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Q: Spiral of embarrassment
I just bought a quick lunch at a food stand outside my workplace. The guy operating it is well-intentioned and nice enough. But he always launches into the typical E.T.-style behaviour towards me. Exaggerated Harrao! Talk in broken English when every word I say to him is in audible Chinese. Telling any bystanders that my vocabulary is limited to 'ni hao' 'zai jian' and 'xie xie' while it really isn't.
These are all indoctrinated reactions, and I can see in his eyes that he just wants to be liked by everyone. It makes me uncomfortable just waiting for my order, and I believe other people aren't exactly fascinated by what he has to say either. He runs his little food stand with his mother, suggesting he's one of those leftover guys who needs a wife. I really hope he can find one, but he'll need to learn (not memorize) a lot of social skills before he can charm a woman. He definitely can't buy one of those mercenary wives.
A lot of people make these petty attempts to gain face, so just observing them can be a learning experience about Chinese culture. People wish to gain face so they can be proud and confident, and not be riddled with shame or embarassment. But my experience is, that their actions are usually counterproductive for their purposes. They want to avoid embarrassment, but end up doing embarrassing things in the process. They want to seem knowledgeable, but they come across as ignorant. They want to be friendly and approachable, but appear to mock people, who subsequently avoid them.
On a grander scale, Chinese society is *so* hell-bent on avoiding (further) embarrassment, that they inevitably invite even more future embarrassment. They don't want to admit error because that will be seen as weak, but inability to admit errors is a major weakness. They can't talk about shameful parts of their history, but knowing little about their past, they end up making the same mistakes over and over. They want to be educated and intelligent, but refuse to learn from those that can realize that goal. They want to be powerful and successful, but they don't want to do the work to get there. They want to be proud of themselves, but all the rigidity leaves nothing to be proud of.
It's the principal of self-fulfilling prophecies: Because you're so preoccupied with preventing something from happening, you actually bring about events that cause it. Is there a Chinese expression that describes this process? I very much doubt it.
Yangism.
I dont know how to say it in Chinese, but it expesses what you describe perfectly 
Yangism.
I dont know how to say it in Chinese, but it expesses what you describe perfectly
A guy wrote a book about your guy. The guy who wrote the book : Lu Xun. The guy in the book : Ah Q. What you wrote sounds like straight from the book. The attitude to that author, in China, is quite revealing too.
Simba. You need to take your place in the great circle of folly.
Say no to Hakkunah Mattata.
Or you can go hakkunah mattata in your professional life and down at the internet cafe, become a lazy mindwashed serf, have no worries and the great circle of folly will perpetuate anyway.
It's called having your cake and eating it too.
These sort of encounters are highly annoying. Many foreigners think they are being mocked and in a way they are... but I would say that is is mainly 20-30% malicious or mockery, 60% self-serving (for face... look at me... I can speak to the foreigner or just for entertainment), and then about 10-20% being friendly.
Some of them actually realize what they are doing if you react negatively and stop it. Chinese are just SO awkward in dealing with foreigners.
Chinese see foreigners in only two lights these days (from my experience)...
1) The ESL teacher - the clown that is serving China and can be mocked and ridiculed and their expense. Providing them face in any way necessary (this is common). Tourists usually fit into this group as well for some dumb reason because they know tourists probably don't have any real connections.
2) The Business Man - he has lots of connections and is super rich. We will fear and respect him because he can probably get us in to trouble with his friends. He brings money to China and so we must serve him.
However, most Chinese (being insecure) will almost automatically assume you are in the first category (which I was, so I can see the glaring difference). Even at the gym, I hear some girls talking and automatically labeling us all "wai jiao", rather than asking us of course... I correct them, and all of the sudden they aren't so brazen.
When you do say you are in another area other than ESL, they all of the sudden think you are "special" or that they should respect you now.
Best to ignore them, blink and just act very serious. They will quickly lose the stupid charade when they realize you aren't going to dance and juggle for them.
Eorthisio:
I love to tell them that I work in the ESL industry so I can quickly filter the worthy from the worthless, the last automatically assume that I am a foreign teacher and try to put me down, then I let them know that I manage the international department of where all the rich tuhao around send their kids to study, they quickly realize that I do have very good connections with the wealthy and powerful in the city and that calms them down.
