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Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice
To reference an earlier discussion point in the thread regarding becoming Han Chinese is relatively 'easy' in China. Hypothetical speculation however, could whites ever be seen as Han Chinese under that logic if they spoke Chinese and did all the other Chinese things that gets you accepted... After say, a hundred years past by from now and somewhere like Canada got annexed (I'm Canadian, so as to not offend anyone I picked my own country! :( ) would the Chinese popular cultural consciousness see Chinese speaking Chinese culturally engaged Canadians as Chinese?

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NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo

MothraAttack posted:

Except, you know, in sheer number of victims and countries invaded in every objectively measurable way. What the hell?

Hitler had an achievable vision, as evil as it was. If executed properly it would have resulted in vast benefits for the German people as he defined them (white, Aryan). Part of the terror of World War II was that he almost succeeded. Despite his failure, Germany is a powerful and successful country today.

Pol Pot was a bully. Like Mao, he only thought of himself. His plan was to eventually rule the world by trading food to China for weapons. To do this he starved millions of his own countrymen and impoverished the rest. He emptied the cities and moved everyone to the countryside. He killed anyone with glasses, as they were seen as a sign of intelligence, a negative quality. The only people that benefited were Pol Pot and a handful of his cronies. Literally everyone else in his country (and many in Vietnam) suffered or died. When he started claiming large portions of Vietnam and instigating border conflicts, Vietnam marched in and took him out quickly and easily. China later used this as pretext to invade Vietnam, but lost to Vietnam's reserve army. Very embarrassing! Pol Pot never had a snowball's chance in hell, yet he killed millions in pursuit of his insane vision. Go to Cambodia today, and you'll notice that just about everyone is thirty years old or younger. It's sad as hell.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Raenir Salazar posted:

To reference an earlier discussion point in the thread regarding becoming Han Chinese is relatively 'easy' in China. Hypothetical speculation however, could whites ever be seen as Han Chinese under that logic if they spoke Chinese and did all the other Chinese things that gets you accepted... After say, a hundred years past by from now and somewhere like Canada got annexed (I'm Canadian, so as to not offend anyone I picked my own country! :( ) would the Chinese popular cultural consciousness see Chinese speaking Chinese culturally engaged Canadians as Chinese?

Uh... no? It's sort of a weird example you've set forth but foreigners aren't really ever seen as Chinese in my experience. Someone with a Chinese wife (or husband lol as if white women stuck around in this country) could probably tell you better. But no, foreigners aren't accepted as Chinese.

The reality right now is that people will stare at you on the street, little children will point and shout "foreigner, foreigner!" to everyone around, and even adults will go "wow, a foreigner!" and start talking about you literally right in front of your face because they assume you can't understand. So that is the level of cultural ignorance they have about outsiders. The idea that a foreigner could become Chinese through assimilation wouldn't really compute.

For the conquered territories like Tibet I would have to ask someone who knows more about how their assimilation has been handled. From what I have heard their assimilation hasn't really been handled at all and they are more being replaced with Han Chinese. The Han Chinese view of their cultures is incredibly ignorant and condescending. You are far more likely to hear the relationship expressed as "Tibet belongs to China" than "Tibetans are Chinese."

So no, no matter how hard you try you will never be Chinese. Happy National Day expats. :sigh:

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


There's some famous journalist I can't remember the name of, he's a white guy and has been living in Taiwan since 1951. When he appears in the paper, he's still called foreigner. Dude's been in Taiwan longer than most Taiwanese have been alive but he will always be considered a foreigner, an outsider. There is no way to become accepted and integrated in Asia, it's just the truth. Unless the cultures radically change that's going to be a fundamental difference between here and places like the US or Canada.

When they were talking about it being relatively easy in China earlier, that's because there are non-Han people in China who are considered Chinese. This is opposed to Korea or Japan, where there are no minority cultural groups that are considered part of the society. gently caress, I know people who are 100% ethnically Korean but were born on the US and are therefore treated like poo poo and called foreigners here. North Korean refugees are treated like dirt and considered inferior. The idea that anyone who isn't ethnically Korean could be integrated in Korea is laughable. In China it has happened before but it is not likely to happen with any new groups.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Oct 1, 2012

Deep State of Mind
Jul 30, 2006

"It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."
Fun Shoe
I've surprised lots of Chinese people by telling them Russians are actually one of the 56 Chinese ethnic groups. That in turn surprised me, because I thought there was a song or something so everybody knew all of them.

