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Q: Are half Chinese kids treated differently?
A lot of people tell me I should get married to a Chinese person and have a half Chinese baby 'because they are so much smarter than other kids' among other reasons. Do people react to your kids in this way?
My wife sometimes has people who want their kids to play with our daughter in the hope that "speaking English" will magically be passed to their kid.
What's even dafter than that sounds, is that the said parents can't speak a word of English themselves, so even if their child started to yap away in fluent English, the parents would have no idea what was being said.
Our Chinese friends who can speak English have a good laugh at this too.
As for mixed kids being smarter? Nonsense.
Oh, if anyone tells you to get married and have a baby, tell them it's none of their business 
.
laowaigentleman:
I've heard the thing about half Chinese kids supposedly being smarter too. Hogwash!
I was expecting another question, half-Chinese kids are treated differently in schools in Mainland China, a good friend of mine is a Black Canadian man married to a Chinese woman, they have a kid (who is you guessed afro-asian), he gets put aside by teachers at school, and got bullied by other kids until his dad told him to defend himself, to punch back if needed.
Now to answer your question I don't believe that some races are genetically smarter than others (because ranking races is a form of racism), it has more to do with cultural differences, Chinese and overall Asian kids are more successful in school because they don't have any social life, they study, study, study and study, which is good in some ways because they end up with a better degree, better job and so on, however for the same reasons they are the least successful at... well at being socially successful compared to white, black or else kids, once they are adults they lack the skills required to be socially integrated in most societies because while other kids were out making friends they were inside studying and having zero social interactions.
Asocial kids/teens also exist in other races, some are nerds, others are geeks (don't mistake me there are social nerds and geeks, but not the majority), and these people are usually the smartest kids in the school, then at the college/university, in most cases, not all.
In China being asocial is not an issue, 100% of the social interactions and relations are based on mutual interest, you don't need social skills but money to be socially successful here, you can be a creep in China as long as you have something to offer that can benefit the other party, but in most countries it is not the case, you need social skills and money as a plus.
It's infinitely easier to become asocial than it is to become a social butterfly again, I know it I went through this myself
Strawberry66:
Shallow mind.Who said in China social is just about interest and money and skill is not required?
Robk:
@Strawberry66 - China needs true skill very badly but most of the time connections or wealth is the driving force in China.
I find that in China, connections get you the job... but skill ensures you don't run the position (or the company) into the ground. I have seen MANY companies fail horribly in China due to poor management skills. They only got the management position because of being friends for the company owners etc.
If you are a Chinese person with a ton of skill and promise... chances are you are boarding a plane for another country because the playing field in China is just too unfair.
while i am in no position to answer the question, i have heard this as the sleaziest/lamest chat up line ever.
"don't you think mixed race children are so smart/beautiful. hur, hur hur"
does that line work on anybody???
ScotsAlan:
erm.... When I am out with my daughter (alone), an alternative chat up line is to ask a girl "Do you want one?" I wont say any more :-)
Walking on the streets of China with a half Chinese kid is no different that walking your unicycle riding unicorn while you juggle some flaming chainsaws. Just another day in paradise.
ScotsAlan:
Yup. I tried that once. But the MIL cooked the unicorn, and the flaming chainsaws I bought from taobao were made of plastic and melted. The unicyle was sent back because it was one wheel short of being a proper unicycle.
My wife said the unicorn tasted like chicken.
coineineagh:
@Scots: that's what you get for choosing imported unicorn over national product. Try China Unicom
When I hear half-Chinese, I.picture a person cut in half
mixed kids are smarter, in some way, but is not because of genes only, but because the influence of different culture,language, knowledge and all the stuff brought "foreigner" father or mom brings and pass to him. so of course is in some way better than other kids, but also worse in some aspects
Yeah, they are... what do you expect?
I have seen it first hand how they are treated... here it is in a summary:
1) Strangers will want to pinch their cheeks... offer them food and ask you a billion questions about the languages they are learning and blah blah blah.
2) Classmates will ostracize them and call them "the foreigner" unless they are in an international school. This may not happen until around 6-10 years old.
3) Teachers will either isolate them or give them special treatment... it's kind of a toss up on the teacher and the school. Either is not good in my opinion.
4) Family members will most likely also give them special treatment and comment constantly on how beautiful they are and the spoil the hell out of them. But I guess that's pretty normal anyway.
Overall, if you put your kid in an international school with good teachers (will cost you a ton), then your mixed child has a better chance of not being totally traumatized and an introvert.
