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Posts: 618

Governor

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Q: Do you consider yourself a "guest" here?

Sometimes on this page, other expat sites (for other countries), or in real-life discussions, I hear it said that, "We should do X, or not do Y, because, after all, we are guests here." I find this somewhat insulting, as I don't consider myself a guest here. That makes it sound to me like I am not at home here, and I consider myself naturally at home anywhere on the planet (of course, some homes might not be so nice, but...). For me, borders are perhaps necessary for a tribal species, but are personally artificial. They may be necessary to preserve nation-states, but I don't consider myself to not be "at home", or to be a "guest", just because I've crossed one. Certainly a "stranger in a strange land", but not a "guest".

 

So, in your worldview, do you consider yourself to be a "guest" here? Do you feel like you're treated as a guest, or someone who's at best tolerated, or someone who's treated as if they belong here?

10 years 29 weeks ago in  Culture - China

 
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Posts: 3837

Emperor

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Because of the ultimately transient nature of most of ex-pats (excluding those with a Chinese spouse who may or may not wish to live here permenently), none of the ex-pat's i have met feel 'at home' here. Officially i have been referred to as 'foreign guest' and 'foreign friend'. Not something that is a sign that i am likely to be here for much time. While i have tried to make a home here, i know ultimately i will leave. Unlike times i have lived and worked in other countries, very few local friends think, rightly, that i will be here for long. I feel welcomed by my closest local friends, but feel tolerated as a necessity - if it wasn't me, it would be someone else doing the same job. However, i don't let this influence my work or behaviour.

sam239:

That seems depressing...the feeling of being "replaceable" in one's job, like a part on an assembly line. I feel a bit the same too, I think everyone must, to a degree.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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sorrel:

it does sound a bit depressing. But unlike other countries I have worked in, I do not have the same 'team' spirit here as I did with local colleagues in other countries. I have been curious to learn more about local teaching styles as part of my role as IELTS teacher, (in an attempt to better understand the students learning background) only to be refused any time in a class with a local English teacher. Yet they are always dropping in to my class to watch me.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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Posts: 921

Shifu

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Honestly, I got to the point I don't care anymore what I am, they way I'm seen, and the way I consider myself. I just try to cope with life here day after day, count downing  the days. Pretty much like being in prison.

By end of 2014, the target I gave myself will be hit. After that any one more day, will be just one more day I don't want to be here.

sam239:

Good luck with that! One year can go by quickly, I find.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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I am not a guest, I don't have another home than China. But when walking outside with all the pointing I am pretty sure everyone else sees me as a guest. 

It depends a lot on your mindset. I guess as long as there is no active planning going on regarding moving somewhere else, then China is home. As long as I have my wife and dog and an internet connection I will not ask for more (except clean air etc... the standard rant)

I've never asked for special treatment here, and I would never ask for special treatment for my wife if we moved to my native country.

andy74rc:

Like very much your comments. This one in particular.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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Scandinavian:

@andy. Maybe there is something wrong with you

10 years 29 weeks ago
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andy74rc:

I still like women only.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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Scandinavian:

that wasn't what I meant, I was merely questioning the quality of my contributions to the forum 

10 years 29 weeks ago
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andy74rc:

Clever, humorous and sharp answers are always a pleasure to read

10 years 29 weeks ago
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Cerberus81:

Funny you say that. Whenever I go to Sweden or Norway, they always point at me since I look Asian! Don't complain man, at least your not having stupid blondes jumping all over you because you don't look like some random blonde haired viking.

 

I'm so done with western chicks. 

10 years 28 weeks ago
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Scandinavian:

@Cerberus

 

I simply don't believe that. My wife has lived there for several years, we have plenty of other Asian friends, and although racism is in those societies. People just don't stand and point. But good luck with the Western dudes. 

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I was never made to feel welcome in China, unlike other countries I have lived in, but it didn't greatly worry me. I made my money and left, and continue to make money out of the country from Australia.

 

I have lived long term in closed communities before, such as Aboriginal townships (20 whites amongst 3,000 Aboriginals), and we were made to feel welcome. The people appreciated that a professional would come to the community to try to make life better for them. The Chinese have no respect or sense of appreciation. They simply tolerate grudgingly, without ever accepting others as equal.

 

China likes to remind people that they don't belong there, and take the attitude that they are doing foreigners a huge favour by allowing them into the country. They do not realise that the country is a considered dirty and backward by western standards. They do not realise that their standard of education and expertise is far below the developed world.

 

The reality is that without genuine expat professionals, China would not be able to survive. As a corporate trainer, I have met many such professionals who have just packed up and gone home due to Chinese arrogance and false belief of superiority. China is a burden, not a reward, and most will opt for stable employment and lifestyles in developed countries.

 

At present, China is going into recession, and with recession, the few incentives that the country offers for professionals will be gone. Once the incentives are gone, so too will the professional expats. It is then they will find out that their home grown "experts" are far behind the rest of the world, and that stealing technology they don't understand will not lead to success.

sam239:

I think you're just blocking off and repressing your true feelings about China. 5000 years of history and many more to come, they will last longer than US or Australia or any of the current incarnations of western civillization. But at the end western civilization is superior in knowledge, how to find it, how to preserve it, how to use it, and hence they will continue to be completely and pathetically dependent on it. Same with the Moslem world.

 

But the question is about being a "guest". I take it you have never being to more friendly rural parts of China. In many places I have felt welcomed. Not part of the place (clearly we're not) but welcomed all the same. I don't think Chinese in the US or elsewhere get the same treatment, they can be welcomed at home in the immigration countries.

