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Q: Do you lower your expectations for China?
Wu MAO LOAD UP! Your time has come.
Serious question, do you lower your standards for China?
I definitely have. For instance, expecting the truth in contracts, expecting people to not be lazy, do things etc.
Also I keep saying 'Yeah that foods good, for China.' The best foreign food in my city is an Italian, I enjoy going there and rave about it to friends, BUT, if I compare it to an Italian back home it's just average.
Like 'His English is great, for China.' for someone who you can speak 75% speed to and they understand, whereas someone from Holland or Sweden can understand you speaking 100% speed if their English is good.
'The apartment is great, for China' when really it's cold, bland, white walls. But because the windows actually close properly and maybe you have a little space to work the kitchen, it's great. No garden, no individual space, people closing doors close to yours etc.'
'It's cheap, for China.' Which really means you're getting something cheap which will break.
'I got a good deal, for China' because your employer pays on time, or stick to their side of it etc.
I think even the people, 'I got a good price, for busy period in Beijing in the taxi.' Whereas all taxis should stop if they can, they should use the meter and charge fairly.
'The alcohol is good, for China.' meaning the alcohol doesn't make you sick and isn't fake.
Anyways, I've realised I now just shrug when I order something in a restaurant and they say 'mei you' whereas back home you'd get it once or twice.
I remember asking for a diet coke, meiyou, regular coke, mei you, sprite? Nope. Gave up.
'The hospital is good, for China' because the staff aren't chain smoking. I even went to the hospital and needed a prescription for a drug to buy, 'Sorry, no foreigners.' Which is ridiculous, however I went to the 'foreign hospital' where the drug is twice the price. Went to find the doctor 'he's sleeping, we can't wake him up'. Guess what? You've got a foreigner who's wife NEEDS her insulin because someone sold her fake. That doctor got up and quick.
So yeah, do you find you lower your expectations somewhat for China?
Wu mao, please do one.
Lowered expectations is (are?) the number one key to maintaining any semblance of sanity for living in China.
Lowered expectations is (are?) the number one key to maintaining any semblance of sanity for living in China.
China expects people to lower their expectations in China, but at the same time claims to be superior in all ways to the west. They expect to "resume" their "rightful" place as the world's only superpower.
Their supposed superiority is based on falsified facts and figures. When one claims superiority based on lower standards and lies, it is little wonder no one takes such claims seriously.
I think we become so disappointed because we know they could do better, we see the potential, but the potential is not realized. If they didn't have the potential to do better, we'd just let it go, right? We'd accept their reasons. Cooter is right, you end up lowering expectations because if you don't it will drive you crazy. It's a bit funny because in some aspects, Chinese are very quick to get things done, like when helping a friend. We wonder why they can't apply that to all aspects of their lives. If they did, I think China would be the juggernaut they claim to be.
crimochina:
how the puck did this get thumbed downed??????????
you are exactly right. i'm disappointed because i want to see china strive. i want to see people live with higher standards.
chinese people can't seem to understand that we are not taught to see the world according to race and nationality. they think i am pro america and against everyone else. to me there is nothing worse than watching another human being suffer, live like an animal.
GuilinRaf:
I know what you mean!
I was hired for a summer job, they were desperately looking for a native speaker. I was given my book , a cd and the class.
Second day of class, I was told that I had to use the CD (which reads the very same text that the book has.). I thought it was not necessary since we were reading it in the class but the director felt that the CD should be used instead.
So, rather than taking advantage of the fact that they had a native speaker in class, willing and eager to help with pronunciation, etc. I was just relegated to playing a CD and listening to the students repeat it.
The kids could have done that at home, and spend only for the books instead.....
when it comes to people i don't lower my expectations unless they are developmentally disabled.
which is why i'm so disappointed in chinese people. let's take a simple thing as an example. a young man sitting on a bus when an elderly person gets on. many times he will pretend to be sleeping, looking out the window, or bury his face into his phone. i have heard the excuse of culture used to describe this by foreigners and locals. but here is where that idea is proved wrong. him trying to act as if he doesn't see the elderly person is proof that he knows he should give his seat to the senior citizen.
but the ccp's indoctrination process has created 1 bill mindless, uncaring , cowardly drones.