If not enough I finish those idiots by letting them know that I also own a legally registered recruiting agency, how much I charge the schools per foreign teacher each month and how many of those foreign teachers I sent around. This will shut off the most arrogant Nongs when they realize that I make more money in a month than they do in a year.
Robk:
@Eorthisio
Yeah, money is a big part of it. But most foreign teachers make a ton more than the average Zhou anyway. I would say they make as much as a mid to top level manager in a company (if in the 8-12k RMB range).
So it is kind of weird how they try to look down their nose at ESL teachers based on this alone. I think they mainly look down their nose because they now equate ESL teachers with "losers" "women stealers" "lazy bums who couldn't make it back home" or "people I can mess with".
There is this huge stigma going around China now. Long gone are the innocent Chinese days where they thought the backpacker was brave, rich and helping Chinese by learning English. Now Chinese think they are doing these "poor" lot a favor by being taught English by them.
Maybe they are pissed off because now they know they have been lied to... and foreigners aren't all ATM machines? Or maybe now they feel it is their turn to look down on foreigners? Either way, it is all about insecurity.
expatlife26:
My two cents on their bias against expats in education is that they are:
1. Contemptuous that you are a "loser" by your own standards. "Hey USA has $53,000 per capita GDP...you must be a scumbag and a failure to make a mere 10,000 RMB/mth...what do you tell your parents?"
2. Jealous that 10,000 rmb/mth is likely to be significantly more than they make...and it's made pretty much without effort to get into. ESL teacher is a "free" job, you pretty much just show up and you're hired at a salary they would kill for.
I think they kinda resent it as being "cheating". That you must be a very low status foreigner, lower than them as Chinese, yet because economically to this guy "foreigner" is a higher default status than "chinese" it means our bottom of the barrell is still really competitive here in a socio-sexual way.
And you know what? I think that would kinda piss me off too if I was somebody that felt I wasn't getting mine. As a westerner I never have to look at some country and just say "fuck...those guys are better than us." Except the Swedes and maybe the Austrians.
Now I hate dealing with those types of people too, but I mean if like...France or something was just light years ahead of us in the USA and French kids with no experience coming straight out of college would just show up to teach french classes and get paid SIGNIFICANTLY more than the average US professional salary (so a "french teacher" is just slacker 23 year old making $100,000 a year) and if girls would just go up and tell them "oh you're so handsome!" all the time I can see that getting old quick if I was just some slackerish american guy who was afraid to talk to women and barely making ends meet.
Robk:
@expatlife26
True, it would piss me off... for moment and then I would say... what's wrong with this picture? I would get much more competitive and get mad at the government rather than grouping up on the French guy. Could you blame him?
It wouldn't be the French guy's fault. He's taking advantage of a hole in our system. Rather than focusing on how he is a nuisance, I would focus on how I can improve myself and lobby against the government for fair play.
It's not up to a foreigner to fix China right? Chinese very preciously say that we should mind our own business. I can understand how they would be pissed but they need to man-up and stop placing all the blame on foreigners.
Shining_brow:
Consider the slap in the face that the locals are getting day in day out.
We get paid double/triple/quadruple their salary, and usually have a lot more time off, and do a hell of a lot less work.
Thus, they're basically being told that we're more important than them. Alternatively, they aren't really needed/useful.
When it's that 23year old fresh out of uni, inexperienced graduate... compared to my post-graduate qualifications and 20 years experience - yeah, I'd be pretty pissed-off too!!!
expatlife26:
Rob & Shining, I'm not saying it's smart or productive for them to feel that jealousy, but expecting them to be above that is asking too much. It's an explanation not an excuse. Of course that bummy guy who feels hes got nothing going for him looks at a young guy from a western country he thinks falls ass backwards into money and women with some anger.
God knows less competitive white men in the US feel that way about successful minorities, women etc. And less competitive women and minorities can feel that way about successful white men. But those thoughts are all just junk food for the loser brain. Nearly all of us could have been born into better situations and vice versa. IF somebody can get ahead its gonna be by looking in the mirror not by pointing fingers. And if you are in a more or less stuck situation than sitting around angry all the time isn't healthy either.
I'm just saying we all have petty bullshit thoughts running through our head. What makes a good person isn't not thinking angry selfish nonsense it's not acting on those thoughts.
