Thanks adam. This thread is as much a place for me to share experiences as for people to respond, ask questions about China or teaching or myself, give their own experiences or assumptions with China... Anything! My only complaint before this last little pissing contest was that I had no idea if people were reading because so few commented. Anyway, let's carry on. I'll write a post unrelated to this last unpleasantness soon and hopefully we can move on.
Yes there are many reading your posts Tyler.. Most with no idea as to why or what is different about the Chinese.. Keep it up.. We can all learn from others.. Adam.
Oh, and it escaped your notice that people can't point out possible discrepancy or raise questions like I did? What's the matter with that? It just clarified more issues that were brought up and it was cleared up and this censorer is telling me that disagreement is not growing up. All he did was just keep engaging me. It takes two to tango. This ain't a blog but a forum.
Yes people disagreeing falls under the category of sharing their own experiences. Of course, you've never mentioned actually being in China so I don't really know what experience it is you are sharing except lao-wai Chinese. And just like I would advise the Chinese people here not to judge all Canadians on myself, my roommate and one other gal in Huizhou, I would advise you not to think you know shite-all about China because you know some Chinese people living in America or wherever. That's called stereotyping. Assuming makes an ass out of u and me dude (roll eyes). The point I'm unhappy about with you peta is not that you disagree. You turned this thread into a profanity-laced pissing contest. Academic or subjective debate is quite fine with me, but screaming (?) profanities is not what I'm going for, and is totally uncalled for. I may have lost my heat a bit in my responses to you, but you really went over the top. On top of that, you are responding to things I didn't write and completely ignoring the evidence I present to you. It's frustrating when someone who has no personal experience insists that everything you're living is false. I'm here. Whether you like it or not what I'm telling you is true. Whether you like it or not I'm the one who lives this day-to-day, not you. This isn't a blog. But it also isn't a place to spew hate-speech, profanities and act like an absolute child. I hope if you continue to post in this thread you do so with at least some facade of maturity. dragon: I do, and I'm setting up a Flickr account later possibly today. I will give you all a link to that account when it's up! adam: I hope people are reading, but I also hope we don't lose readers because of this last bit of immaturity. I hope some of the stuff I've been sharing has been worth the read.
I never said it was false. You clarified more of how and what was going on by highlighting the problems that china is dealing with and it's current state. I wouldn't know until you did and weren't stereotyping because of your personal experiences. To be honest, some of the stuff you did doesn't seem that mature to me either. Just my opinion as we aren't perfect. lol. The reason why I was so suspicious was because I have two friends that are a young married couple who have lived there off and on and they never experienced what you did but then they dealt with a different circle of people and engaged in much different types of activities. I didn't mean to discount your experiences but it seemed at first to me that you were denigrating the chinese and thier culture. I see now that wasn't your intention. Also, many people who do go overseas have that attitude or are not interested in the positives of that culture etc or even seek them out. Case in point, some military guys go overseas and consort with prostitutes and just drink and think they know all about those people and culture. It seems it was just a misunderstanding. You met whoever you met through your job and the people around you.
dragon: bu yeung shi peta: Thank you for changing your tone. It's a much nicer thread that way. Much of what I do is immature, but I'm 21 years old and I'll use these last few days I have an excuse to act like a young male to do so. The other night at the local dance hall a few older Chinese women came over to me and were giving me little presents and trying to dance with me, etc. I was just laughing it up, drinking with them and standing in the middle of their little circle. I come back to my table and the Canadian girl with us says You're terrible, half jokingly, to which all I could reply is No, I'm twenty-one. Yes I act a bit immature, but not considering my age. The nearly thirty year old men here are running around like a dog with two dicks (to quote my boss), so I'm fairly tame by comparison. Different people of course have different experiences and it entirely depends on the social circles you live amongst. I wanted to live amongst the most common of the common when I came to China. I wanted to be right in the midst of the truly average and general Chinese life. I wanted to experience what the generic Chinese experiences. On the other hand, I have older relatives who live in Shanghai and they have an entirely opposite experience to me. If you ask them about the Chinese they will say "they are very polite, quiet, soft, submissive and shy". Of course, my relatives live in a very Westernized and modernized city amongst the wealthier people. They don't mingle with the real locals or the uneducated. They don't meet the businessmen, they meet the academics. They don't see China, they see elite Shanghai. I chose what I wanted to learn, they chose what they wanted to learn. My point is that of course there are different social circles, but I opted for the circle that involves I think the largest segment of Chinese possible. I didn't want to be like a person who goes to NYC and says "I understand Americans". That would be boring. I do engage in many activities aside from work and drinking and girls. Most of my friends who last more than one night are very traditional people. But it's hard at times to make friends, given my age. The people - mostly the girls - around 21 years old are grossly immature. I'm sorry but it's true. Beyond their obvious lack of knowledge about sex, the outside world and China's own history and human rights record, they really just only talk about the same kind of things 15 year olds do at home. In fact, the women I meet who seem about the same maturity as girls back home are all about 26 and older. But the 26 year old girls would rather spend time with 26 year old foreigners because there's a greater potential of marriage in their minds. So, yeah, a problem. I love many things about China and if you read this thread in it's entirety you'll note that I already have grave displeasure at the thought of leaving the country. I hate many things about it, as any foreigner in any land will, but I also love living here. And military is different. Those guys are given guns, money and booze, what the hell do you expect them to do? Often they're put in boring, small cities with no culture and no entertainment. What would you do, read the whole time or chase skirt? You're 18, with a shitload of cash, nothing at all to do and at any moment you'll be sent to Iraq... hmmm.... I meet people everywhere. That's one thing I like about China, everyone is willing to get to know you.
