R.P. BenDedek
Turning Chinese
By R.P. BenDedek
Jun 13, 2008 - 8:50:57 PM

This has been a bad year for China, what with the disastrous snow at the beginning of the year, then the troubles in Tibet and the Olympic Torch Relay, and just recently the earthquake in SiChuan.

China has received a lot of bad press, and it seems some people just 'love to hate' the Chinese Government, as though the Government was somehow not comprised of Chinese People with Chinese Characteristics.

The thing I find funny, is how those who will take every opportunity to rubbish the government, get so defensive about the Chinese people themselves.  When someone like me writes something about a true event in our lives, the evangelical Political Correctness fundamentalist ideologues start making accusations of 'racism'.  Such people, I believe, are disconnected from Reality.

The other day I was given a print-out of some information copied from a website.  The theme was: "You know you have lived in China too long when -". I've found several sites with similar material, and I am going to present here, some of the things I came across, to which I can personally relate. You can do a search of sites yourself, but here I will just provide a link to one site.  At the end, I have added some of my own thoughts.

Some scenic sites at Jin Ji Hu

You know you have lived in China too long when:

• All white people look the same to you.
• You think that a $7 shirt is a rip-off
• You have no reservations about spitting sun flower seeds on the restaurant floor.
• You think it's silly to buy a new bike when it'll get stolen soon and stolen bikes are half the price.
• You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue
• You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
• You look over people's shoulder to see what they are reading.
• When shopping at Carrefour some laowai (foreigner) stares you down for catching you looking into his basket while you wonder to yourself what laowai's eat.
• You have a pinky fingernail an inch long.
• You start to watch CCTV9 and feel warm and comforted by the governments great work.
• You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules.
• You start calling other foreigners Lao Wai.
• You start cutting off large vehicles on your bicycle.
• Someone doesn't stare at you and you wonder why.
• Firecrackers don't wake you up.
• Forks feel funny.
• You and a friend get on a bus, sit at opposite ends of the bus, and continue your conversation by yelling from one end to the other.
• You cannot say a number without making the appropriate hand sign.
• Even you start messing up "he" and "she" in English and also don't get what the big deal is when you do
• You can't decide if you love or hate the country
• You get your haircut on the sidewalk.
• You have grown used to the picture quality of pirated VCDs.
• You draw characters on your hand to make yourself understood.
• You can't put a proper sentence together in your native language.
• You use the word "Ayyiieeaaahh" every few sentences to convey surprise, pleasure, pain or anger.
• You watch an American movie on HBO, with sub-titles, and try to read them.
• You find that it saves time to stand and retrieve your hand luggage while the plane is on final approach.
• You ride around on your bicycle ringing a bell for some unknown reason.
• You haven't cut you finger nails in 8 weeks.
• You forget that the other person needs to finish speaking before you can start.
• You start picking at other people's dinner plates before they even offer you a taste.
• You eat family style at any and all restaurants, Chinese or not.
• You talk louder than is necessary.
• You ask fellow foreigners the all-important question "How long have you been here?" in order to be able to properly categorize them
• You can swear in 3 different dialects.
• You get used to having a before dinner, during dinner, and after dinner cigarette
• When you think it's alright to stick your head into a stranger's apartment to see if anybody's home.
• You get offended when people admire your chopsticks skills.
• You think your nose IS kind of big
• You don't blink an eye when a complete stranger wants to take a photo of you with his family.
• When you go back to your own country it feels odd wearing a seatbelt and you think its strange that you cant smoke in a taxi
•  When you can't imagine a meal without yi wan mi fan! (a bowl of rice).

'Harmony' June 8, 2001 Joint unveiling, Singapore and China

Some of my own thoughts:

Just for show at Ji Ji Hu

Notes:

No. 1- It doesn't seem to matter if I am speaking French or English, I have forgotten how to say "Pardon?".

No. 2- One day I was in a hurry and was running around the supermarket when I came face to face with a young tall white guy. I don't know who got the bigger shock, because without even thinking I exclaimed: 'Ugh! Laowai!' and just kept going. I realised later just how rude I had been, and also realised why lots of Chinese react the same way.

No. 3- I am guilty of looking around to see the foreigners.  The other week I was at a bus stop and saw two foreigners get off a bus.  As they walked across the road I said: 'Ugh! Laowai!' and all the Chinese cracked up laughing.

No. 4- is such normal behaviour for Chinese that I have found myself doing the same.  Instead of addressing the person directly, you ask his friend about him.

No. 5- The other day I was out with 2 Chinese women who don't speak English and I saw a guy in front of us standing on the footbridge and was just about to ask my friends if this man was Chinese or European, when his friends walked up to him.  Only at that moment did I realise that he was a foreigner. Chiara (Italian) when she was here was constantly being mistaken for Chinese (from Xinjiang).

No. 6-  is difficult to appreciate but in fact, when you do see a group of tourists, it does make you stare. 

No. 7-  The other week I was telling students about an outing I had and they asked me if I had gone there with my girlfriend.  "No!" I replied: "With my boyfriend!"  I nearly died when I realised what I had said.

No.8- I am going to be in trouble in Australia for answering the phone in Chinese.  Yesterday, Bob and I had lunch in a local cafe and a man offered Bob a cigarette and told him that he should buy a certain brand of cigarette.  Bob wanted to know the price. When I had to translate the price, I could not for the life of me say it in English and had to use my fingers to indicate the price.

No. 9- is an exaggeration of course. Personally, if I fail to see one person urinating in the street each day,  I think my eyesight must be failing.

No.10- is a slight exaggeration but only in that I don't stop to talk. I usually just say "good evening!"

One of the lines listed earlier reads: Firecrackers don't wake you up.  Bob, my neighbour (next room) often complains about the noise on the stairwell outside my apartment and how it wakes him up or keeps him from going to sleep. I now sleep through such noise, but when I first came to China, cars honking their horns 10 blocks away in the commercial district used to keep me awake.

And just in case you happen to notice a particular line not mentioned here, but found at the site listed at the beginning, I am guilty of buying return airline tickets in China!

If you want to know what you might encounter in China, go look at some of those: You know you have been in China too long when.....

Have a nice Day.

R.P.BenDedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (http://www.kingscalendar.com/), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China.

Photographic Stories from China at Magic City

"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.