In the past I have claimed to be a Chinese-born ethnic Russian to freak people out. I have an extremely obvious foreign accent in Chinese, but that doesn't lead them to question my story. In my experience, Han people will try to speak English to Uyghurs because they don't expect them to speak Chinese at all.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002
It is kind of weird when you go to a foreign country and are accepted though. You begin to have your own sort of weird identity crisis, especially when you don't have a family connection with that particular country at all.

I guess expats want that feeling they "made it" but to be honest looking the part of an "average joe" isn't terribly exciting. You get reminded in reality your not really that special after all.

Fiendish_Ghoul
Jul 10, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 190 days!

Bloodnose posted:

In my experience, Han people will try to speak English to Uyghurs because they don't expect them to speak Chinese at all.

Really? How much have you seen that? I'm surprised that they would expect them to speak English if they couldn't speak Chinese. Are you sure they weren't taken for foreigners? Almost every non-blond foreigner has at least one story of being taken for a Uyghur.

Donraj
May 7, 2007

by Ralp

Fiendish_Ghoul posted:

Almost every non-blond foreigner has at least one story of being taken for a Uyghur.

And on at least one occasion, of being asked if he was one while buying a pork sandwich.

DaiJiaTeng
Oct 26, 2010

Bloodnose posted:

I've surprised lots of Chinese people by telling them Russians are actually one of the 56 Chinese ethnic groups. That in turn surprised me, because I thought there was a song or something so everybody knew all of them.

In the past I have claimed to be a Chinese-born ethnic Russian to freak people out. I have an extremely obvious foreign accent in Chinese, but that doesn't lead them to question my story. In my experience, Han people will try to speak English to Uyghurs because they don't expect them to speak Chinese at all.


I've had number of people, instead of saying "foreigner" say "xinjiang ren". I have no idea why. I don't really look a lot like someone from central Asia. I'm a white guy with curly hair and green eyes.

I'm in Hangzhou, so the foreign population exceeds the Uyghur one by alot. I have no idea how they came to the conclusion they did.

Other funny thing of the day: I was studying Japanese on the bus (using a textbook that is in Chinese). There were two young people sitting next to me and one asked the other "Is that foreigner studying Chinese?" The other looked at my book and said "Yes" and then continued to say "The strange thing is he is using a book in Japanese to study Chinese."

Despite the fact that all of the vocabulary and grammar descriptions were using Chinese, and the title of the textbook, in Chinese, written in big letters on the top of the page said "Standard Japanese", nothing clicked for this person. It made me laugh.



On the other hand on the acceptance thing, when people say being accepted or not being an outsider, are they just talking about walking down the street, etc.? What about with family and close friends?

I guess what I mean is to my (wife's) family and close friends I'm not an outsider (not saying I'm seen as Chinese, just that there isn't some "us" and "you" barrier put between us. To them I am family). But yeah outside, or with people I don't know, or whatever there will always be a perception of me being different or an outsider.

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

Arglebargle III posted:

The reality right now is that people will stare at you on the street, little children will point and shout "foreigner, foreigner!" to everyone around, and even adults will go "wow, a foreigner!" and start talking about you literally right in front of your face because they assume you can't understand.

I was getting off a bus yesterday and a little girl pointed at me and screamed her lungs out in fear. I am a rather inoffensive brown haired white guy; has the kid never seen TV before?

There are people in China who will accept you and with whom you can be friends and such, but Chinese society will never, ever consider you to be a part of it. This would seem patently ridiculous to most Chinese people I am sure.

Common conversation I have with teachers and students:

:china: : Did you come to China to study Chinese?
:scotland: : No.
:china: : Why don't you want to learn Chinese? :mad:
:scotland: : If I spoke perfect Chinese, could I be head of the English department?
:china: : Ah, hahaha.

I have nothing against learning Chinese - I speak enough to get by with day-to-day stuff and would certainly learn it properly if I landed a professional job here (at an overseas campus for example) but the fact that I am always going to be an outsider is a real disincentive.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Oct 1, 2012

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo

GuestBob posted:

Common conversation I have with teachers and students:

:china: : Did you come to China to study Chinese?
:scotland: : No.
:china: : Why don't you want to learn Chinese? :mad:
:scotland: : If I spoke perfect Chinese, could I be head of the English department?
:china: : Ah, hahaha.

