I have been in China for 5.5 years now. Soon I will be celebrating my 6th anniversary of my love with China and its people. (Actually this blog is a development to a previous blog post which attracted huge attention.) I really love this nation and land. This exceptional love does not mean I am doing well or I have realized all of my dreams here. However, I respect the opportunity that they have given me. My ancestors or I have not fought battles for this nation. We have never even touched a bricks of these gigantic buildings, road networks or rail roads. However, suddenly I have come to this blooming nation and enjoying their system. Anyway, I have seen many foreigners are greatly unhappy in this country. Some foreigners are doing well here while some are not. Surprisingly, I have seen people from both of these groups are talking negative things about this wonderful nation and its people. Therefore, I thought to share some points that I learned from being so long on this land. I hope these tips will help all of us to be happy.
#1 You are in a very different country
Admit and be conscious about the fact that you are in a different, a very different country. The difference may be bigger than your previous experiences being abroad or your expectations.
#2 Learn
their language
Learn the basics. Ask a road, buy a train tickets and such simple things. This is very important. Because most of unhappy foreigners I have seen can be categorized to this. They do not know language, and more importantly, they are not interested to learn it. They keep thinking the whole world should understand their language, English. They expected migrant sales women to understand their English with accents. They expect under paid old security guards to understand the importance of them and their urgencies to visit their bosses. This self-sufficient nation with billion likeminded people can survive even without knowing the word “Hello”. Admit that fact. This will bring energy to quickly figure out simple dialogs, which will lubricate your day-to-day life. And it will bring you happiness than you ever expected to pursuit.
#3 Be patience with your Chinese
Learning this language and keep improving
is difficult. Even some Chinese are struggling to distinguish some words,
example 4 and 10. Therefore, do not worry when someone do not understand your
communication. Sometime, even before we spit out the very first word they will
come up with “women ting bu tong (We can not understand)”. This is heart
breaking or even making us angry. However, we have to be tolerant towards the
shyness of them. Please respect their unwillingness to talk with you. Try
another person. It is not hard to find someone patience enough to listen your struggle
with Chinese mandarin. Humorously admit the proverb of chinsese people “Tian bu
pa, di bu pa. Jiu pa wai guo ren shuo putong hua” (I do not afraid heave or
earth, but afraid foreigners speak mandarin)
#4 Fix an Ali-pay account and get a wechat app
If you are going to stay here without a smart phone which do not have Alipay or wechat payment method, you are going to lose a lot of conveniences in this land. It is open for Laowai now, a lot of countries are now on the Alipay, you can easily configure a one. However, if you are an unfortunate person like me, with very lengthy name, it is still troublesome to make a full account with Alipay, however you can have a partially activated Alipay account which can be used to spend money. (You will not able to receive money)
#5 Respect their biases toward western world
Whenever a western guy come to our dormitory, I bet with my friends that how long it will take him to take a beautiful Chinese girl to his room. I always win as I bet it to be less than one week. They easily win the affection of the beauties of this nation. I really do not know from where they pick these girls, however they are beauties who may easily qualifying to be the main character of a film or a tele series. Whenever a western person comes to a table with lot of Chinese, we experienced that awkward movement. All of attentions are on him/her and suddenly we disappear from the cycle. In every aspects; love, sex, carrier, education or business they got the preference. I have seen this phenomena make many guys to be unhappy. Do not be. We cannot change a collective attitude of billions of people, which build up in centuries. Rather than complain and being angry, try to find exceptions. They are jewel of people in this country, who care the person and his attitude rather than discriminate you due to your color or race. Try to find that gem. It is hard. But for sure, there are many of them.
#6 Do not worry too much about the quality of food and beverage
Forget about the history. Go behind the best and popular brands of food and beverage. They are safe now. If you think too much about quality of food and beverage, your happiness will be gone. Period.
#7 Escape from your safe zone
I have seen many people here find their own people and then spend the whole of their time in China with their own people. Go out together, dine together, and play together. The build their little town right here in China. Like the China town in USA. This is to be avoiding if you want happiness. What is the point been in a different country if you spend all of your time with your own people? You can do it better back there in your motherland/fatherland. I admit this feel safe and comfortable at first. However, escape this safe zone to realize the nirvana of being in China.
