By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Can foreigners truly integrate into the Chinese society after living here for years?
I arrived in Beijing only a few months ago and really want to call this place my new home. However, in the past few months I discovered big differences between Eastern and Western thoughts and behavior, and I don't know if I can fully accept the norms and behave like a local person. Big cultural shock needless to say.
I want to ask those of you who's been here longer: was it difficult for you in the beginning as well? Do you think 'getting used to' is the same thing as true 'integration'?
I've come to have a tolerance for the local culture, but I have only lost more and more respect for it the longer that I have been here. When you've studied the cultural mindset of China, all you learn is that the benevolent excuses that you have been making for peoples' rotten behavior falls flat. When you learn the language, you understand what vacuous xenophobes are yapping about you AS YOU ARE STANDING RIGHT THERE. I've lived in three different countries at this point (Kenya, Peru, and now China)--China is the only country where I have had a bad reaction to the locals. I plan to leave next year, and never return.
I have met some wonderful and friendly people in China, but every country has wonderful and friendly people. What makes China an exceptional country is the shit.
Everyone's different. Some can do it. But most of us still find it disgusting when people let their kids pee and shit in public bins.
I've come to have a tolerance for the local culture, but I have only lost more and more respect for it the longer that I have been here. When you've studied the cultural mindset of China, all you learn is that the benevolent excuses that you have been making for peoples' rotten behavior falls flat. When you learn the language, you understand what vacuous xenophobes are yapping about you AS YOU ARE STANDING RIGHT THERE. I've lived in three different countries at this point (Kenya, Peru, and now China)--China is the only country where I have had a bad reaction to the locals. I plan to leave next year, and never return.
I have met some wonderful and friendly people in China, but every country has wonderful and friendly people. What makes China an exceptional country is the shit.
The biggest difficulty in Beijing (or elsewhere in China) IMO is breathing acceptable 02. (Don't) wait till winter.
I call Guangdong province my home, I have some good Chinese friends over here and everything I need to live a descent life is available in my area (e.g. imported groceries, greenery, restaurants, entertainment, ...), but it's not the case everywhere, I live in a upper-end area with many very wealthy Chinese around, most places in China won't offer as many conveniences, or be as clean and modern.
The fact that I consider this place home does not mean that it will be forever, I might move to another country when I decide to, also I did not adopt Chinese habits such as jumping queues or spitting everywhere, I am proud of being different and when people ask me "when do you go back home?" I tell them that here is home, some get pissed because they are racists, some others are happily surprised to hear that.
Hotwater:
From what is read previously I thought you were leaving next year?
Glad you see it as home (for now). I feel the same way :-)
Scandinavian:
Our upper end hood blows chunks compared to living amongst the common folk. My MILs place is very modest, but it is a green oasis downtown. It is quiet, the neighbors smile, they will bring seasonal food if they cook it (which I will then not eat) children are, at least sometimes, allowed to be children.
In the upper end concrete silos. When you say Nihao to people in the lift, you can be sure they will take out the key to their Lexus, check something on their iPhone etc. to make sure that you see they got the stuff. Man I love that many of them get scared by out little dog.
Hotwater:
I've noticed that as well Scandi....the more people have here the more they want to shove in under your nose.
I had a drive out to Hai Ou Dao last Saturday, a small agricultural island down Nansha way, south-east Panyu. My wife loves the street markets there (dirt cheap veggies compared to Guangzhou).
After buying a load of veg we went for lunch in a local restaurant. Table next to us were 6 local Cantonese guys. They offered me beer and baijiu, which I politely declined (I was driving) and then they get talking to my wife. One of them then said he wanted make friends with me and asked if we'd like to go to his place and pick longan berries. I was up for it so off we drove.
Spent the next couple of hours sat in this guys yard, chatting with his 15 yeard old son, picking fruit and having a great time. He even apologised for the state of his yard/gardne while I though it was a great place.
Really down to earth local guy who has invited us back for dinner, beer and a place to sleep for the night. In the north of England you'd say he was "salt of the earth". Shared anything he had and was open to learning (yes I know he'll be able to say to his neighbours he has a foreign friend but his offer was open and I'll take it that way).
I'd rather spend time with the loca farming guys than the nouveau rich here.
Scandinavian:
Yup, A cup of tea in a random persons garden. Been there, a truly good experience. OK, garden is pushing it, there was a tiny patch of grass, and ONE mango tree with plenty mangos. .
Eorthisio:
@ Hotwater: I probably will, as I said in my post the fact that I call this place home does not mean that I will remain here indefinitely, I might leave next month, next year or next decade. It's all temporary. But I don't have a house back in my home country (except my parent's house) so I can't call it home any more than Guangdong.
Absolutely not.
Just today I went to the bank with my wife to move American USD from her account to mine because my account is tied with PayPal. They needed a ton of documentation... including marriage certificate and other crap. Huge hassle for nothing.