Eorthisio:
This considering that you can afford an international school, and I am not talking about the pretend locally managed language mills... I mean schools with some unqualified foreign teachers that put "international" in their name but the true international schools that are run by real educational managers with decades of experience, have real qualified teachers from overseas and follow a real curriculum (e.g. Pearson's Longman on P-level).
Real international schools are scarce in China, there might be 2 or 3 in each first tier city and... that's it, simply because Chinese can't afford it or don't care enough about their children's education when they have money "I have money I don't need to study lol xd".
Robk:
Haha yeah... and then you see so many sons that take over their father's company and instantly run it into the ground...
Their ATMs run out, they girl friend/wife leaves them, their parents curse them... and still think they didn't do anything wrong.
I've also heard myths that mixed babies were *less* smart than full Chinese babies, if you can believe that. Mixed kids are treated differently, though with a faint touch of consideration, since locals realise that the children are partly CHINESE, i.e. deserving of human respect as well as novelty fascination. Precious few locals also appreciate that intercultural families represent China's interaction with the rest of the world. But it takes a smart person to realise that this is a sign of China's strength, not a harbinger of some cultural decline.
Anyway, Hybrid Vigour was the old fashioned term used to describe the strong health of mutts, compared to purebreed dogs. The same applies to humans: Every race has their own prevalence of genes, and having 2 sets of those genes (a "purebreed") can cause health problems. Problems which a mixed baby handily avoids by having 2 different genes from the mother and father, so fewer weaknesses are expressed by the body (though the flawed genes are still present). An example would be blue eyes: It's basically a mutation that makes me unable to produce brown pigment in my irises, which help protect my eyes from bright sunlight. My sons both have the blue eye gene, but it is masked by my wife's brown eye gene, hence my kids have brown eyes. And they will never have to squint or become teary-eyed from too much light shining in their eyes.
rasklnik:
Oddly enough my brown-eyed sister married a guy with blue eyes, and has blue eyed kids, even though my father, mother, myself, and her brother lack blue eyes. Grandfather had blue eye...
coineineagh:
blue eyes are a recessive gene, so many brown eyed people carry it without it showing. once 2 recessive genes are combined, a baby pops up with blue eyes. my mother had brown eyes and my father green. my sons have brown eyes, though one is grayish-brown; probably because he got the green eye gene.
RandallFlagg:
"Mixed kids are treated differently, though with a faint touch of consideration, since locals realise that the children are partly CHINESE, i.e. deserving of human respect as well as novelty fascination." Yeah, the kid is half Chinese so at least it's half human. Speaking personally i've had Chinese female acquaintances contact me out of the blue, act flirty and say that they suddenly want a "mixed" baby and how they think mixed babies are superior etc.. As if they expect me to drop my pants and act as an impromptu sperm donor. Might sound appealing to some guys, but the potential consequences are huge.
So called crossbreeding effect is generally accepted theory and therefore the chikdren among close relatives are banned in majority of countries and the offsprings of parents coming from different cultures.have statisticaly quite a reasonable chance of being "smarter" or better said "more capable of succesful survival" (pls note it does not necessarily means smarter ...).
These are some of the pro's.
But there are also the con's ...
Being different anywhere in the world requires quite a strong personality to deal with ever present presure.
Look at some (actually many ...) people contributing to this site. They all are adults and they freely selected the country they want to live in. They also can freely change their decision anytime but they still want to live in China. But despite of all these facts they usually lack in understanding the country real situation and they apparently suffer by being here despite of "positive discrimination" majority of the foreigners enjoy in China. You can just imagine that for mixed-blood child this will be all much worse as the child will be a "foreigner" in any place I really doubt anyone will approach the child with "positive discrimination" scheme.
Saying all this I absolutely do not want to say that there are not many very happy crossbreed children in this world ... 
coineineagh:
ah yes, we laowai are all so LUCKY. to be the center of attention in a country where people have manners and sensibilities dating back from 5000 years ago. you're right: laowai should be enjoying the cowardly smirks and poorly concealed insults from people who have learned to single out others who are weak and different. your reasoning is very 2-dimensional. i acknowledge that expats are treated with what you call "positive discrimination" and i call "cargo cultism". but you don't seem to understand why expats complain. it's not that we want EVEN MORE privileges and we can't seem to be happy with what we get already; it's that we want to see fairness and morality. we just want EQUAL respect, and you can take back all the "positive discrimination", and stick it where the sun don't shine. all of what you said relates more to expats, and has little if anything to do with mixed-blood children. your stereotypical reasoning strikes me as that of a Chinese with a bone to pick against arrogant laowai, am i right?