#8 Chinese holidays are not ours
Specially the New Year time, May 1st and national day. If you go out for fun in these times, it is much about suffering among million of them rather than enjoying sceneries. Talk to your boss, get arranged different vacations for you.
There are a lot more to say. But lengthy blogs
may not be read by our CD fans. I wish you will too add more tips to make our foreigners
“Happy”.
About Author :- I
am Sube 苏贝 a PhD scholar. I love writings blogs, columns
and articles for online or offline publications. Contact me if you want
articles for your website, newspaper or magazine which related to life, motivation, carrier, science, technology and innovation. Wechat 微信:
subezji or email: xiaosube@hotmail.com If you like my blogs, please consider giving me Red Packet (红包） via wechat.
'The scale of the problem is depend on exactly where you are living in China'
It's a national problem, not a regional one; been to many rich cities and witnessed the same.
Don't know where you got your optimism from, that 'it is moving towards positive direction'! I have lived in China for a long while, and what I see does not give me the same optimism! And the problem is not going to go away anytime soon, despite measures like 'blacklisting' those engaged in anti-social behavior!
But having said that, I am happy to be here in China, as I try to pretend there are no problems, like you prescribed
And please add on to the list above the destruction of public properties, especially in parks and nature reserves, climbing up beautiful cherry blossom trees, breaking their branches, and breaking off blossom twigs to hold for photo shoot, trampling on flower beds and flowers for a better photo shoot, throwing garbage down steep mountain cliffs, forcing cleaners to abseil down the cliffs to retrieve bags after bags of garbage!
All your points are too simplistic and ignore the unpleasant truths one sees and feels everyday. One can't close one eye to the problems and pretend they don't exist; one has got to be either blind or devoid of emotions to be able to face such anti-social behavior and still pretend to be happy!
The only saving grace is that China offers other things which are interesting to foreigners, and that's why many are still here despite the above!
The scale of the problem is depend on exactly where you are living in China. In general it is moving towards positive direction. If you are planing to live long terms here, you will see things are getting better. If you living here short term, forget these things. Try to achieve your short terms goals, it is not wise to be upset with these things. See my first tip,
Tell me how one can be happy when he is faced with anti-social behavior everyday and almost everywhere he goes, such as littering, spitting, helping their children to urinate and defecate on pavements and walkways, lifting them up to urinate into wash basins in restaurants and public toilets, leaving behind dirty shoes prints on basin tops, smoking in public toilets, bus stops and wet markets in defiance of the ban on smoking, throwing garbage out of cars and buses, just to mention a few!
you are not alone. All of us have this guy in our friends list. Who is bitter about everything around them in China. They even curse. Very sad. The only question for the people who see worst in everything around them here is, why do not you change your plans and try another country? However, I agreed to BlondeAmber, there are rudeness of people here in some areas, but if some body find bitterness in everything around them, in your case for two years, they wanna get themself out of the country.
I agree with all your points. I have an ex-colleague who complained about China every day during his stay here for two years. He had many things to say about the inconveniences here, the rudeness of taxi drivers, the stupidity of people who cannot fully understand his English, the blocking of many foreign websites, etc. He assumes that the censorship has ruined all Chinese people's mind and only westerners see the whole truth. I attempted many times to explain to him about some things he observed here, trying to give him a different perspective of looking at things. But he is very stubborn and remains very unhappy in his time here. I feel sorry for him because he could have been happier if he just tried to understand the differences without judging everything with superiority. I admit that China does have many aspects that needs to be improved. I just wish that all foreign friends can see that China is improving. Luckily this is only one individual case. Many of the expats I know have assimilated themselves nicely into the life here, learning the language, making friends, travelling to places, using taobao and wechat, etc. I hope all expats can feel happy staying in China despite all the differences in lifestyle, ideology and culture.
Yes, I think in some situation a controlled reaction is good rather than toleration. Anyway, except these problems I hope you are enjoying your stay here.
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