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Q: Are chinese men devoid of basic manners?
Due to my initial good impression about "nice Chinese people", I never used to like the foreigners talking bad about our host country.
But after having lived here for a few months, I am wondering I was and am terribly wrong in thinking differently?
After having traveled all over the world, the record number of times that I have been lied to or cheated is undoubtedly right here in China !!
I guess pissing on streets is acceptable norm here. But pissing right on the main entrance door of Watson Pharmacy, just next to pizza hut, and pissing anywhere under the sun ??!!??
Endless spitting without even bothering to see if it flies on the guy walking behind you is OK !!
This is a new low even for a guy who comes from a country where it is not unusual to see guys pissing on some obscure corner of the road.
I was about to enter my apartment building with my hands full of grocery bags. There was a guy just 10 meters ahead of me. Seeing that I would have to struggle with the number pad to open the electronic lock on the door, that guy could have kept the door open. At least that's what I would have done.
Knowing fully well the someone just 5-7 meters behind you will also need to use the elevator, it is a common courtesy to hold the elevator door open. But that would be me.
Hello ! my Chinese brothers ...... where are the manners ?
Noel@ This is a place where every man takes care of himself. I live in an apartment block and every night I go home on the same bus as everyone living in the same block. Everyone knows everyone by face. The thing is nobody ever acknowledges each other's presence even when they walk past each other. What's worse is that people know that you are walking to the lift just behind them but they will get in and press the close button without waiting for that 3 seconds for you. They don't even do that for their own people, much less for foreigners. Talk about basic human courtesy! I just hope that when I'm done here, I won't take back such poor manners.
I think you might be going through a bit of not necessarily culture shock but mores 'adjustment' to life in china. Yeah the public hygiene is nonexistent and consideration for common man is lacking. However, the converse is that Chinese people make some of the truest and best friends I have ever had. This forum is for venting about china and it's really not easy to adapt to life here, but give it some time and make some local friends, eventually your good china experiences will balance out the bad ones. Best of luck to you sir!
andy74rc:
Best friends are made when you find people that can share thoughts, ideas, principles, irony, passions . Rare rare commodity here, so lucky you.
'Great Wall of China' was closed for long time!
Would any country's residents behave different, if they would live under the same conditions for so long?
Have patience!
Yup. Consideration for your fellow human is a new and little understood concept here. Modern China is the China where Zhu Ba Jie was made emperor. It makes life in China challenging, grow a thick skin (the locals solution), or feel the grinding. There are people with manners here, but they are desperately silent, thinking they can't change anything. Be patient, you might eventually find such kind of persons. I married one ^^
derek:
"Grow a thick skin?"...Chinese people have the "thinnest" skin of anyone I have ever met, hence the phrase...Don't hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
They learn from white men, who have had to have laws imposed on their barbaric manners so that they would stop behaving like prehistoric animals.
Samsara:
Well that is one of the most angry and confused answers I've ever seen.
You do know that without society, humans are not civilised, right? Society's function is to socialise people, so that they behave well towards each other.
In that respect, Western society is a success. Chinese society isn't.
coineineagh:
Oh I get it, you're an Asian supremacist. I thought stupid things like that when I was 18, but it was a phase I grew out of. Since many Chinese seem to be 7 years behind in emotional development (due to the represive government, not race), that would put you at 18 + 7 = 25? This is an adult forum; come back when you grow up.
Just today, I saw a woman walking and eating sunflower seeds, blithely dropping the husks on the ground, and another woman helping her daughter. It's not just Chinese men.
wait until u see one peeing on the floor (main area) of an up-scale mall. they put the C in Cute. 
all I can guess is that they just naturally assume it is the little old ladies (ayi) job to clean it up. still seems rather odd behavior to me though......
My wife took the baby back to the village for a family visit while I stayed home. She came back with stories of my daughter going diaper-less and using the streets as a toilet, just like the locals. I almost went ballistic on her. I had made it clear on many occasions that I never want my child behaving like that. Family pressure had an affect on her. From now on, she is never going to the village without me (the baby, that is).
expatlife26:
right on! I think it's just incredibly trashy (for the westerner, it's not the locals' fault) the way some western guys have kids with locals and let their wives' families dictate the behavioral standards.
Good to hear somebody knows how to draw the line.
Hulk:
Good on you. Sounds like the villagers all need an education to the head.
I understand your feelings, I was exactly the same a few years ago.
Couldn't stand foreigners shitting on their host country & people, and then like you understood why.
I found though, that as much as pisses you off, then something real good happens. A Chinese will help you, u meet real nice local etc. & your faith is restored. It kind of ebbs & flows here..
Having said that, I came home to my complex a few weeks ago ( abt 11pm ?), worse for wear, rolled out of taxi, drunk as..but still had a few wits about me.
Entered my building, only 2 lifts & they are slow, so heard some footsteps, think I'd do the right thing & hold the door open
. A middle-aged woman got in said nothing..no thanks! & then proceeded in telling me how fat I was,( I am fat, but not grosssly so..) with wild hand gestures depicting my size. WTF..I just did you a favour lady & thats how you repay me?? I could've just closed the lift, like most Chinese do & f*&%+k you.
At this point I really wish my Chinese was alot better; I would have said " you rude bitch. I maybe fat, but there's some chance I'll lose weight, but you'll always be ugly! haa
Thankfully these incidents are seldom, but you will need a thick-skin to live here.I & my friends have noted, for some reason that the locals will tell you what they think,(usually negative) whereas they wouldn't dare with their own people!
Very strange & fustrating... Good luck
louischuahm:
Visco, you just need to take it as it comes. These people have no sense of personal space. By space I don't mean the distance with which people stand close or far from you. People should instinctively know not to talk about certain private matters especially if you just got to know them, much less a stranger in a lift. But here, well, it's just not happening.
coineineagh:
actually i think that woman misconstrued your gesture as sexual interest. it's normal to then criticise a suitor.
Well, what can I say?
Just trying hard to take it easy !!
i am sorry to say, that after a while you begin to ignore things that would otherwise annoy you about some of the personal habits of people here.
Yes, i have become more tolerant of what i encounter, but that is not to say it has influenced me or my behaviour
your shock at some behaviour will lessen as you live here longer.
Just stick with it ! 
Me @ wife @ son in a metro, ready to exit, stay by doors...
Outside are guys, front of the doors, not on side, just in a middle, heads in iPhone...
Doors opening, they rush inside through us, and we are doing our first step out of train...
One of the guy gets greeting by my shoulder and some words. I felt so surprised, how soft he was and easy to move him out of track.
This time he realize he is not alone there and look with a bit anger to my eyes and i na second he realize, that is better just shut up and take the lesson
I was trying to sum-up the problem in a few words, and I came up with "China/empathy/lack". I googled that and found this
http://ezinearticles.com/?Chinese-Cultural-Lack-of-Empathy-in-Development---Counselling-Practice&id=1907719
sorrel:
excellent article.
it is a good analysis of what a lot of us have observed during our time here
Because Chinese men are largely savage apes. Chinese women are pressured into, or are forced to do the bidding of savage apes.
My western brothers, get your women out of China as soon as possible. Rescue as many women from the mindless savage apes as you can!
Hulk:
Sorry, JustinF, did that cause your savage apery to flare up?
It's a good thing we rescue Chinese women from the likes of you. I've personally rescued and liberated several with the foreign penis.
Before going to China: "Oh, wow. I love Chinese people. Aside from a few nutbags here and there, it seems like an awesome country!"
After having lived in China longer than a year: Same thing as before, but with "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" added.