I have nothing against learning Chinese - I speak enough to get by with day-to-day stuff and would certainly learn it properly if I landed a professional job here (at an overseas campus for example) but the fact that I am always going to be an outsider is a real disincentive.

I think your standard conversation is clever and funny, but (assuming you're a teacher) don't you realize that your job is seen as a professional one and given respect by a great deal of Chinese? Why do they have to prove themselves to you by giving you some ridiculous level of prestige and money before you'll "properly" learn their language?

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Longanimitas posted:

I think your standard conversation is clever and funny, but (assuming you're a teacher) don't you realize that your job is seen as a professional one and given respect by a great deal of Chinese? Why do they have to prove themselves to you by giving you some ridiculous level of prestige and money before you'll "properly" learn their language?

You're completely missing the point. A westerner will never be accepted--the very idea of one being in any kind of leadership role, even one as obviously suited to a native English teacher as leading an English department, is patently ridiculous to a Chinese (or Japanese or Korean or...) person. You're not Chinese, how could you be anything more than the English speaking monkey? That kind of thing saps your motivation to learn the language or the culture.

You're also totally wrong about how the job is seen. It's not seen as professional and it's not respected. Unless China is wildly different than Korea, but I don't think it is.

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo
As I type this I am sitting in my apartment in Wuhan, China. This is my second year teaching here, and it is the second university I've taught at. Last year I taught at a graduate school, the second best one in this city of millions. I've also taught at an experimental high school (think college prep for smart/rich kids whose parents want them to study abroad) and a more standard middle school. I am well-respected here. Teachers ask me for advice on how to better teach their students. Parents of students bring me gifts and ask them to tutor their children. Students regularly invite me to meals and want to be my friend, and not just to get better grades. I get paid many times the salary of local bi-lingual native Chinese teachers, who, frankly, are better at their jobs than I am.

My friend, who has been here for several years, has started a chain of kindergartens that is just now taking off. He is very much a leader, and well-respected among locals.

Do not make comparisons between Korea and China and expect them to be true. I have heard, and often, that Korean and Japanese foreign teachers are English monkeys. I believe it, but that mentality is rare in China. People here genuinely want to know you. You are interesting as a person to them.

EDIT: Also I've gotta say that very few foreigners would be up to the task of leading an English department at any big school here. Bilingual Chinese natives with educational backgrounds who know how to get things done in this relationship-based society are much more capable, generally speaking.

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

Longanimitas posted:

...don't you realize that your job is seen as a professional one and given respect by a great deal of Chinese? Why do they have to prove themselves to you by giving you some ridiculous level of prestige and money before you'll "properly" learn their language?

I am not asking anyone to prove themselves to me. In fact, if we are going to read things carefully, I am asking for an opportunity to prove myself and to be treated equally.

Longanimitas posted:

Also I've gotta say that very few foreigners would be up to the task of leading an English department at any big school here. Bilingual Chinese natives with educational backgrounds who know how to get things done in this relationship-based society are much more capable, generally speaking.

If I spoke perfect Chinese, I could have relationships with Chinese people - oh wait, no I couldn't because I would never be able to participate in the grey economy and shifty CCP dealings which are so essential to any form of business (state or otherwise) in this country.

But that's my point - it isn't just language ("if I spoke perfect Chinese") it is cultural. Chinese society doesn't have a place for immigrants.

Longanimitas posted:

My friend, who has been here for several years, has started a chain of kindergartens that is just now taking off. He is very much a leader, and well-respected among locals.

Does your friend have the right to live in China or does he need to give himself a job every year to renew his residence permit?

[edit]

Grand Fromage, that is the most diplomatic response imaginable (even better than nervous laughter and changing the subject.)

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Oct 1, 2012

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


That's interesting to hear. Most of the people I know who teach in China do not have anything remotely like that experience; I'm glad it exists somewhere.

GuestBob posted:

Grand Fromage, that is the most diplomatic response imaginable (even better than nervous laughter and changing the subject.)

