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Q: How can you convince people you're not criticizing China?
I just get tired of the defensive 'everyone is against China' nonsense.
I was in a restaurant with some people I work with a couple of days ago and happened to mention how the pizza was great in this restaurant ,like a pizza is supposed to be.
To me this is not at all a dig at China, it's just saying that pizza isn't a Chinese food and therefore it usually doesn't tend to be the same as what you'd get in a western country but this one was.
The reaction I got was along the lines of 'China makes excellent world standard pizzas and I'm racist or something for suggesting different. I tried to say that it's the same as how Chinese food in western countries is nothing like the real thing but the nationalistic defenses were up and there was no reasoning with anyone.I was the asshole at the table.
I'm at the point where I just don't want to socialize with locals anymore because it seems like often they are just waiting for the chance to be offended, they want to be offended and if you don't actually say something offensive they just twist what you said so it sounds offensive.
Its impossible not to insult people. I went to a kiddies birthday party this afternoon in a friends house. It was chaos, just utter chaos. This was the adults of course, the kiddies were fine. My first insult.... the host had bought 6 cans of beer just for me. But I did not want to drink. My second insult, I did not want to eat the dried seaweed on offer. My third insult, I was not laughing when they tried to get all the kids to "Hellooooo hahahaha" me. Interestingly, the toddlers just say "hello". Its the grandparents who seemed to insist on adding the hahahaha onto the end. I made my apologies and bailed out for a pizza in a downtown bar not too far from the house. Strangly, leaving was not an insult, but being able to go get a taxi and do something on your own is. My wife finds it funny that many of her friends think I am incapable of doing anything. They honestly get upset when I say I dont need them to stop a taxi for me and talk to the driver. They are a good bunch of people of course.
I have stopped trying to convince people here that I am not criticizing china.
Stiggs:
It does seem to be pointless trying to convince them otherwise. They really want to believe the whole world is trying to humiliate China.
When surrounded by sensitive flowers, just decide how much you care if you bother them or not.
on a polluted day even coughing can seem like a criticism.
Stiggs:
I've noticed the 'look' a few times when I've said the pollution is killing me. If people choose to be offended by that I really don't care.
since i tend to be rather sarcastic, when someone gets offended, i usually lay it on thick,
when i say good bye, i tell them im going home to slap the wife, beat the kids and kick the dog and will stop along the way and take a shit on the sidewalk and blow my nose on some parked cars, then i usually ask them if i kick the dog to hard, do they know a good restaurant to cook the damn thing.
the sad thing is their not shocked by the conversation in the least, just a normal man's day in china.
To be fair, they wouldn't know how REAL pizza is supposed to state because any pizza they have had is probably the inferior stuff they pass off as pizza here.
I'm with Spiderboenz - I've stopped even trying! Whenever they bring up their defences now, I make it a point to subtly wind them up even more!
I know that feel man, I stopped socializing with Chinese people unless I absolutely have to (work, building guanxi), I have lost all interest at making friends here, I have some expat friends, Hong Kong friends (HK people teaching here) and only one local Chinese friend who is not so dumb because, even though he was born in China, he lived in Europe for more than a decade, not nationalistic at all, he criticizes other Chinese when they behave badly for e.g. and tell what he has to about the CCP, he has a British passport and for this reason the risks of him being arrested are much lower than for other Chinese. I also have my girlfriend who is native from Guangzhou.
Beside them I have no other Chinese in my circle of relations, for the reasons you mentioned, the race/nationalism card pulled constantly for no reason and the way they treat you differently because you are "the foreigner" in a good or bad way. Also I am tired of answering 10000 times the same questions in Mandarin or English.
Stiggs:
I'm generally not interested in making new friends now.
When you're sitting through another inane conversation about money and having to think about everything you say in case it gets misinterpreted or just misrepresented it seems too much like working.
You want to know something even more twisted about Chinese?
They want to be offended so they can twist your words and put you down and on the defensive. All the while, acting like they are the hurt victims. You know what you have to do?
Act like a total arrogant, indifferent jerk and get in their face. If they say something like "Are you suggesting this pizza here isn't as good abroad?" You say "No it isn't the best I have had but it is good." When they start their victim card pulling... say things to them like "Well, have you been abroad to compare? No? Then shut up."
