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Q: How to become more tolerant to our host country?
I'll not mention ay specifics, have you overcome your own intolerance towards things that are strange to you. If so, how. I find it very difficult to just let things slide, when I deep inside know that another way is better. Sure, some things are culture, but for the Chinese I think perhaps seeing the line between culture and stupidity is very difficult (<--- See intolerance right there)
Become racist. China made me racist.
coineineagh:
Me too. My belief that all people are the same, and have the potential to be creative/independent/productive, is put to the test daily by Chinese. I don't know what the Cultural Revolution was like, so I have a hard time imagining what could possibly make people so myopic, so childish, so cowardly, so unprincipled, so uncivilized. I'm starting to believe it's something innate rather than brought about by genocide and oppression. I need to constantly remind myself people *aren't* born like this.
xinyuren:
@coin - Chinese people are not inately uncivilized. Look at the Chinese born in other countries! Look at the Hong Kongese. Mainland Chinese society is a result of a series of traumas, the extent that you can barely imagine. Viewing them in the proper light is a process that involves great humility and empathy.
Scandinavian:
@coin: I am of the same fact based opinion, all man is created equal. China doesn't disprove this, but simply underlines the importance of social heritage. A kid growing up in a poor ghetto somewhere in the west, lets throw in some drug using parents, is less likely to succeed than a child of academics, right. Same same, a child of selfish, poorly educated superstitious farmers is not the likely rocket scientist.
Alcohol. Each 10% a/v gives you +20% tolerance factor
Hotwater:
Problem with that is bai jiu @ 53% = 106% tolerance which would make you intolerable & incoherent. Maybe that's the problem with China.....too much bai jiu!
royceH:
Fuck....That is DEFINITELY the problem with China. Too much adjectival baijiu.
That stuff is just piss and only people with no ability to understand that will drink it.
It enables stupid and wife beating behaviour to be facilitated.
And the funny thing is they think the whole world drinks baijiu. And that beating your wife is ok. It shows strength. And the women tolerate it because they think it shows strength too. And loyalty.
They wouldn't know the Burke St tram was up their arse, even if it rang the bell.
Stupid idiots. (Tautology)
Live in an expat bubble.
Eorthisio:
Most expat communities in China are made of people who are as dumb as the locals, if you are 20 years old and getting drunk every night in outrageously expensive bars is your thing then you might find a community where you fit in, however if you are a grown person with a lifestyle, long term projects and who doesn't want to act like an idiot but only to find people with similar interests you will have a hard time to find a group of expats with the same mindset, there are such people among expats in China but most of them have families or are too busy with work to hang out with other expats.
Burak43:
My comment was somewhat tounge in cheek. What I meant is that I meet a lot of fully grown, mature professionals (Germans engineers in Shanghai seem to over represented in this group) who are so busy at work, and live in fairly closed off compounds where they have all their needs met by the company so they don't experience China despite living here. Of course there is nothing wrong with that!
What I was aiming for was "to tolerate it you have to remove your self completely from it"
My wife tells me I'm a little bit too much on the OCD side, and that I should learn to have a selective memory/attention. While it would effectively deal with daily annoyances, I see that solution equivalent to "remove your eyes if the place you live in is too ugly". I would either talk about with the locals and fix the place together, or just leave to an other place. I was also told that if my Mandarin fluency was better, I would "understand much more things". From the fluent speakers here, I would not be optimistic on that either.
I guess the ultimate remedy is to just leave, plain and simple. Something is eating my soul and it's not healthy. On the short term, I avoid like the plague the crowd. My wife, my in-laws (bless them), and my colleagues are reminders that there are decent people who give a damn here.
Scandinavian:
dude, are we sharing a wife, this is not the first time there is 99% agreement between wives. Just checking, is the woman claiming to be your wife, in the 160ies with black hair and dark-brown eyes, 2 boobs and rarely wears nail polish ?
DrMonkey:
Damn, yes... Maybe the fridge is a disguised spatio-temporal nucular portal... Does she wash things 2 times when using the washing machine, because 1 time is not enough ? And does she feel disgusted as the idea of putting underpants with pants together in the washing machine ?