Well, it is interesting. I can believe it, Korean and Chinese cultures are very similar but not the same, and I found people in China quite a bit friendlier and more open than Koreans. But I have no doubt that his experience is an unusual, lucky one and I don't think he's claiming that as normal. I mean, I know people in Korea who have similar lives. There are English schools here run by westerners. I also know that's a tiny, rare minority.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Oct 1, 2012

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo
Do you mean foreigners without college degrees? That would explain the things you believe about English-teaching jobs in China.

EDIT: Yes, my friend does have the right to live here.

NaanViolence fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Oct 1, 2012

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


No? I don't know anyone there without a degree. A few of them started there, a few got a couple years' experience in Korea or Japan then moved to China. Split pretty evenly between universities and regular schools.

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo
They still have jobs that pay a lot better than their Chinese counterparts, do they not?

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


I've never asked and don't see the relevance. A westerner isn't going to abandon their life to move to China and work for $500 a month, if they want western teachers to come they have to pay a reasonably western wage. Respect doesn't factor into it. In Korea I get paid as well as a Korean teacher and get additional benefits like vacation time and a 40 hour workweek. That's not because they have any particular respect for whitey, it's because they aren't going to have any employees if they don't do it.

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

Longanimitas posted:

Do you mean foreigners without college degrees? That would explain the things you believe about English-teaching jobs in China.

EDIT: Yes, my friend does have the right to live here.

Nope, I am also talking about college educated people who have decided to come here. I even have a professional background in HE admin (as we seem to be measuring dicks here.)

Universities in China don't pay foreign teachers "many" times the salary of domestic teachers. I am not going to argue that it is higher than average, but the pay scale for Chinese teachers with masters degrees at my university tops out at 6.5k + research budget and relocation allowance. Few get paid that of course, but it is not a distant "moon pie in the sky" salary either. So I don't feel at all guilty.

[edit] Anyway, this is not for this thread - come to T&T if you want to carry this on.

Also, cool that your friend has managed to obtain the coveted "D".

[edit for below]

Longanimitas posted:

Not to mention that the vast majority of schools will also pay for your international round-trip airfare as well as paying you during the summers that you don't work, if you work for the same school for multiple years in a row.

And, my boss got a trip to Malaysia this week on a partnership discussion deal. The university paid his travel expenses. This isn't something special for foreigners, this is normal for universities everywhere.

With the exception of not speaking Chinese, I have higher qualifications than a third of the Chinese staff within my department. So no, I don't have an absurd sense of entitlement. My pay is higher than a similarly qualified Chinese person, but not by "many, many" times. I also teach between 50% and 75% more than every Chinese teacher here - which isn't really offset by the fact that they have to do research because for every article they get published in a nationally ranked journal they get a 5k bonus.

Now, if I was working at a high school...

I am simply looking for a quiet place to do an MA TESOL whilst working.

You are being a jackass. Stop it.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Oct 1, 2012

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo
It is as I expected, you have a hugely inflated sense of entitlement. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Just imagine yourself in the shoes of a capable native-born teacher, fluent in both English and Chinese. You have a university degree in teaching. Hell, you probably have a master's degree in teaching! This foreigner comes in with a B.A. in History or Psychology or some other such thing, his only relevant qualification being that he speaks English natively. He is given a wage larger than yours in addition to a pretty nice apartment, for free. I am not citing hypotheticals or rare cases, this regularly happens. He probably only has to work 15-20 hours a week, and he gets 30-40 days off for Spring Festival, as well as breaks for various other holidays. If he misses class for whatever reason he's usually given a pass. Again, this is typical in my two years of experience actually teaching in the country I am talking about. I have many friends from many Chinese cities in similar situations.

This is white privilege at its finest, and you can't even be arsed to learn their language "properly?" It's really no wonder that we aren't respected more when many teachers have attitudes like yours.

EDIT: Not to mention that the vast majority of schools will also pay for your international round-trip airfare as well as paying you during the summers that you don't work, if you work for the same school for multiple years in a row.

NaanViolence fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Oct 1, 2012

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


There's nothing wrong with admitting you got lucky. I have a good school, my bosses aren't insane so I don't have any bullshit, and I'm respected like any other teacher (by the teachers and parents anyway). I didn't do anything special, I got lucky. There's no shame in it.