Yet, they gave her ALL of my account info (without my knowledge) when she went there with my passport. MY ACCOUNT with my name and not hers on it.
If you think China will every truly accept you (as a foreigner) you are dreaming.
Scandinavian:
This is not screwing the forefinger, this is filial piety at work. I'd say you're accepted if your wife can misuse your account.
Robk:
She doesn't misuse it but I would like some damn privacy. And I don't see how it takes so much documentation to move funds between a married couple. Which is a deposit btw NOT a withdrawal but to get ALL of my banking activity printed out on paper....
She just needed my passport. Can you imagine if someone knows you, steals your passport and goes to the bank and says they are you wife or husband and gets all your banking info? It's Ludacris.
Yes and no. It depends on exactly how integrated you mean. Will you ever be treated like a chinese person? No way. You will always be stared at and talked about. Treated differently.
But on a personal level you certainly can. You will gain local friends. Not easy to find as they usually want to show you off and practise english. But not everyone. These will becone your closest and most important friends as your foreigner friends will always seem to come and go. Youll be included in everything, not singled out. Your family life can be the same.
For 5000 years of history chinese culture isnt all that complicated. Youll learn to pass out tissues around the table without thinking, youll start passing things out with 2 hands things like that.
The area around you will adapt as well. Your local smoke shop will get comfortable and know what you want without laughing at you. The ladies at the supermarket will stop giggling. Youll feel really comfortable.
But no , as soon as you leave your bubble youll be quickly reminded that you do not belong here.
Some people are different and adapt better. Ive been here 7 years and still snap at every conceived slight towards me. I still find their habits disgusting. That never seems to get better.
I think i fight it quite well. I take alot of pride in living the same way here as i did back home. Which is not easy and probably has something to do with my lack of integration. But i have found a nice balance i think. I am content.
China is not a country of integration and cultural mix. Never was, never will be unless forced to. Like most asian countries. It's a weakness and a strength.
And unfortunately your staycount doesn't show on your face.
I am going to give two responses-
No. (me)
****************
"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..."
~ Rudyard Kipling
No...but ive said this on other threads if you base your happiness on what locals do you're always gonna be pissed off.
you can get a decent circle though, I mean theres no reason at all why you can't be more or less comfortable, but for me I really needed to learn to just tune everyone out.
Can't get angry at the background can you?
I plan to spend the rest of my life here but also accept that I'll never truly integrate. I'll never be a true native speaker in Putonghua or Cantonese and never fully understand how people's minds tick here. But I'm, happy....got a lovely wife, enjoy my life her and have just enough patience to put up with the small shit that goes on around me (including the shit i had today but that's for another topic later).
i would suggest not learning the language, while i have met friends that have stayed here a long time, most of them were really disappointed and it really went downhill fast when they knew the language and what people were saying, the bubble will burst really bad when you realize their words and minds are truly worse than their actions. many foreigners have told me to keep my sanity and stay here long term, dont learn the language well. not sure if this advice has happened to others.
One can never get integrated into China. I'm a direct descendant, my father was from Shantou, Guangdong. I am still regarded as an outsider because I wasn't born here. So for a Westerner it would be quite impossible. Nevertheless, one can never get used to the obnoxious behavior of people here. But if you planned to live here long term then you need to learn how to turn a blind eye to many things. That way, you will last longer.
jetfire9000:
Come on all ya gotta do is earn a few millions and appear in the tabloid with enough sexy women and the entire world that is China will be claiming you as a Chinese!
No, because the locals won't let that happen. They will keep moving the goal posts due to their ingrained racism, xenophobia and ethnocentrism. . .but will keep demanding you accept their way of doing things and their culture regardless. But just as you do what they all say, they will move the goal posts and the cycle of futility continues.
If you speak Chinese, Yes and know how to play by the rules.
People are different. China alone, we are a country of 13 billion, with 54 ethics, spread in different geographical provinces. We have a saying that "Each place has its own way of supporting its own inhabitants." But most Chinese are hospitable, believe me. If you met bad Chinese people, you will have to try making yourself meet the good people. Forgive those bad and try more better ones. Forgive, forget and thrive, you'll always need to learn how to balance it out when living in China.
DrMonkey:
1.3 billions, not 13 billions... I believe people here *can* be hospitable, I've experienced it. Integration is a different thing from hospitality : accepting someone from abroad as a Chinese, becoming a Chinese without being born in China. If you don't look Asian, people whisper in your back, you get eyed like a alien from Mars, and people will act with you differently just because you look different. Being a foreigner will be used against you if it is convenient, the spirit of us and them never really go away, outside of the closed circle of friends and family in law. Even after 3 years living in the same place and doing the effort of speaking Mandarin. When talking, the recourse to the argument "but you are a foreigner" comes quick. Unless you live in a small village of 100 people, it seems to me there is no integration possible. At best you will be the local laowai, forever a zoo specimen. That might sound totally normal, but then, contrast that to how it's possible to be integrated elsewhere, regardless from where you come from.
that makes sense, DrM. As you know, China has many issues to solve, and we Chinese people have a serious trust crisis permeating in the society, especially in the mega-cities. We are a big country of 1.3 billion (thank u) and we are not sure how far the new leadership could go with all the reforms.
