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Q: Are they people?
The outdoor diners in the restaurant, I mean.
Several restaurants along side each other. All have lots of tables and chairs on the concrete where customers sit and eat. The concrete is elevated about 45 cm and there's a 1m gap between the tables and the drop off the concrete.
The place is fairly packed. All the places are.
The mother of the ten yr old boy at the table next to me helps the lad to piss out off the edge of the drop as far as he can.
Not more than a couple of metres from our table.
His proud father sits there marvelling at how his family is working so cohesively. In fact, he just sits there oblivious to what he's son is doing and continues to play on his phone.
All the diners surrounding the boy are likewise oblivious.
But not me. I yell loudly that this is an intolerable situation and it's making me as mad as hell. That there's a toilet no more than 20 big steps away.
The boy keeps pissing out over the edge of the concrete, his piss landing on the wheels of the car parked nearest to him. The mother all but holding on to his little cock.
So I decide something needs to be done. I jump up, push the boy over the little drop so that now he's pissing on himself. I push to mother to the side in order to get a clean go at the father and whack the bastard up the side of his head so that he falls off his chair. He doesn't drop his phone, however.
Then I calmly explain that it's not socially acceptable for someone to be pissing into the wind while many families are enjoying their dinner. That even though we are outside, this is clearly a restaurant and the best thing to do is to let the poor lad go to the toilet to relieve himself. And that, at the age he is, he doesn't need his mum to hold his willy.
Well! All the people surrounding us really seemed to appreciate my actions and advice and have asked me to further convey to them what it is that people do in other social situations.
When I returned to my seat one of my dining companions told me how he'd been reading on the internet earlier in the day about whether or not it's ok for people to go to the toilet in public, and that the consensus of opinion was unclear.
If not people, then what?
are you sure some local didn't record you and post online?
The sounds like 'little Emperor' culture in progress: a child having everything done for him by the parents and not learning to be independent. Another form of control.
good luck to his future wife if he can't go to the toilet himself at 10 years old.
I had a recent discussion in class as to when children should learn social skills in China - the consensus from students was in Middle School.
I was horrified: social skills and learning to be independent should be learnt as early as possible.
sorrel:
i should add, I'm not even going to go into the health implications of this incident: would people go to the toilet in the to the room they eat their food?
Kaiwen:
I have seen a number of small restaurants in China that actually store food products or ingredients in the rest room!
royceH:
A year or so ago I had a strapping big boy of 14 in my apartment for a lesson and his mother actually took him into my toilet and stood beside him while he relieved himself. I couldn't see to what extent she was helping him but nothing would have surprised me.
And a year before that the Serbian woman next door who had a carving knife to her throat and two little children hanging off her screamed that no one should ever marry a Chinese man.
She had, and was thinking the knife in the throat was her only way out.
I managed to help her to drop the knife without any of us sustaining more that one superficial cut.
Her husband stood impassively nearby and did nothing whatsoever about the situation. When he saw that the knife was no longer in the picture he went and locked himself in his bedroom, leaving me to take care of his wife and kids.
That was one test of his social skills where he surely failed.
andy74rc:
@Kaiwen: not so many years ago, in many places I've seen washing the dishes piled up in the restaurant toilets, and in one case, they were keeping muscles in the toilet sink.
I think that a lot a people in China understands how wrong this things are, but they just don't dare to step-up open their mouth. Thou shalt not make waves, not a ripple... Keeping the face, not distinguish yourself unless you are completely sure it's going to be a success. I'm tired of this too...
This reminds me of the time my gf and I were standing in line at the train ticket counter outside when a crazy old woman began accosting the family behind us with a long pole. She was hitting the little child with it while the mother shrieked and the father did nothing. I grabbed the pole from the old lady and threw it down the street. The mother thanked me and then gave her husband the funniest WTF! look I'd ever seen. He just stood there stone faced.
royceH:
He's just a robot. Programmed not to have any independent thought processes. A kind of zombie, without any capability of reacting to something that he hasn't been instructed to memorize from a book.
He's Modern Chinese Man.
Even monkeys know that you can't piss and shit where you eat, and vice versa.