E: Agreed on the derail, will shut up in this thread now. Somebody needs to shoot water cannons again or something.

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

Is there really "prestige" attached to working as an expat ESL anywhere in the world? I've always had the impression that they're on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to expat positions.

Pay's mediocre even for those working for international schools and there's no real career path to it. Every single ESL teacher I've met has either returned to the West to do post-grad studies or try to do something "entrepreneurial" locally (and usually failed).

CIGNX
May 7, 2006

You can trust me
Does anyone have insight on how Chinese view or accept foreign-born Chinese? I'm an American born Chinese, but when I told locals, especially ones from the older generations, that I'm an American (美国人) I would get confused looks. Later on I was told to use American-born Chinese (美国出生华裔) and never encountered the problem again. This only happened a few times and I wasn't in China for very long, but is this a thing in Mainland China or did I just coincidentally meet some very parochial locals?

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

CIGNX posted:

This only happened a few times and I wasn't in China for very long, but is this a thing in Mainland China or did I just coincidentally meet some very parochial locals?

https://deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/ccg/events/pdf/mpn%20028.pdf

This article discusses the position of Foreign teachers in China - one of the guys is a Canadian of Chinese appearance and he has some interesting things to say about how he relates to his identity in the classroom.

I think I posted this earlier in the thread somewhere, in case anyone gets deja vu.

shrike82 posted:

Is there really "prestige" attached to working as an expat ESL anywhere in the world? I've always had the impression that they're on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to expat positions.

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AFF108/english-language-tutors/

This isn't paid as well as some, but a UK salary goes pretty far in China, especially when you have no rent to pay. After a couple of years in this kind of job, you could go to the UK and become the deputy director of a university's language center. Then on from there.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Oct 1, 2012

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

shrike82 posted:

Every single ESL teacher I've met has either returned to the West to do post-grad studies or try to do something "entrepreneurial" locally (and usually failed).

Then you've been lucky enough not to run into the really broken ones.

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.

Bloodnose posted:

I've surprised lots of Chinese people by telling them Russians are actually one of the 56 Chinese ethnic groups. That in turn surprised me, because I thought there was a song or something so everybody knew all of them.

In the past I have claimed to be a Chinese-born ethnic Russian to freak people out. I have an extremely obvious foreign accent in Chinese, but that doesn't lead them to question my story. In my experience, Han people will try to speak English to Uyghurs because they don't expect them to speak Chinese at all.

I've had that conversation, too, with one of my classes, actually. (Trying to explain what "pass for X" means.)

Also, I go to the Russian district in Beijing (I used to work a block away), and any Chinese people there try to speak to me in Russian. (Ting budong!) Russians, however, do not. I find this fact amusing.

NaanViolence
Mar 1, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo

LimburgLimbo posted:

Then you've been lucky enough not to run into the really broken ones.

Seconding this, owing to how easy it is to get these sorts of jobs and how cushy they are a significant number of expats take this route and end up as womanizers/drug addicts/drunks.

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

Longanimitas posted:

Seconding this, owing to how easy it is to get these sorts of jobs and how cushy they are a significant number of expats take this route and end up as womanizers/drug addicts/drunks.

Foolish Westerners! Of course, the correct path reflects the ancient wisdom of the Dao: the balance of yin and yang. If you take too much of one thing, simply take more of another until you are once again in a state of harmony.

Longanimitas posted:

I'm quite the opposite. Whenever I take a few drops of FST to get nodding, I inevitably feel a minor, lurking depression that slightly colors my every thought about 24 hours later. Drinking alcohol at this time reduces or eliminates this problem! It is one of the ways in which I avoid becoming an addict.

sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

GuestBob posted:

Foolish Westerners! Of course, the correct path reflects the ancient wisdom of the Dao: the balance of yin and yang. If you take too much of one thing, simply take more of another until you are once again in a state of harmony.
Don't worry about him, there's a small proportion of just about any expat community, especially in "exotic" locales, that likes to get smug about how much better an immigrant they are than all the rest of you people.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Oh poo poo are we having an expat smug condescension contest in this thread now? Here, let me tell you how your experience will be based on my vast knowledge gleaned over literally months of life in china. Get out/stay here you will have a good/bad experience and succeed/fail in all your endeavors just like i did!

