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Q: Do you feel like a guest or a pest in China?
When I first came to China in 2008 I felt welcomed and people were genuinely friendly. Today, six years later, I feel like foreigners are no longer welcome here, that we have become a pest, or a burden, but certainly no longer valued as we once were. The sincere friendliness is turning into a sense of annoyance. Am I wrong about this or do I need a new deodorant?
the old "guest/pest" question 
Things i would not do to a guest:
1) ask intrusive personal questions
2) make personal comments
3) try to scam them out of money
4) humiliate them in public (think 'dancing monkey' teaching gigs)
5) ask them to compromise their principals as part of their work
6) expect them to change their plans at the last minute because i didn't advise them of a meeting in plenty of time
7) talk about them in front of my friends
8) go thought their personal belongings
9) show them off to my friends to improve my status
10) not honour an agreement (contract)
11) stare at them because of how they look
12) expect them to adapt to local customs that were nonsensical
13) get offended if they did not like something
14) copy their work as try to pass it off as my own
I'm not saying I have experienced ALL of these things above. But to say to someone "put up or shut up" or "if you don't like it here, go back to your home country" defies sense. I have worked in a couple of countries in Europe as well as my home country and have always been allowed to get on with my job in a professional manner, and get on with my life without being treated like an animal in a zoo. I don't expect or want 'special treatment' when working in China. As far as i am concerned, i just happen to be someone from Europe who works in China doing a job that requires certain skills.
There has been a definite attitude shift during my time in China and i put is down many things. I felt tolerated when i arrived first, now I feel resented because i am foreign and have skills the locals don't have.
Almost:
Maybe they already got what they needed from us and consider us like "yesterday's newspaper" - no longer useful?
'I told you, I was trouble...you know that am no good...'
I first came here in 2005, and everyone was over friendly to the point that I was very uncomfortable.
Now I am here full time and I am left alone. Why?
1. Because people know me well enough to know I can do things on my own.
2. Chinese are now liberated from the Government dictate to suck knowledge from the foreigners. They have learned what they need to know, or so they think.
3. The bosses are Chinese now. Even in foreign owned companies. Promotion is done the Chinese way.
I moved here full time a couple of years ago. So why am I still here?
Because sometimes I can surprise them with a moment of inspiration that solves a problem that baffles them. I can even surprise myself sometimes.
You are still needed Tarzan. The main difference between now and then is that they have more money than you now. But they still need your skill to make more money.
Tarzan:
You are a great analyst! All very good points I didn't think of.
expatlife26:
Tarzan is definitely still needed. He is a valuable part of our Magic CFTU Brotherhood.
I'm glad you support him ScotsAlan, maybe you'll be going to heaven after all! 
jetfire9000:
It's great to have this forum filled with Tarzan posts to keep it alive and fresh again!
Tarzan is not the hero that Echinacities deserves, but he is the hero that we need right now.
Sources:
The Dark Night (2008)
expatlife26:
I agree, Tarzan is the hero this Great Forum needs.
In time even the homeless Bash and Trash-style expats who have NO MORAL AUTHORITY to say anything about the CFTU will come to work together.
Tarzan is not unlike a certain Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, and not simply because he has undergone castration, i mean in that he has to live among savages (trash and bash forum members) but will eventually earn their respect and admiration.
source: wikipedia.com/drquinnmedicinewoman
A guest. Even though I am Chinese American, I do not really feel China is my home.
ScotsAlan:
Interesting.
I am a red faced Scotsman and I feel at home here.
How long have you been here?
ChineseAmerican:
I was born in China and moved to the US at age 12. I lived in the US for 12 more years before coming back this summer. So yeah, half half. But I can not really stand China anymore. Maybe my life was too good back home in Austin.
the old "guest/pest" question
Things i would not do to a guest:
1) ask intrusive personal questions
2) make personal comments
3) try to scam them out of money
4) humiliate them in public (think 'dancing monkey' teaching gigs)
5) ask them to compromise their principals as part of their work
6) expect them to change their plans at the last minute because i didn't advise them of a meeting in plenty of time
7) talk about them in front of my friends
8) go thought their personal belongings
9) show them off to my friends to improve my status
10) not honour an agreement (contract)
11) stare at them because of how they look
12) expect them to adapt to local customs that were nonsensical
13) get offended if they did not like something
14) copy their work as try to pass it off as my own
I'm not saying I have experienced ALL of these things above. But to say to someone "put up or shut up" or "if you don't like it here, go back to your home country" defies sense. I have worked in a couple of countries in Europe as well as my home country and have always been allowed to get on with my job in a professional manner, and get on with my life without being treated like an animal in a zoo. I don't expect or want 'special treatment' when working in China. As far as i am concerned, i just happen to be someone from Europe who works in China doing a job that requires certain skills.