RiriRiri:
Learning mandarin only but confirms the immense vacuity of the place.
There is hardly anything of any compelling intellectual or scientific value being produced in this language in PRC as of today.
iWolf:
Dear Mr DrMonkey and Mr Scandinavian, I sit here stunned. I am now officially in a 3-way.
Where the hell did I put that green hat??
Scandinavian:
@iWolf, I think your hat is on it's second round in our washing machine ! Don't worry, no underwear in there with it.
Scandinavian:
@DrMonkey. Would your wife also not see the humor in coming home with a 3-pack of boxer shorts, realize on pair is brown and then saying "ah great, these never need washing"
BHGAL:
for now....GOOD ONE GUYS .. I will think to add some BS ... but for now.. well said!!
Ecehomo:
Well said, we all primarily have two faces: Eros and tanatos. If we can walk, smile, shake hands..., it is thanks to eros. I have toured many places, flirted with a variety of cultures and learned one thing that succeeds in most cases: True heart and love.
We live in a give/receive world witch could even define Life in general. Accept, and you'll be accepted, reject and you'll be rejected. Relationship is just like peeing on a wall, what you throw ends up between your legs, sorry, feet :). In one word, we harvest what we've grown.
Accepting it would mean giving up.
Most of the things we usually find unacceptable here are not the result of genuine cultural differences (some are, but they would be perfectly acceptable if put in another context), but the result of a gigantic social/material/intellectual regression by the standards of most people on this planet.
To me, it only but stresses the need to stand firmly to some base principles, and not give up or turn a blind eye and say nothing. It's depressing, exhausting and it's going to get worse anyway. It is already a lost cause in our lifetime and the most we can hope for now is that it doesn't spread to other places too much.
timjames:
Hmmm..."hope it doesn't spread to other places". I like that because it applies to this Chinese way of life, as I hope it doesn't spread like a disease.
I don't know. And it's becoming more difficult by the day.
They live in such a false world without practically any redeeming features.
The only godsend is the cheap beer and even that's just piss.
For my wife I've committed to staying on for at least another year but every day I beat myself up over it.
The place is such a corrupt wasteland and the average zhou has no clue about that.
Zhongguo number one. Ahhh.....no, I tell them. And they completely believe I'm just a stupid foreigner.
HAR!
Nessquick:
Absolutely same here, bro 
cheers.
When I have conversation with Chinese, and I complain or explain about what I feel wrong or I do not like here, than it is always turn to me as " he don't like zhongou". And than it is the just next nail in the coffin...
Become racist. China made me racist.
coineineagh:
Me too. My belief that all people are the same, and have the potential to be creative/independent/productive, is put to the test daily by Chinese. I don't know what the Cultural Revolution was like, so I have a hard time imagining what could possibly make people so myopic, so childish, so cowardly, so unprincipled, so uncivilized. I'm starting to believe it's something innate rather than brought about by genocide and oppression. I need to constantly remind myself people *aren't* born like this.
xinyuren:
@coin - Chinese people are not inately uncivilized. Look at the Chinese born in other countries! Look at the Hong Kongese. Mainland Chinese society is a result of a series of traumas, the extent that you can barely imagine. Viewing them in the proper light is a process that involves great humility and empathy.
Scandinavian:
@coin: I am of the same fact based opinion, all man is created equal. China doesn't disprove this, but simply underlines the importance of social heritage. A kid growing up in a poor ghetto somewhere in the west, lets throw in some drug using parents, is less likely to succeed than a child of academics, right. Same same, a child of selfish, poorly educated superstitious farmers is not the likely rocket scientist.
I've spoken to a number of older Chinese people (40-50 year old) who have expressed their dislike of what China has become due to the revolution (although, not sure what was happening before that...).
I also notice how the students I have seem to be of a different nature (in some ways) to many others frequently described. They acknowledge that the rest of the world is a better place, and they want to go there (while still having their love of home). They seem less illusioned about the realities here.
Thus, I don't see any real reason to be changing myself, or 'tolerating' the crap that goes on here!
coineineagh:
The sad thing is, Chinese history is littered with stories of cowardice, dependence, honourless acts of poisoning, group intimidation, genocides, family violence and cruelty to women and children. It wasn't all brought about by Mao, though he only made a bad situation worse. Everyone who strived to be more than a coward or schoolyard bully was starved or publicly executed.