10 years 29 weeks ago
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mike168229:

@sam239 - you are somewhat misguided. China does not have 5000 years of history. China, as the entity we know and loathe, is in it's infancy. 64 years is not enough to form habits, let alone a civilisation.

The 5000 years of history that you and most Chinese so rabidly refer to is a mish-mash of warlords, invasions, dynasties, regional infighting and subduing of soveriegn nations.

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Posts: 902

Shifu

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I agree with a lot of what Traveller said above, but I do feel at home here. I have Chinese friends as well as western friends and at no time have any of them given even the slightest indicator of just using me. I have always believed that there are good and bad everywhere and China has done nothing to make me change my mind. Having said that feel at home here I am very aware that at government level like all other foreigners I am tolerated at best, despite being married to a Chinese and having bought our home here. I have not come across any other country yet that makes itself so unwelcoming, at government level, to foreigners who are here longer than a two week vacation.

sorrel:

agreed - it is at the local personal level, not the official level (school included), that I feel most welcome. Since I changed cities, I have missed all the friends I have known for the last 2 years: local and ex-pat. It was one local friend who said it was hard for them to get to know many ex-pats because they stayed usually only 1 year.

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Posts: 170

Governor

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I am so glad you asked this I literally was going to post a similar question as I was thinking about this yesterday. I agree with you, we don't own land, we are born in a certain place but that doesn't make that place ours. When I see foreign people in my home country I never think, oh there is a guest to my country. That mind set is quite arrogant I feel. Why the hell should I have the right to call a country mine. Unless I'm physically walking into somebody else's property like their home, where maybe, I have been invited for dinner- yes I am a guest and I will be gracious and thankful to the hosts, but I don't feel a guest in this country, or any other country I travel to, I'm merely one person who has moved to a different global location and doing my best to get on in life there. Nobody invited me over as their guest, it was a conciliatory decision to integrate myself into a new culture, but I'm not here to be playing the 'guest' card. Good question! I like Smile

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China is the greatest, nicest country in the world. The people are all so wonderful, smart and efficient. I met some really nice people, but a guest is usually treated with hospitality. In China I feel like I'm being treated like weird Uncle Silva.

sam239:

I'll drink to that.

 

I'll drink Kool-Aid, that is.

 

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More like a party crasher
Only if I was on a sex in china on a 30 day visa?
3353 views and on page 43 but on the up side we made it too page2 under web and technology
I would be content with page 1under a category but I sill would like to get to page 4 on the main page but unless the Darlic unlocks it I think it will take more than the year that I planed
So I guess it will be down to old fashioned opportunistic plugging like this
Go to sex in china on a 30Day visa and add to the comments sections
Thanks for your support

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10 years 29 weeks ago
 
Posts: 23

Governor

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Unfortunately I will be always seen as a "guest" by strangers and people who do not know me. Basically anyone I meet for the first time.

 

But anybody who meets me for the second time would never call me a "guest" anymore. Once they know I have lived here for six years, speak the language fluently and am highly familiar with local habits and culture they know they would be insulting me if they called me a guest.

sam239:

Once a foreigner, always a foreigner!

10 years 28 weeks ago
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10 years 28 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1263

Shifu

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Due to the insular, suspicious and ignorant nature of this place - I will never feel anything more than a 'guest' at best and a plague on all their houses at worst.

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Governor

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Meanwhile, for those of us who live in the real world and understand such concepts as social contract theory and national sovereignty also understand that there is more to a nation than just a "geographical location."  Would you use the same argument to crash on someone's front lawn for a week?  After all, it's simply a different geographical location.  Or would you recognize that we all have borders and boundaries whether on a personal or national level?  I think a lot of westerners had the same idea back when they thought colonization was a good thing.  And to ignore borders and boundaries, let alone local customs and law is a good example of western arrogance.  I would also point out that a guest need not be invited nor wanted to still be a guest.   There are historical and economic reasons why western countries so recently have been so open and welcoming to immigration.  Now they are not always so open or welcoming as they would like to pretend and that is relatively recent.  Either way, it's a different situation than China.  And yes, I have felt very welcome by the Chinese people be it on the street or on the job.  

@Mike168229  It doesn't appear that you understand what a culture or civilization is.  Of course China has a 5000 year old history.  

mike168229:

China - as a nation - does not.

It only became the nation of China, as you know it today, after 1949.

Therefore my argument is valid.

Your rejoiner, sir?

10 years 28 weeks ago
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sam239:

Crashing on someone's lawn would be different...I agree reasonable restrictions on immigration are necessary. Just like town-to-town back in LaoWaiLand, if you're new to town and seem out-of-place you sort of have to prove yourself, particularly in small, insular areas.

So, what restrictions to you think people should have to pass to be considered to be "not guests"? I know people here with fluent Chinese, a family here, and who have contributed 100's of jobs to the economy, but still are considered officially to be "foreigners", have to prove themselves every year, etc.

 

But the original question stems from what I've seen other non-Chinese claiming, that we're "guests" and have to accept our status as such. I don't feel like a guest for the reasons I claim, and find it offensive to be declared as such.

10 years 28 weeks ago
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vuducknudle:

Mike, I find it highly distasteful to waste my time responding to absurdities but I have some extra time today.  The modern state of China with its current form of government is indeed very young.  But this doesn't change the fact that its culture and civilization, regardless of upheavals, revolutions, even fracturing or foreign occupation, is indeed thousands of years old.

Sam,  we just have a difference of opinion.    I understand your position, but I don't understand why that should be offensive.  I have no problem considering myself a guest.  And I think the majority of foreigners, despite those with differing circumstances, would do well to remember that they are in fact guests and should behave accordingly.

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