There has been a definite attitude shift during my time in China and i put is down many things. I felt tolerated when i arrived first, now I feel resented because i am foreign and have skills the locals don't have.
Almost:
Maybe they already got what they needed from us and consider us like "yesterday's newspaper" - no longer useful?
Yeah, my feeling is that things have soured here for foreigners. I've only been here a few years and have noticed the changes........
Attitudes have changed and its certainly a slap on the face to the people that expect to be treated like Gods here.
Its just nice to be treated as an individual, yes different to them, and Chinese are still friendly and will still accommodate for you.
I'm glad, anyway. Nobody is better than anybody else in the world.
When they want something from me, I am a "guest" and "welcome foreigner".
When they don't want something from me, I am a "pest" or a thing to be ridiculed and abused.
It changes according to the circumstances or the weather on any particular day.
there are days when I feel like a guest and there are days when I feel like a pest.I dont care though take me as Iam.
I agree guests have transformed into pests... But the culprit is not the host. I think the main responsible is the guest. In older times majority of the people coming to China were qualified foreigners. But now a lot of people come to China just because they are natives and they can earn a lot of cash. So its obvious "all that glitters is not gold" Or to sum it up maybe I can say "in older times only guests used to come, then pests started accompanying them and gradually pests increased."
Stiggs:
I agree guests have transformed into pests... But the culprit is not the host. I think the main responsible is the guest. In older times majority of the people coming to China were qualified foreigners. But now a lot of people come to China just because they are natives and they can earn a lot of cash.
What older times were those? If you're talking about English teachers being native speakers and that's their only qualification, well 10 - 15 years ago it was a LOT easier to come here with just a white face and no qualifications. It's not that simple now, the average English teacher here today is probably much better qualified than the average teacher 10 years ago.
China has been actively courting foreign investment here in China for some time now. China desperately needed foreign cash, skills and technology. So foreign companies came and set up factories, restaurants etc here and thrived. If China didn't want those skills, money, technology and foreign (competition) companies why open the doors in the first place?
I don't see how the guests have 'transformed' into pests. I feel it's the host who has transformed, or maybe just shown his true colors.
hunny797:
On second thought...
yes..you have a point...
maybe now the hosts consider themselves better...
Lu Xun wrote something like The problem with our relationship with foreigners is that we've never seen them as equals. We've always either looked down on them as animals, or looked up to them as Emperors.
You can count on Lu Xun to sketch the modern Chinese character accurately in a few words (and yes, he died in 1936, but what he said stays completely relevant in 2014).
coineineagh:
Can you paste the original quote in Chinese for me? I want to print it. Perhaps on a t-shirt!
DrMonkey:
中国人从来没有把外国人当人看， 以前是当畜牲， 现在是当皇帝
I would advise you to double-check it before. On your shirt, you can put Lu Xun face. On top of being smart and couragous, he looks badass.
coineineagh:
I'm disappointed. The original quote in chinese does not contain the word EQUALS. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess.
Not a pest so much as a threat. Or maybe a scapegoat.
I personally feel that everyday people treat me about the same as when I first arrived, actually maybe a little better, there are less holloooos now. I'm just the foreign guy who buys fruit in the local market sometimes, goes to this or that restaurant sometimes, teaches their kids English etc. Nothing remarkable, just a guy. That's fine with me, it's all I want.
I do feel like foreigners are less welcomed by the authorities and media here now though.
It's part of the government's Divide&Conquer strategy towards its own people. Keep them *so* badly miseducated that they can't even treat people outside their local clan with what we call Basic Human Decency, so that people stay weak and divided. Befriending a foreigner requires being kind and interesting, and CCP does all it can to prevent local people from banding together in any way. Foreigners included. People are unkind and uninteresting because that's what their educators want them to be.
jetfire9000:
Everybody here is giving Tarzan a little too much attention recently. Is it because we're feeling generous? I'm just guessing...
DrMonkey:
I don't think it is by design, but everything that can be useful is used, that includes ignorance.
Eorthisio:
Especially uninteresting. Here is an extensive list of the topics that they can talk about (in Chinese or in English):
-making money
-getting married
-having kids
-food.
That's all.