I agree with dr monkey locals prefer dont open their mouths, they know they are not going to change anything, its pretty obvious when you eat in the restaurants you can see most of the vegetables kind of dirty.
DId kinda the same yesterday, the pig f---n neighbors are building a new house and start at 6 AM with the electric saws. 9 AM after 3 hours of listening to that I went outside and yelled at them "you started this at 7 in the morning and I can't sleep and it is extremely rude and thank you Mr. Chong, Xie Xie!" they shut it up after that but I think they honestly didn't register the problem.
Did you see the thread about HOW TO RECOGNIZE ZOMBIES?
I see grandmothers and ayis let their children pee just outside their nice buildings all the time. I think it's laziness. They're too lazy to take their kids inside and don't see the problem.
This thread is incredibly racist. You can express your distaste for something without resorting to calling people animals. and are you seriously boasting about pushing a kid? I agree that the family's behavior was unacceptable, and I think it's good that you actually said something, but this is taking it too far.
Mateusz:
Racist against outdoor diners in China? That's not really a race. If someone complains about football hooligans, are they racist against football fans?
Englteachted:
Who called them animals? Pointing out that monkeys have better habits is a fact.
I guess if there's racist overtones then there's probably an element of racism.
For the overtones, and conceded element, I apologize.
But, bloody hell, they make it hard not to judge them harshly. The behaviour of many, many Chinese people is so backward. So downright stupid. Not to mention, racist. Behaviour from another time. Not that of a civilized country at all.
I didn't really push the boy. Or the mother. And I didn't knock the sad excuse of a father/husband off his chair. Everything else was true.
That many Chinese are backwards, rude, and without decent social etiquette is elementary. Look at their society, education system, and social restrictions. How else would you expect them to act? After studying their background (you do take the time to at least briefly study the history of those you choose to ridicule, right?), how can you expect anything else? Is it reasonable to expect a caged Lion to behave like one in the wild? Is the caged Lion still a lion? To note your astonishment and frustration about these people is only natural. But to openly question if they are human is a bit over the top.
When I feel this way about my host country, I often remember that I have the privilege of experiencing and observing a unique society. Communism's brief experiment is almost over. When it finally does collapse, we will be able to truly understand why it did so.
Shining_brow:
I will disagree with you on one point, Xin... I don't think the fault is with 'communism', although perhaps it is with 'communism - with Chinese characteristics'.
They are paying so much to foreigners to teach English, is it possible they may start paying the same amount also to teach them some manners....
Most "educated" Chinese are well-mannered and critical of public peeing, spitting and other things we Westerners dislike .... but they won't protest in public instead they will suffer in silence. My Chinese wife says to me "do not interfere, they may have a knife". To queue jumpers, taxi downstreamers and petty thieves she says "they have no face". She has judged them in private.
They are slowly but surely getting better as the middle-class increases.
Don't forget that we have trailer-trash, rednecks, bigots and fundies too.
I see this kind of stupid behavior on a daily basis. It's exhausting dealing with these people, no common courtesy,no etiquette. Drive a BMW, but wash their clothes by hand, take showers using a bucket. Drive on the wrong side of the road while honking at everyone that's coming at them, like they are the ones in the wrong lane. Standing in what they call a line in this country. I know in America we have rednecks and other assorted strange people. However, there is the point, people like bigots are not the norm and are called out as such. It's maddening that this behavior is normal here, that's what I hate.
Everyone's a coward, nobody speaks up about anything. A society of enablers.
About a year ago, I was on the bus, when this old guy and his (I presume) grandson got on the seats behind me.
Gramps decides to hack up a loogie, and deposit it at his feet.
I turn to him, and in my worst Chinese, try to say 'disgusting'.
Gramps, by this time, has closed his eyes and crossed his arms, and nothing is going to change his attitude - especially some foreigner with better manners than him!
His grandson, however, has this look on his face, as he looks at me - somewhere between shock and embarrassment. I think it comes down to - he's been educated through school and public government posters etc that spitting (esp in a bus) is bad, but his grandpa, a (supposedly) respected elder does this - so which is right? Foreigner comes along and makes it blatantly clear... kid is no longer in doubt, and is ashamed of his grandfather's actions.
That is how people, and countries, change!