Well, you definitely have a different approach and point of view than me. As I in the west don't want to mingle with the general 'walmart' crowd and everyday people here. Their common ignorance gets on my nerves real fast. You must be really patient. For me, new york city is what i would choose, maybe los angeles. Um, I have to stop you here. I live here also and the girls here are not more mature. Maybe they know more about sex but I don't see anything mature about the majority of 21 year old american girls. Sorry, that's almost laughable. It looks like once you are done over there, you need to find a girl back home. There are plenty of 21 year old western girls who know jack about thier own country's history among other things. Do they look or act more provocative? Do they think they are mature? Probably, lol. Maturity in the western sense has devolved to basically overt sexuality and loss of innocence. That's not what maturity really is.
Tyler: I've had peta and adam on ignore for a while. I suggest you do the same instead of letting them hijack the thread.
It's not patience, it's a desire to know how the common Chinese people live. I would like to know how all the social groups live, but I have to focus on one and I'm most interested - in any country, not just China - by what the most common way of life involves. It's curiosity, not patience, that allows me to enjoy this so much. Though patience comes in handy at times. All in all I find the common Chinese person to be more enjoyable than the common Walmart crowd. That said, I don't think the "common American" is best summed up by Walmart. Nor am I an American, I'm a Canadian, and our 'common' person is different from that in America. Yes, were I to pick an American city to live in New York would rank high. But I've had the pleasure of traveling many of these here United States and seen much of what America has to offer (though very far from all). My point was that if you met someone who had only been in NYC, only talked to New Yorkers... they could not accurately say "I know what Americans are like." They could really only speak about New Yorkers. There is a big difference between your average NYCer and your average folk from Tennessee. Yes they are. Chinese girls at 20 years of age are still obsessed with little-kid cartoons, unable to talk about any thing except their immediate surroundings and even then they do so with no insight. That's the key difference, and it's hard to put into words. If I ask a Chinese girl who is 20 what she thinks about a topic - say, night clubs - she'll give a response like "they are very bad". Then I will ask "Why do you think they are bad?" Invariably her response will be "I don't know, no reason, it's just what I think." The truth is more along the lines of her parents told her they were bad so now she thinks they are bad. It's not really a thought but a feeling. Traditional Chinese youth, and girls in particular, are taught to simply not question things. They are not suppose to develop thoughts of their own, opinions of their own, considerations of the world on their own. And when you ask them to elucidate why they think some way, they will simply get upset (literally crying) and say that there is no reason. In the West we usually say that around the age of 15 or 16 kids start developing their own opinions on matters. Of course they have preferences at a very young age, but around 15 or 16 we think that they start to weigh evidence on matters and consider their own stance as something they are in possession of*. That's why 15 year olds are so fuckin' annoying back home; they don't know much but have a deep sincerity in the insistence on the ownership of their own beliefs. Even if they don't realize that their beliefs are totally bias, they are highly defensive of the sanctity of the ownership of those beliefs. For traditional Chinese youth (again, mainly girls) no such notion exists. They do not question where their opinions come from, hold no ownership over them and are confused and angry when asked to explain them. They don't understand the notion of creating your own opinions. They think there is simply one truth - the one their parents handed them - and there is no possible reason to think otherwise. Two quick notes: (1) I actually talked about this today with a few Chinese people. Two were 26 year old applicants to my school who spoke high-level english, a married couple. They are the picture of the wonderful Chinese I enjoy. Young, creative, urging to get out of the country and explore other cultures, hard-working, sincere, loving, caring, polite, nice... They are the people I love most in this country. As part of my interview to place