Another factor is education. High diploma does not mean better quality of a person, and vice versa (anyway, the past 3 decades have made a big impact to all of our lives). Incomplete education plus other factors including the history of disgrace, wounds on wounds, ingrained feudal thoughts inherited from grandma's grandma, we tend to protect ourselves, turn inward, and be afraid of the world. Or hostile or militant! In one word, most of us constantly have a sense of INSECURITY. maybe that is why we received American culture so well in China? Don't know, sometimes i am lost about who I am. (P.S. it's 56 ethics, not 54.)
They're moral cowards (as in: the morality of cowardice) who care only about themselves, and don't see how behaving this way spoils it for everybody. Smallminded, short-sighted, petty and ignorant. Even Chinese can't integrate into Chinese society, because they see it as "Too Many People Ocean". Chinese have no regard for human life, trust in others, trustworthiness, or faith in humanity. Just as they single us out, they horrendously bully eachother too. 1.3bn rats who dream of jumping ship, and 600k misfit expats who ended up here for various reasons. For the Chinese cause not to be lost, they need to believe in it themselves first. I won't hold my breath, but I have faint hope that Christianity might do more good than harm. An American invasion would be practically welcomed, but USA can't be bothered with the hassle. Nothing and nobody of value here anyway.
OK story time and this story is so relevant to the question.
I took a bottle of English gin to a dinner I was invited to with my Chinese wife's supervisors and offered it to the men to drink. They wouldn't drink it and bought a bottle of (expensive) bijou instead. I make it a habit not to drink bijou or maybe just one and drank beer instead.
One of the men wrote some Chinese into his phone and translated it into English and gave it to me. It said "a gift was offered and was spurned".
I could have said the same about my gift of gin but I'm too polite.
They just don't get it. They only see the violations to their own norms.
DrMonkey:
They only see the violations to their own norms
The most compact way to explain the whole thing.
October1st:
Thanks for the story told..and thanks for the great question asked by GLeaves.
wish you all a nice weekend, anyway!
diverdude1:
spot on the money Scando.
I remember when I did imbibe in the ol' spirits, the drink that topped my list..
Tn'T
Tanqueray Gin (Royal Warrant holder)
Schweppes Tonic
and a nice wedge of Lime ~ those were the days!
I was born in Hong Kong, my mother was also born in Hong Kong, I understand the culture pretty well but I certainly don't agree with quite a lot of it. Spitting, pissing in the streets, shitting on the streets, jumping cues, driving like you're on speed, breaking agreements, screwing people over the first opportunity you get, general lack of common sense and so forth. But there are also good things about this country and I love it!
You can never be truly integrated if you are not ethnically East Asian. That means people will look at you and say Laowei forever.
However people with Overseas Chinese, Korean or Japanese backgrounds, could if they wanted to, truly integrate, but that have to learn the language and lie about where they are really from.
lewn:
Apologies. In fact Vietnamese and Taiwanese could also convince a Chinese local, if they were determined enough that, given enough cultural and linguistic studies, that they were, in fact from the mainland. Obviously, why they'd want to, would be hard to fathom.
Learning Chinese is a must if you want to integrate yourself to anther culture! vice versa!
I did not stay abroad one of reasons was I felt I have never truly master English.
I am still learning!
sorrel:
Even if you are fluent in Chinese and have lived in China for years, no foreigner will ever be allowed to integrate fully into Chinese society.
China is still too insular to accept foreigners as a full and equal participant of Chinese society.
blah:
Actually, vice versa! Even if I can speak English well, I cannot get into the mainstream of society. One of my classmates still works in the UK. He said he cannot blend into society even though he stayed in the UK for 7 years, sooner or later, he will be back to China. Just dont know exact date!
rasklnik:
Maybe because in western countries, Asian mama's boy still live with their parents, and spend all their free time playing DOTA instead of learning any social skills, or making friends.
-Why can a Russian gangster, and African small trader, and an English teacher all talk to strangers, but a Korean or Chinese needs a lengthy introduction...?
blah:
Korean and Chinese are the same culture, and some other asian countries are Chinese culture too. At least, in the past, Chinese culture influence some countries.
Shining_brow:
I'm guessing, but I'd suggest your friend maintains the Chinese (maindlander) mentalities, and remains outside of English culture... doesn't like this, doesn't like that, China is better. His 'real' friends are from China, and only likes Chinese food....
