Comments on: 关心 talk: so offensive it’s funny

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By: Sonia

Sonia — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:28:45 +0000

I know what you mean. But isn’t it funny…and I don’t mean to bring politics into a light-hearted post, but still…isn’t it funny that the perspectives on foreign policy (well I guess I’m from the US, Canada’s significantly less patronizing) is somewhat reversed? Well, that may also be my bias speaking up, but just something I thought was quite ironic.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:35:21 +0000

Of course. and you’ll find plenty criticism on this blog… hopefully most of it’s fair, or at least honest. I think it’s important for foreigners to be honest, at least to themselves, about how cultural differences make us think and feel.

The sentence you quoted is about having accurate expectations. We (foreigners) will eventually become annoyed and stressed by the ways that Chinese are different from us — that’s unavoidable and it’s not wrong. When we feel that way, it helps to remember that it’s unfair of us to expect Chinese to think and act like Canadians (or Brits or whatever). Wishing they would, feeling annoyed when they don’t — that’s fine and normal. But it’s unfair to expect that of them. Just like it would seem unfair to us for a Chinese person to go to England and get angry and criticize the British for not being Chinese. It’s normal for him to be stressed by the cultural differences and have strong feelings, but it “doesn’t make sense” for him to expect the British to behave like Beijingers and blame them for being different, as if it were wrong to be different. Does that make sense?

By: Erica

Erica — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:39:50 +0000

“It doesn’t make sense to go live in some other culture and expect the locals to behave like people back home” you say.
Am I allowed to criticise? Just so I know.

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:34:13 +0000

Warmer clothes – ha! That’s gotta be one of the all time classics. Go ahead and blog it if you want. I think it’s important because it leads into a key aspect of living cross-culturally in general.

In my opinion, if we’re the foreigners then the onus is on us to adjust and learn to not take offense when no offense is meant, if they’re operating within the legitimate parameters of their host culture. Some foreign friends we have still try to get their Chinese friends to change this behaviour because the foreigner finds it offensive, even though the Chinese mean no offense (usually) – they try to tell their Chinese friends something like “you shouldn’t talk like that to foreigners because it’s offensive to foreigners.” If we as foreigners aren’t willing to adjust on this kind of thing, then I would wonder why we ever left our home cultures in the first place. It doesn’t make sense to go live in some other culture and expect the locals to behave like people back home.

Still though, it is a bit of a shock sometimes, especially when they do it in English! ;) I remember being totally speechless for a few seconds the first couple times it happened to me… it’s a situation we don’t ever face in our culture and it totally caught me off guard. But even at the time it was still funny.

Tim – it doesn’t help that most of the bikes are also really light and made from the cheapest possible parts. But $15 is $15!

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:00:59 +0000

That is very interesting and good to learn. I’d hate to think of what they would say I would do to a bike! I love you guys and keep up the learning and teaching.

By: Albert

Albert — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:51:19 +0000

GREAT topic. I think this really catches foreigners in China off guard because it occurs when Chinese speak English as well. It often feels too “motherly” and I’ve had friends say things like, “I’m 53 years old, I think I know when I need to put on warmer clothes.”

Maybe I’ll blog/trackback on this article on my own site. Now…if I only knew how to do that.