them in a level I asked them what they thought of Chinese culture and how it should or will change in the future. They responded that they thought Chinese youth are still forced to be closed-minded, that especially the girls are not taught that such a notion exists as learning and developing by yourself. The woman of the couple, especially, was passionate that Chinese girls are not able to develop a personality until they're in their mid-twenties; until then they are simply their parents' children. Both of them had had the benefit of attending a more liberal university in Beijing and said that until they lived in a big city with many different ways of life they had never considered that there were other ways of viewing matters. The other conversation was with a father of a child attending my school, who was very happy to see me working hard on my Chinese. He asked me at one point: You are so brave to come to China alone at such a young age, what gave you this bravery? I believe the Chinese are very close-minded people and I see young girls who have no understanding of self or independent thought or opinion and I'm scared that my daughter will be like this. How do you think I should work to make my daughter be open-minded, develop her own personality and be strong? We chatted for a while, with me mostly admitting I had no idea how to raise a child, but he just wanted to know how I was raised to turn out like this. I insisted that it was nothing special, that I just love learning new things and being in new places. The chat ended nicely and he invited me to dinner next week with his family. Anyway, the point of this is that there are those new younger parents who have been exposed to other ways of raising children and are quite unhappy with the way young girls are raised now. Even the Chinese know that the girls here are young. I talked as well today with the head of sales at our school, Kelvin, who is about 26 years old I think. I said to him that I find it hard to find a 21 year old girl here who seems at an acceptable maturity rate. He told me that Chinese girls are essentially all "school girls" until about 24 years old. In his opinion if I want a girlfriend here (and he, along with nearly every Chinese person I meet, is rather insistent on me finding a Chinese girlfriend) I should look at girls at least 25 years old. (2) There are girls who fit the above description I've given to some degree in every country. But 95% of the girls I knew back home had a personality more distinct than simply being their parents' children. You have to be blind to not notice that most Western girls are allowed to meet people on their own, go places on their own, be out later than 9:00 at night when they're 19, form their own opinions, have sources of information other than their parents and teacher... There are exceptions; most notably, the extremely religious segment of America, where often the parents and preacher are exactly the only source of information. But it is a small portion of America, and not something prevalent in cities with 3.5 million people or more!! I had a wonderful and mature girlfriend back home, but things just didn't work out. I'm actually quite falling for a girl here in China, but it is probably not to be, and I will write more about that at a later date. She's 25, for what it's worth. Most of them know that Hitler caused some sort of war and a couple people died in that war and it wasn't very good. I can't say the same for Chinese youth. I'm not at all talking about sexuality, though that is also true it's not worth noting. Actually, them wanting maturity in the West is a big part of it! Chinese girls don't want to be mature at 20 years old, they want to be little kids. They're taught from birth that they are not suppose to develop an independent life at all until after university and even then it should be directly into married life where their sole purpose is to support the husband and raise the child. Women are never suppose to be independent people. This is changing. China is changing. And those in China who have been exposed to other ways of life, other ways of teaching children, other ways of treating women, are very excited about this change. Sandoz: Adam has not at all been a problem for me, I would see no reason to ignore him. And as this is my thread I'm not about to let peta just storm in here and cause a shit-storm without me having the ability to try and clean it up. I'm happy with the resolve and as long as he's not bashing the same head against the wall and swearing and making a pissing contest, I have no problems. It's really only the unpleasantness that I'd like to avoid. Anything else is up for discussion.
