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Posts: 194

Shifu

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Q: Do you find that Chinese people often give incredibly vague answers?

I've noticed how people just don't give detailed answers here quite often. Today, I heard one person asking the other if they lived nearby and the guy answered "Chabuduo" which has to be the vaguest answer ever. If an English speaker was asked the same question and answered "more or less" it would be considered rude and a bit of a conversation killer.

 

Or often when I ask Chinese people about their opinion on something one of the most frequent answers is "hai keyi" which again, isn't a yes or no it's just some vague in between word. Why can't they just be more affirmative and give more detailed answers?

10 years 49 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
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Posts: 4

Governor

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Maybe...or maybe not.  I think it's confounding that foreigners come to China and then expound on how different Chinese are.  It's like Chinese going to America and noticing how fat many Americans are.  Duh.  Or how Americans like to kill each other with guns.  Or how direct Americans are.  Or how they like to lie in the sun to get darker.  Or a thousand other things that only some Americans actually do.

So, to the poster of this blog, have you ever noticed how you seem to notice how different people are when they're not you?

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10 years 46 weeks ago
 
Posts: 3

Governor

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There are many reasons for this thing,one reason is that Chinese culture include a big part about"zhong yong ","zhong yong "is a professional   philosophy Chinese from famous Chinese  philosopher "Kong zi" .,"zhong yong " means like " every coin have two sides".

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10 years 44 weeks ago
 
Posts: 32

Governor

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Agree with chrimochina that dishonesty is a big reason for some of it. No stigma against lying=rampant lying all the time. 

 

But there is more to it than that. Face is of course far more important than honesty to them, so they sometimes give vague answers because they don't actually have a clue what the answer might be, or if it's a more philosophical question they might not have actually ever thought about it: but of course they can't admit that. So they just prevaricate.

 

Then there's the aspect of wanting to please you and tell you what you want to hear. "Do you live near here" is a poorly worded question in China. It implies you think they do. If that's what they think you want, they'll tell you a kind of vague "yes." It also means you have to be really careful asking any Chinese for directions. Between wanting to save face and appear to know and wanting to be polite (in their view) and tell you what you want to hear, they'll direct you just about anywhere even if they have no idea where it is. 

 

Whenever I've explained to a Chinese person that foreigners find it very upsetting--not sweet and polite--when they make up a direction instead of just saying "I'm sorry, I don't know" said Chinese person is always very surprised by this. 

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10 years 44 weeks ago
 
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