:frogout:

chird
Sep 26, 2004

When I saw the massive jump in replies to the thread I immediately went to BBC news to see if something big'd gone down in the dao

hitension
Feb 14, 2005


Hey guys, I learned Chinese so that I can write shame in another language
^Kinda disappointing actually :( If this conversation goes any longer we'll start getting the "Well I don't let my baby pee on the street, therefore I am obviously superior to Chinese people *hits on underage girls, falsifies college diploma, accepts extravagant gifts from people who make $400/month*" rants...

Yeah ugh this topic. Can a foreign person of European heritage integrate to the point of being seen as "Chinese" by Chinese people? Almost certainly not because it would be unprecedented and virtually unheard of.
Certainly it is "racist" in a way but give it perspective... Growing up in the US, I always knew that people of different ethnic backgrounds could be Americans because they were my classmates. It wasn't even a question, just like "some people are pink colored and some people are more brown colored". Now think of Chinese people. Even in Shanghai, I have never met a Chinese person who grew up with non-ethnically Chinese (or minority ethnicity like Hui, but even then minorities are usually segregated) in their classroom. I know it exists because I've heard of expats sending their kids to local schools, but it is exceptionally rare.
In sum, how can you prepare for something you've never heard of?

As for Chinese-American, from what I can tell, in the minds of most Chinese people "American" = "White" -- Again, can you blame them? Because, you know, Asian Americans are sooo fairly represented in our media, and frequently appear in our movies and TV shows :rolleyes: Although they will concede that at least some Americans are black (President Obama, Kobe Bryant). But I can barely even think of a famous Asian American. "Behold our Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu!"
However, it seems like everybody in China knows or has heard of a fellow ethnic Chinese who went overseas, so if you explain you're 在美国长大的华人 or whatever you said, people should understand it. Just expect that they still think you are Chinese, just a Chinese who has lived in America for awhile, instead of American.


I do like the poster who asked if this would change in 100 years though. People are quick to say no, but really? 100 years? Think about how much China has changed since then. Or hell, America. 100 years ago in America Chinese people couldn't become Americans either because it was illegal for Chinese people to immigrate to America. (Not saying the two situations are at all comparable, but it is some food for thought) When I try to think of China in 100 years, my head explodes.

Here's a far more fun topic than the previous one: How long do you all think it will take for China to transition to democracy? Or do you think it will go on doing its own thing forever?

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

chird posted:

When I saw the massive jump in replies to the thread I immediately went to BBC news to see if something big'd gone down in the dao

This thread is the bellwether of informed comment for all things China. There is probably a consultancy firm somewhere copying and pasting Pro-PRC's every proclamation about property prices into their reports.

After reading your post, I actually checked the BBC website and they are reporting the traffic chaos over the national holiday, all with a peculiarly British level of relish, detail and interest.

A guy at work was stoked because he was going to drive to Ningxia (from central Henan). I asked him why and his only reason was "because it's free!" Fair enough I suppose. If you can afford an Audi estate I would have thought you could afford wumao a kilometer but apparently not.

hitension posted:

How long do you all think it will take for China to transition to democracy? Or do you think it will go on doing its own thing forever?

If I was going to lay money on the next big political change in China it wouldn't be democracy, it would be the gradual shift of power from Beijing to the provinces. Something has got to give when lots of people in Shanghai have more in common (on a day to day level) with people in Seoul than they do with people in Gansu. The central government can only use the local governments as patsies for so long before making some actual improvements in their level of accountability too.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Oct 1, 2012

whatever7
Jul 26, 2001

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

CIGNX posted:

Does anyone have insight on how Chinese view or accept foreign-born Chinese? I'm an American born Chinese, but when I told locals, especially ones from the older generations, that I'm an American (美国人) I would get confused looks. Later on I was told to use American-born Chinese (美国出生华裔) and never encountered the problem again. This only happened a few times and I wasn't in China for very long, but is this a thing in Mainland China or did I just coincidentally meet some very parochial locals?

Is this a surprise? China is not an immigration country. They have no experience dealing with foreigners migrate to China. Only Guangzhou has history of dealing with foeeign residences.

What I am trying to explain to you is Chinese has a difference definition of "中国人“。If you grow up in another country but receive a Chinese education, then its very easy to be accepted as Chinese. Even Sun Yat-sen grew up outside of China and had a US passport. That happened to alot of revolutionary Chinese. They were seen as Chinese because they could act like Chinese.