I actually shut up one of my wife's "friends" (not a real friend of hers but they knew each other as kids or something). Anyway, she invited her over to a foreign gather against my better wishes. My wife was feeling ill and I had been watching over her all day (she wasn't bad, she was just sniffling). All of us, Chinese and foreigners were watching a movie. This girl starts talking to me wife and finds out she is not feeling well. She starts balking at me in Chinese about how I should make sure my wife drinks warm water and blah blah blah in the middle of a movie. I am like yeah, I do that.
This pretentious little thing says I should get her some now (like my wife is handicapped and it was an emergency that she MUST have water now). This is a form of control women use to test to see if a man "is a good man" in China. I told her, no, not now. She, thinking she is cute and we are somehow best friends says "Fuck you".
I turn and look at her and reply "No, fuck you! Who the hell invited you anyway? Get the fuck out!" All the foreigners laughed their heads off while she could tell I was being pretty serious. She shut up the rest of the night and soon left.
My wife didn't seem to care because she doesn't really like the girl anyway. So in short, don't let them make you feel bad just because they are insecure. Get in their face, and shout them down... their true cowardice will show.
Robk:
I just wanted to add a lot of questions they ask are just to set you up for a fall. It's like in high school when someone comes up to you and asks you "Do you think you are cool?"
If you say yes, you look like a cocky jerk that is going to get jumped. If you say no, you look insecure and like someone now has a hold over you.
Many Chinese do the SAME thing when they ask you what you think about China. If you say you like it, they know you are bull shitting on some level and giving them the answer they want to hear. Say you hate it, and they pull the victim card and tell you to get out.
I usually tell them the truth, what I like and what I hate and they usually shut up and take it because Chinese respect brutal truth even though they don't use it often.
I'm thinking it's pretty hard to convince them I'm not criticizing China. The main reason would be that I am in fact criticizing China. My best defence is that, by and large, they are as dumb as dogshit.
I do actually try to tone my criticism down but it's not easy. Almost everything that goes on here is worthy of criticism.
And I, too, have cut way down on interaction with Chinese people. It would be different if they were interesting in some way.
sorrel:
also not every 'criticism' is negative.
I often make suggestions to improve efficiency, or to include people or share something, yet these are taken as personal affronts/attacks on the individual.
it can often be more to do with not agreeing with the opinion of the speaker.
Start your sentences with, "I'm not being racist, but...."
diverdude1:
cool,, I'm going to start doing that too.... something like...
' I don't fkn hate china and every last thing about the spitting, yelling, staring chinese people, but... '
Its impossible not to insult people. I went to a kiddies birthday party this afternoon in a friends house. It was chaos, just utter chaos. This was the adults of course, the kiddies were fine. My first insult.... the host had bought 6 cans of beer just for me. But I did not want to drink. My second insult, I did not want to eat the dried seaweed on offer. My third insult, I was not laughing when they tried to get all the kids to "Hellooooo hahahaha" me. Interestingly, the toddlers just say "hello". Its the grandparents who seemed to insist on adding the hahahaha onto the end. I made my apologies and bailed out for a pizza in a downtown bar not too far from the house. Strangly, leaving was not an insult, but being able to go get a taxi and do something on your own is. My wife finds it funny that many of her friends think I am incapable of doing anything. They honestly get upset when I say I dont need them to stop a taxi for me and talk to the driver. They are a good bunch of people of course.
That's a tough one Stiggs,
My experience is that just our (foreigners) presence is enough to cause offense in nearly any situation......imagine if an alien landed in your backyard and asked for directions to the local Starbucks......something I understand now is all of the shouting and huff and puffing between Mainland (Northern) Chinese folk is really just an exchange of energy. The social interactions are about energy exchange, not intelligent thought! It is fun to be an actor in these kinds of situations. You are sure to lose if you express your opinion, so just say something outrageous, or be brutally honest or whatever. Your real friends don't care what you think cuz anybody with a mouth or fingers to type with gets to have an opinion these days, regardless if you are a robot or not. Yeah, I avoid people a lot now, that works too 
