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.
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.
For me, new york city is what i would choose, maybe los angeles.
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.
Um, I have to stop you here. I live here also and the girls here are not more mature.
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!!
It looks like once you are done over there, you need to find a girl back home.
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.
There are plenty of 21 year old western girls who know jack about thier own country's history among other things.
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.
Do they look or act more provocative? Do they think they are mature?
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.