ohChina:
crimochina:
thank you for your insight into the pysche of these individuals. but what about pregnant women? parents with very young children? more times than not someone will give them a seat. but everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to do it.
but it creates a funny sight. before the bus stop people are awake and doing little things. then when the bus pulls into the stop and they see someone who should get a seat getting on the bus, all of the sudden those people are sleeping. i love to people watch and many times i can't help but burst out laughing.
i dismiss the work excuse, old people ride for free nonsense but i do understand that the family dynamic creates resentment of older generations. thank you for giving insight to this. because i've been trying figure this out for 3 years
Nessquick:
Fck, the old people now, was sweating their blood in making china as we see it now. They have no bus or metro to work, no time to seat at lunch working everyday hard and care about children. These young just do not see it from office chair
ohChina:
everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to do it.
Exactly. And I would say it's simply selfish. No other excuses.
Have you experienced that in class after a teacher asked a question, all students went silent and they were all waiting someone else to answer that?
I would say it's pretty selfish too. They are not shy, or not ready. They just wait. Keep waiting. China would never get better if they simply wait.
ambivalentmace:
they dont teach about the suffering of the cultural revolution and these spoiled useless kids have never seen hard times, so their selfish on the bus and in their daily life. i doubt very few ever real about starving from one of mo yan novels.
Day by day, every day...and I learn to live with it. After all "this is China!", isn't it? It's not the China that is published through mass media I knew about it. It's China disappointing and disappointment "Made in China". The only product never exported.
No, I don't.
I've met too many intelligent, honest, and competent Chinese people who get just as sad, angry or disappointed when somebody else's stupidity, dishonesty, or incompetence lets them down to completely lower my expectations. Lowering my expectations for the whole country en mass would then mean writing those people off as well simply because they share some physical features--and there is a word for people who do that sort of thing. Anyway, those good people frankly do deserve nice things like clean air, a functioning court or educational system, or even streets that aren't covered in human or animal waste, and it isn't their fault that their more ignorant countrymen keep holding them back.
But, like Crimo, I often end up disappointed.
Sometimes i fight back tears when i see the pointless ignorance. It breaks my heart to know that competence is just one simple brain function away. My expectations are lowered to stay sane. To prevent myself from being hurt. Because I am rooting for them. Because the only reason for the way they are is the time and location of their birth. My expectations are lowered, but I still have hope that with time, they will achieve the greatness they think they have now.
:
Those hopes may cost your generation and the 2 following ones. You may not want to wait that much. Unfortunately that's been proved with ex-communist Countries still struggling today to make up an idea about what's the way to follow. I don't think I will wait for such changes. It's a matter of people and people love the way they are. They will not change in the good way.
agree with most of the above, it's easy to get disappointed.
the saddest thing is that, because any remarks on the topic is "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people", instead of being understood as hope things will improve. it is of course very easy to understand criticism of these things as arrogance.
Lower my expectations? I would prefer to say I use a healthy amount of realism.
When relating with or deciding if a person is going to be a friend no, my expectations are always the same, (honest, trustworthy, etc). When dealing with family and different cultures, I maintain my standards but have learned tolerance of differences, (a virtue I am told).
When shopping I go where I am reasonably sure I will get what I want / need in the manner I want it or I don't go there, I am well aware of scams and rip offs, I work on the principle of Caveat Emptor (and tbh always have).
Work, I maintain my standards and try not to allow different standards to affect me adversely.
At the end of the day, this is China, things are different.
Nessquick:
Bro, probably You stay in China too long time, have to take a break for some years. 
I think it makes more sense to lower your expectations
when you go to the USA.
icnif77:
On the bottom of every reply, it says "8 years 57 weeks ago". .... That's the time Q/Thread was opened ...
Anyhow, don't lower yer expectations ...
fast forward almost 9 years. i spent over a decade in China. i happen to like most of the Chinese people I met. One of the things i learned was the chinese people have pros and cons about their gov't just like we do in the west. maybe it was because i worked in universities and the local government and my students wanted to make sure i was ok. what i did learn was most chines misstrust their govt a lot more than we mistrust ours. what we fail to realize is that everything that the CHI gov says that the people say must be cleared through the com party. therefore the story is ONLY what the party says and not what the vast majority of the people think.