Scandinavian:
the even sadder thing is Chinese history is littered with things that didn't actually happen or that has been warped to something completely different, e.g. The Great March wasn't so great, and as I hear, "The cultural revolution made the country stronger despite being initiated by some unruly pranksters"
Hotwater:
Wasn't the "great march" actually a retreat?
As for the "cultural revolution".......that was totally anti-cultural.
At at least from what I hear from some younger colleagues they don't believe a lot of this propaganda nowadays.
Scandinavian:
you can find some recent research done by non-Chinese into what the literature used for History class in Chinese schools contains, and there is even one phd project where a guy has sat in during the classes.
The "great" march was first of all far shorter than originally told. And I am not sure, but part of the purpose was to allow Mao to retrieve a chest of gold somewhere in the south east... (or is my mind playing tricks with me and Talk Like A Pirate day coming up)
RiriRiri:
To be honest, history everywhere is full of lies. History is written by the winners.
The founding father were religious fanatics, the French revolution was led by a bunch of bourgeois whose number couldn't match a Wall Street protest (and more over money than freedom), Russians put much more effort into stopping Nazi Germany than anyone and Americans mainly came for the loot... and it could go on all day, about all those stuff people believe that would need much more contrast.
Difference is Chinese have a habit of getting way too emphatic when bullshitting their history, thus going way too far into fantasy.
Scandinavian:
RinRin, true as that may. History in most of the world is under scrutiny. E.g. Christopher Columbus, once an hero, finder of "the new world" but also eradicator of indigenous people.
This is a hallmark of a sane, fact based society, that nothing is not up for debate. A hallmark of crazy cults is that facts are rooted in old literature and not to be discussed (that being said, I am sure China revises history as needed) For instance, I have not in recent years heard anyone mention that Deng Xiaopeng was of the opinion that the little island, much disputed, was not worth his breath to discuss.
I completely agree with those who say to stand ground..... it's just, when you're married, hating everything about your wifes origin doesn't seem like the recipe for a lasting marriage. I was actually thinking about a thread something like "What was the last good experience you've had in China", as we had a really nice dinner last night. But the in dawned to me why this expensive and mediocre food made for such a nice dinner. We were in a new place, and there was exactly us and two waiters on the floor we were on, as I asked for non-smoking... the floor downstairs was full of smoking idiots. So the reason being, no Chinese around, hardly qualifies.
xinyuren:
I often wonder about the psychological damage I do to my wife by pointing out the many shortcomings in China. I am more conscious of that lately. I am teaching her to be strong and independent and I fear I am causing her to feel inferior to foreigners. And what will my children think when they come of age? When there is nothing positive to say, It's time to leave.
DrMonkey:
@xinyuren I feel for ya mate, I'm in the same boat. On one hand, I can't be in denial and I have to expel those frustrations. On the other hand, my wife is one receiving end, and to her, I understand it gets old >_<
royceH:
Same for me, I'm in the boat too.
I'm aware of my negativity (deserved, in my opinion) and cognisant of my wife's reality.
Think I need a distraction.
Hey Scan, there's a no smoking restaurant in your city?? Wow!
Scandinavian:
@royce.
There are many, but more amazing is that a couple of them actually enforce the smoking ban. There are some that have dedicated non smoking sections.
But wait, there is more. The last couple of weeks we've been seeing nothing but blue sky. The air is so clean it's like smoking light filter cigarettes.
Have you seen the way they rate "quality of life"? Check out Wikipedia, they rate it by number of people per square mile. The more dense the population, the lower quality of life. I don't want to come off like a hermit, but it makes you wonder. I guess it's as simple as this famous saying " hell is other people".
Eorthisio:
Hell is China, devils speak Mandarin (Southerners are more livable).
Scandinavian:
there are lots of countries that have far higher population densities than China
DrMonkey:
Somalia doesn't have a very high population density, sounds like a happy country ^^
timjames:
Exceptions prevail, and population density is not the only factor in quality of life, but the point is this, the wind blows in america because china sucks!
