comments section.
I honestly think they don’t care. Racist or not, it’s the most consistent web traffic they get which generates ad revenue.
I think your postings are wonderful. As a middle class American, I see the conditions and dreams that connect all people, the U.S and China especially, as result of your work.
Thanks!
Key, I’m sad about what CH has become… The articles are awesome but the commentary is full of spamming sock puppets. Do something!!!
I will do something soon, hang in there…
I have to agree with the above comments. It seems that this web blog, and another one that I enjoyed in the past have become breeding grounds for racist, and trolls.
How can I change my icon so it does not look like an insect?
I find you add some ads on your posts. but most ads are pictures, according to my experience, text ads is better than picture ads, maybe you can try it.
Hi, I’m just wondering why the website is called chinahush and all the claim-to-be-true stories are negative? Do you guys not like China in the first place…?
Hi,
ChinaHush is just a name, it is a translation blog, the stories so called “claim to be true” are selected from Chinese news media websites some are translated word for word. They are as true as the sources sited on each posts, as true as how the media covers them… As true as what you see on CNN BBC NY Times or whatever major media you personally trust, I would not get into the philosophical debate on the validity of the news, after all do we really see these things happen with our own eyes? As I said in above, it’s just another perspective…
Are they all negative? Really? Turn on your TV and watch the local news tonight wherever you live and tell me how many percent of the news are positive and how many are negative. Tell me what you see, a hit and run drunk driver is on the loose, a liquor store was just robed at gun point or some national murder trial is in progress. Why are they all negative too? Does your local TV station love your country? It’s just the nature of the media! Apparently these so called negative news are actual issues that people care about, so they happen to be sensational new. Besides not all stories on ChinaHush are negative, some are really positive and inspiring. Please do not just see what you want to see and listen to what you want to hear. Those so called negative news are actual issues what Chinese people care about and are talking about.
China, like any other countries has its greats and problems, we love China that’s why we write about it, that’s why we translate it for people who don’t read Chinese and specially for people like you who doesn’t know much about it.
Yes but isn’t this site supposed to present China? You say American media isn’t doing a good job of presenting China to westerners but I only see you present China negatively. I understand that the Chinese government tries to silence many bad stories about China but it’s very one-sided on ChinaHush. It is obviously biased and aims to present China negatively, it reminds me of a pseudo-miniature Fox news…
Hi thanks for replying. Don’t get me wrong I have no problem of what you guys are doing and I actually think it is pretty neat job. I’m studying media ethics so when i see a website only contains stories of one side my reflect tells me there might be bias. I could totally be wrong and since China media is propaganda media, there weren’t many bad news coming out anyway—so yeah I like what you’re doing. I was just wondering. Thanks.
sorry if i worded my question too rude….my professor like us ask mean questions in class and I almost take it home.
Key, this site is overrun with korean_guys, fake korean_guys, and all sorts of associated faggots spamming nonsensical messages. I hope you’ve got the banhammer on hand.
I will do something about it soon
this site has been over-run with idiots from the ultra-left “50cent gang, aka wu mao” and the like who are brainwashed to put China in the best spotlight and toss profanity at anyone who have anything negative to say about China.
this site is NOT sponsored by CCTV or CCP, is it?
your group needs to moderate more, from a NEUTRAL point of view.
This is a good site that is unfortunately hijacked by trolls like korean_guy. But at the end of the day, a troll is a troll.
this is a copy of chinasmack, right?
Hi everyone,
If any of you are ever looking for professional Chinese translation by certified translators, please visit http://www.professionalchinesetranslation.net. We can translate most any kind of document from English to Chinese or Chinese to English. It’s extremely easy to use. Just upload the document and within 12 hours you will have a quote.
I am a chinese who grew up in the Philippines. As you might know, chinese everywhere are generally taught by their parents to “be proud of their own culture”. However, the “chinese” culture that we were taught by our parents is in fact old Chinese culture that is already quite different from the mainstream culture in China today.
However, there are certain traits of chinese that are still preserved even after two or three generations of communist rule in. Today, my attitude towards chinese culture is mixed. I can still see what there is to be proud of. On the other hand, I have outgrown the feelings of chinese ethnocentricity and superiority that my parents have tried to instill in me. The news found in China Hush is a great example of how people are people no matter where you are in the world. All peoples have their flaws and ugliness as well as their own unique talents and skills. So kudos for a site that shows all facets of modern China and does not try to pretend or hide anything.
I am very sick of this website, it didn’t get news lately. 3 month i guess
Probably U.S propaganda against a rapidly growing rival….
This website is proof that Chinese women will sell their own country short for a taste of white sausage.
Yours,
a half-Chinese son with a self hating mother who I hate.
http://www.longingfordeath.wordpress.com
The truth about Asian women and white men
Wow! Your blog really seems to be a genuine one. I have gone through all your posts and I`m highly inspired by your blog. I can`t resist myself from following your blog. Keep it up, buddy.
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