I have lived in the US for as long as I lived in China. IMO, you have to write Chinese to act like a Chinese. Not because this is some arbitrary requirement. But you wouldn't understand how different the Chinese culture and Chinese way of thinking are. That again, is my opinion.

Oh in regard to your particular question. You have to blame the media. Even 3rd generation American of Chinese descent who can barely speak Chinese are referred to as 美籍华人. That bothers me in the sense that you are pretending he is Chinese to claim some credit but that dude is obviously 99% American American. Gary Locke is a good example. Why even refer to him by his Chinese name?

whatever7 fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Oct 1, 2012

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.

hitension posted:

But I can barely even think of a famous Asian American. "Behold our Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu!"

Michio Kaku is the first person to come to mind for me. I'm not sure how good the initial reaction to that would be with most Chinese people though.

hitension posted:

Here's a far more fun topic than the previous one: How long do you all think it will take for China to transition to democracy? Or do you think it will go on doing its own thing forever?

How long do you think it will take for the rest of the world to transition to Chinese-style barely-restrained plutocratic despotism?

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

hitension posted:

But I can barely even think of a famous Asian American. "Behold our Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu!"

Daniel Inouye is not only an all-around badass, but is pretty drat high on the line of succession for the presidency.

Of course he's Japanese and all.

whatever7
Jul 26, 2001

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

hitension posted:

Here's a far more fun topic than the previous one: How long do you all think it will take for China to transition to democracy? Or do you think it will go on doing its own thing forever?

It will be a lot sooner for some people in the western academia to argue the Chinese autocratic government is a viable form of government with limited amount of checks and balance before China transform into Taiwanese style parliament/direct presidential election political system.

GuestBob
Nov 27, 2005

LimburgLimbo posted:

Daniel Inouye is not only an all-around badass, but is pretty drat high on the line of succession for the presidency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Wei,_Baron_Wei

Youngest (current) member of the House of Lords: Nat Wei (Baron Wei of Shoreditch).

He isn't that great though, nobody likes David Cameron's "Big Society" and "TeachFirst" is about as close as you can get to a socially responsible pyramid scheme.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Oct 1, 2012

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Readman
Jun 15, 2005

What it boils down to is wider nature strips, more trees and we'll all make wicker baskets in Balmain.

These people are trying to make my party into something other than it is. They're appendages. That's why I'll never abandon ship, and never let those people capture it.

GuestBob posted:

If I was going to lay money on the next big political change in China it wouldn't be democracy, it would be the gradual shift of power from Beijing to the provinces. Something has got to give when lots of people in Shanghai have more in common (on a day to day level) with people in Seoul than they do with people in Gansu. The central government can only use the local governments as patsies for so long before making some actual improvements in their level of accountability too.

I would have said the opposite.

Eg. Right now, there are a lot of authorities which are nominally responsible to the central government (courts/police/mediators/procuracy/etc.) but, due to their dual funding model, end up beholden to the provincial and municipal authorities. As the central government grows wealthier, it'll be able to more effectively fund its authorities, making them more reliant on Beijing and less reliant on the local party bosses or state congress.

hitension posted:

Here's a far more fun topic than the previous one: How long do you all think it will take for China to transition to democracy? Or do you think it will go on doing its own thing forever?

I think that most people here are going to be on the side of 'not likely anytime soon'. Barring a cataclysmic economic collapse that completely changes the rules of the political game (see: Suharto in Indonesia), that's something I'd agree with.

The way I always think about it is to try and picture what the driving force in Chinese society for democratisation is going to be. I think in the 1990s and even up to early 00s you could sorta see the germinations of (at least) a liberal civil society. Looking at the legal side of things, you had courts pushing the boundaries of their judicial powers, somewhat independent law societies, new areas of law that had promise, growth in legal activism.

Of those, the only one that hasn't been totally clamped down on is legal activism. And even it has been constrained to politically 'safe' cases - eg. fighting discrimination against Hep-B patients, pursuing companies for wage claims, pursuing claims against local governments (where the interests of the plaintiff align with that of Beijing).

It's worth understanding the Chinese political system on its own terms, rather than judging it on how soon it's going to come around to a western-model.

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