Here's a great example of the youth of Chinese girls. The girls involved in this exchange are 20 years old... So I met this girl who calls herself Pure (um...yeah...) in English a few weeks ago. Her friend introduced me and she was, like many, infatuated from the first minute. She started text-messaging me every day and telling me she thought of me at night, that her boyfriend (yes, she has one) is very angry with how much she talks about me, etc. All this after one meeting. Flash forward one week. I'm sitting in the English bar in town and a good-lookin' gal starts making faces at me. So I flirt back a bit and she asks me to come sit next to her. I do and chat and eventually find out she attends the same school as Pure. Some 20 minutes later Pure calls me, so I step out of the bar to hear the call. The conversation goes as such... Tyler: Hey, I'm actually here with one of your classmates. Pure: Who? Tyler: Some girl, Kristen I think. Pure: Oh god. Oh my god. Oh no. Oh no!!! No this can't be happening!! No this is the worst thing ever!! Tell me you're lying. Tyler: Wait... what? Pure: Nooooo. Oh my god I'm going to cry. cue the crying Tyler: Wait, what's so wrong? Pure: That girl, she is not my friend. Tyler: So? Pure: She is a mean girl. Last year she called me names to the other girls. Tyler: Uh huh..? Pure: I don't like her. Tyler: So what? Why are you crying? Pure: Because now you will be her friend. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ----- The rest of this would just be too painful to explain. But this conversation is just typical, not extraordinary of 20 year old girls here in any way. It's just the way they are. They're total raving nutcases with no control over emotions at all. Because nothing bad ever happens to them, their parents never let anything bad happen to them.
I see what you mean and your judgement seems right on those things BUT I just want to point out the difference in culture. You can also see that she was totally honest in this regard. In the west, maybe that's what they are really feeling but they would hide it and act what they're 'supposed' to. I'm not saying totally but that's what I've also seen different about asian culture and has overlap of course. Some things westerners are more open about and vice versa. Also, you pointed out something important when you mentioned cartoons and such because my cousin was into all kinds of what would be considered 'kiddie' innocent stuff like collecting stuffed animals, pens, watching innocent cartoons etc but she's a college graduate who works at verizon and has all these certifications under her belt. She is not immature, very mature in other ways but she does act immmature in 'some' ways by western standards or her interests. Part of it is because, there is no pretense. There is none of this 'oh i'm this age, i should like something else or everyone will think i'm weird' etc. that is the hallmark of western milestones. Just like the couple I mentioned earlier had a chinese friend that usually wore the same shirt sometimes 2 or 3 days in a row. She asked why and he said because he 'likes that shirt' with an innocent air. She found it refreshing in it's own way, not being so self-conscious like the west is. It was just her own little gem she discovered and liked in some quaint way. There was none of that 'if i wear this more than once, people will think...'. I'm just mentioning there is something still more innocent about their way of thinking especially the more common people.
Oh, I forgot to end the denouement. The next day at school Kristen had another girl steal Pure's cell phone to get my number. When Pure found out they had a fistfight - reportedly the first ever fist fight at the school - in the hall.
Yes there is. It's just that the "oh I'm this age so I should like ____" ends with "stuffed animals and kiddie cartoons". I would say not letting something that small upset you to the point of crying over it for days as a mark of maturity. Maybe you think differently. I do that all the time!
No, I'm pointing out the girl worked hard and is in a successful and responsible position at verizon. K? While there are girls who aren't into 'kiddie stuff' who are extremely immature and irresponsible in other ways. She shoulders a lot of responsiblity and does it very well. See? I'm pointing out that a slob that is immature and can't take responsibility at work but just because they don't watch cartoons does not equal maturity, not in the real sense. Get it? I don't need to be judgeing her on her favorite color if it's bubblegum pink, it's irrevelant. There are plenty of girls who cry, throw tantrums, get in fights, argue, backstab, key other peoples cars, yell obscenities and on and on... . One person's choice of immaturity in one culture could be accepted as its common versus another where it is an object of derision, same shit. NO, people don't do that all the time wearing the same shirt more than usually 2 days in a row in the west. He wore this shirt all the time, he must have worn it often in order to get her attention and question. She thought it was funny and she's a white woman so i know it isn't usual in western society. But I also remember sometimes, asians wear mismatched clothing because it's not even about a certain look but throwing something on to get on with things. I'm not saying it's like that now but people in the west don't just wear clothes to cover their backs, they brood over what they are going to wear and what others will think.
1. Yes, you're right, she is mature in other ways. I didn't say she wasn't. I just said that it's not any evidence that Asians (or Chinese in particular) don't have a standard of "I'm this age so I should do x" it's just that 'x' is stuffed animals and kiddie cartoons. 2. Every girl here below 23 I've met is like that. Not just her. I just didn't feel like writing 15 stories, so I said she was just a typical example. I've not met any exception to this rule. 3. I didn't say all people do, I said I did. In high school especially, I wore the same 4 flannels for an entire year without change, and only really switched up 2 pairs of jeans. I wasn't normal, but that was me. And to this day I will wear shit twice in a row if I so choose, and dress any way I damn well please.