Ok, I'll admit it publicly - I'm an IELTS examiner.
Does this help me get a job at an IELTS preparation school?
Nope!
Why?
Because they'd rather believe their Chinese teachers than the guy who tells them their teachers don't know squat. They'd rather keep getting those 5.5's than being taught by someone who knows what they're talking about to get them a 7.
And the schools seem to think that having a great reputation is less important than getting more money (which is understandable... but stupid!)
However, it wouldn't make much difference. The number of times I've had students who still prefer to go to the Chinese teacher.. or more stupidly, go off on their own and 'study'.
So, no... many many many mainlanders prefer to repeat the same mistakes over and over, rather than 'lose face' by learning something from a non-Chinese person.
Fortunately, yes, there are many who don't have that mindset!!!
Eorthisio:
Yup, their ethnocentrism is their biggest weakness. The refusal to admit that a non-Chinese can be better than a Chinese, underestimating foreigners is the very reason why China was invaded and humiliated by foreign powers (West, Japan, Mongolia, ...) so many times in history, and it seems that history is doomed to repeat itself. Chinese arrogance grows along with their income.
The current leadership understood the importance of good relations with foreign powers until recently, Deng Xiaoping said "Hide your strength, bide your time", but recently China has been trying to muscle its way around and prove itself as a global power way too early and anti-Chinese sentiment is on the rise everywhere in the world.
I went back home recently, China is not seen anymore as the unstoppable superpower as it once was, and it is not seen as a friend anymore, China is increasingly seen as a bully, as a danger for the world's stability and peace.
Chinese as a people went from being seen as good friends to parasites or arrogant uneducated f*cks in just a few years. Germany banned Chinese nationals from buying milk recently.
One advice, when you head back home, don't tell with pride that you lived in China, you will only get laughers and remarks such as "how does it feel to live among pigs?".
I never taught English in China, and when people ask I tell them being a native doesn't automatically mean that I'm qualified to teach someone's child. Then a Chinese guy who assumed my Korean friend was Chinese, when we were talking about her upcoming TEFOL test walked up and said to her "why pay foreigners to study for tests like TEFOL and SAT" when Chinese people can teach each other just as well. To which I replied, "we can usually teach it better because it's our tests! You need to take our tests in order to come to our countries to study, get lost" After that, we got off at the next stop for the next train so we could avoid getting jumped.
I knew I should have just brushed it off or maybe we just laugh at him, but wtf, it was not only a deliberate attempt to discredit me as a English teacher which isn't bad, I respect people who can teach other people's kids, I can't do that, try to take the girl who's a co-worker and a friend, assuming she's Chinese when she looks like an average Korean and we're talking in broken Konglish, and ignite a peaceful train ride...I usually have better patience, so I probably should have just ignored him.
coineineagh:
i love how some locals believe China has enough near-native English skill to teach their own. That's the result of all the windowdressing, overpraising, overselling and favesaving that Chinese teachers do to misrepresent their actual ability. The sad thing is, we foreigners sussed out this easily, but the locals believe all the lies wholeheartedly. When you talk to Chinese, they'll say you can't trust people here, but when it's put into practice, locals still believe eachothers' lies. Foreigners don't understand China?!?
Shining_brow:
China has the largest IELTS test preparation industry in the world... to accompany the largest test-taking industry in the world.
However, with all this test prep, China still rates around 30th out of the top 40 IELTS perfoming countries... averaging just 53 & 5.4 in speaking and writing.
Why?
Because they refuse to believe that they don't know enough to get higher than that, or that having a native (or at least, foreigner who can do accenting/fluency) is better than them!!! It constantly annoys me that they get a local Chinese teacher 'teaching' IELTS writing (ie, keep on copying these phrases).. when they've got someone who actually knows what they're doing telling them it doesn't work! (and. pointing to the statistics that show it doesn't work!)
Especially when I know how easy it can be to get somewhat higher than that!!! (quickly...!)
coineineagh:
examiners probably give the benefit of the doubt too. when an answer doesn't indicate that the student even understood the question, since it's just a medley of rote-learned phrases without a proper response, the examiner will probably think: "well, at least they wrote the words correctly." a 5.4 is definitely a great amount of sympathy points.