I now feel like it's useless to even consider wasting 5 minutes to think about the answer. Just do your thing, for as long as it suits you, then once goals set are achieved, get the hell out of this place.
It's a lost war, and moreover, completely hopeless.
the old "if you don't like it, why don't you leave" argument 
Many posters on this forum are married and are making a life in China with their wives: should they ignore bad things about a place, any place, and not try to make it better?
It is not about an inability to adapt to a country, it is about not accepting pointed rudeness towards a group of people. Many of the things that Chinese people do to foreigners, they don't do to each other: "it is ok for me to do X to you because you are foreign."
Martin Niemöller might have been talking about larger things that the invasion of privacy, but should we not still speak out against things or run away like frightened animals?
"if you don't like it, why don't you leave" is where oppression of speech and thought begins.
sm90:
Yes, except I am sure even you have noticed that some of the users here don't just 'not like it', the posts they post on here are filled with hatred and racist.
There is a difference between having issues and complaining and trying to make it work and behaving that way.
Eorthisio:
Kudos sorrel, I have been trying really hard to adapt during my first few years, I learned putonghua up to fluent/native-like level, I then started to learn cantonese (not fluent yet) as I live in Guangdong, I studied about Chinese society and culture, I was always trying to use the soft way when dealing with people (even random people or sellers) as to not shock them, always trying to respect their way of doing things, observe and learn.
All of this to be constantly reminded that I am different, that I am a foreigner and will never be accepted in the Chinese society, that I am a guest and it's only temporary. Being asked "When are you going back home?" or "How long do you want to stay in China?" all the time, and when answering "I hope to stay here as long as possible, maybe forever" (I really wanted in my first few years) getting two different reactions, 1) LOL no way, you must go back home 2) But you are not Chinese.
Chinese can't expect foreigners to adapt and "fit in" if they don't want to accept these foreigners are a part of Chinese society and not some anomaly that has nothing to do here.
Being accepted as a part of my community, my district, my city is all I want, not being treated differently (in good or bad) and not being stared at, people not talking about me as if I couldn't understand, not having people looking in my basket at the supermarket or at my plate in the restaurant, not seeing a crowd gathering at the hair salon because "lol let's stare at that laowai getting an haircut because our lives suck and we have nothing better to do" and dozens of other irritating things. I want to live my life as everyone does without having some idiots with farmers' (or third world's) mentality inviting themselves in my privacy without asking permission just because I look different.
We foreigners make up less than 1% of China's population. It is unrealistic to think we can change this nation for the better unless we let them steal our technology. For example, I brought water purification technology from Canada that is 100% green and requires no chemicals. It works 60% faster than any current Chinese "methods" (that only makes the pollution sink to the bottom and makes the surface water test clean) for the same price, and removes 95% of all contaminants in less than 5 minutes.
The head of Tsinghua's Water Sciences Department says it is the best technology he has ever seen, yet no Chinese government bureau, ministry, or agency is willing to buy a license for China, even though 70% of their water is polluted. Instead, they have been asking for a joint venture for 2 years (the inventor knows the JV game very well and insists on selling an annual license). So instead of buying a $20 million license, they have tried to bribe the inventor's translator to steal his laptop. When that did not work, they tried to jack into the inventor's lap top (Good think he keeps his IP on a USB and not his hard drive).
So with this kind of social/business mentality, why on Earth should we even try to make China a better place to live when they cannot even be a little bit honest and ethical about IP?
I believe the question may not have one clear answer. Clearly there are just 'few' foreigners here, considering it in proportion to the size of Chinese population. It makes foreigners in China abnormal (you may also use 'unique' if you prefer ...) with all the positive and negative aspects.
Certain people hapilly and uncritically welcome all new and 'foreign' while some others see anything 'different' as a potential threat to their current lifestyle.
I do not think that this situation is in China too much different from any other country. What may make it feel differently is the size of Chinese population which results in all extremes being represented by quite a big group of people, this then emphasized by the relative absence of 'political correctness' (or may be by differently difined politcal correnctness).
I am convinced that the best way how to deal with it is to decide for yourself how you feel in China. Despite of many people belief it's highly unprobable that a 'common westerner' will really have the aim, and even if then also the ability, to noticeably change her or his outside environment. But this is again quite similar to any other country and does not stay just for China. I think every person has a reasonable chance to select the social environment in which she/he feels comfortable, shall it be within China or outside. At the end of the day I assume this is the majority of the people aim - live hapy and fruitful life - therefore they also most probably came to China, as they believe that they will succeed with it in here. It's totally in their hands ...
