Published by Xenophobe’s® Guides 5 St. John’s Buildings Canterbury Crescent London SW9 7QH Telephone: +44 (0)20 7733 8585 E-mail: info@xenophobes.com Web site: www.xenophobes.com Copyright © Xenophobe’s® Guides Ltd., 2013 All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. First printed 2010 Revised/updated 2012, 2013 Editor – Catriona Tulloch Scott Series Editor – Anne Tauté Cover designers – Vicki Towers & Jim Wire
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ePub ISBN: 9781908120182 Mobi ISBN: 9781908120199 Print ISBN: 9781906042264
Contents Nationalism & Identity
1
Character
10
Language & Conversation
19
Attitudes & Values
25
Behaviour
42
Manners
48
Leisure & Pleasure
53
Sense of Humour
57
Culture
59
Eating & Drinking
66
Custom & Tradition
72
Health & Hygiene
77
Systems
82
The Chinese occupy a land that is about the same size as the USA but with five times the number of people. There are 1.4 billion Chinese (which is 21% of the world’s total population), compared with 62 million British, 64 million French, 82 million Germans, 127 million Japanese, 144 million Russians, 315 million Americans and 1.1 billion Indians.
Nationalism & Identity The Chinese have no need for xenophobia because they have no cause for envy. Not everyone has the good fortune to be born into the oldest unbroken civilisation on earth. The name for China, zhong guo (the Middle Kingdom), was first used by the ancient Zhou dynasty who believed themselves to be the middle – or centre – not just of the civilised world, but also of the universe. A glance at the various names China has had through the ages reinforces this belief: ‘divine land’, ‘great land’, ‘prosperity’, and quite simply, ‘big’. While some nations may find the size of China overwhelming, the Chinese take pride in their vast rambling landscape – the bigger the better. Having always been Having thus always been at at the very centre of the very centre of things, the things, the Chinese are a Chinese are a people who revel people who revel in the in the spotlight, in company, spotlight, in company, and noise. Born to talk and eat and noise. (both in prodigious quantities), they are also very diligent and practical – that booming economy isn’t going to run itself. Being a hardy lot, while other nations seek refuge in order, or retreat into self-examination in the midst of chaos, the Chinese carry on unperturbed and wait for the tide to turn. To be a zhong guo ren (Chinese
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person) is to be cast from the same mould as Confucius – wise, philosophical, stoical. What is there to be anxious about? Behind the composed exterior, however, lies a fierce nationalism. To the sons and daughters of the Middle Kingdom, their country is an emotional issue, worthy of patriotic songs, red scarves, and rousing slogans. Even if you scratch a Chinese who is critical of his People’s Republic, you will expose Anyone who a deep-seated pride in his ancestral does not have the land. No other nation is even propitious fate to be remotely qualified to compare with born Chinese is a the Middle Kingdom. ‘foreign devil’. Outsiders should never be tempted into criticising China. The world wonders what might happen if a country of 1.4 billion decided to jump up and down at the same time. Better not upset them and put this to the test.
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How they see others
Anyone who does not have the propitious fate to be born Chinese is a ‘foreign devil’. Large numbers of these devils have big noses and funny habits, of which eating smelly cheese is just one of many unfathomable oddities. In their presence the Chinese adopt the tone of a distinguished university professor greeting a disquieting student intake. 2
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Of their Eastern neighbours, there is one thing that needs to be kept in mind when conversing with a Chinese, and it is this: the Chinese quite simply do not like the Japanese. It is a long story, several hundred years old, and mostly to do with war, rape, pillage, and the poaching of their language. To admit to liking them is at best suspicious, and at worst traitorous. They regard South and North Koreans as little brothers, offering friendship and The Chinese respect warnings respectively, and somethe Europeans for their times pocket money in exchange history and culture, for co-operative behaviour and even though they do not lack of nuclear temper tantrums. stretch as far back The Indians they see as having as China’s. great computing brain power, in competition with home talent for Silicon Valley jobs. The rest of Asia is just that – the rest of Asia. They are either greatly influenced by China anyway, or are too insignificant to care about. The Chinese respect the Europeans for their history and culture, even though they do not stretch as far back as China’s. With Americans they have a complicated love/hate relationship. They dearly love to defy that nation’s meddling, but are quick to import their capitalist ideas, branded goods, and TV programmes. Russia, populated with muscular alcoholics, business tycoons, svelte gymnasts, and maths gurus, is looked upon as an ex-older brother. Although they are
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familiar neighbours with a lengthy shared border, China keeps an ever-vigilant eye on Russia – the result of lingering tensions from territorial wrangles during the Cold War. Nevertheless, united by their shared suspicion of America, they co-operate to veto any important-sounding policies that Washington may dream up. Although they are With many African countries familiar neighbours with they enjoy a chummy relationa lengthy shared border, ship, in a kind of third-world China keeps an solidarity and graduate student ever-vigilant eye exchange pact. Although the on Russia. average Chinese may not know much about Africa, the government has sought to strengthen ties in these quarters under the guise of friendship, while flashing subliminal messages of ‘give all your oil to us and not the West’. To the rest of the world the Chinese are sublimely indifferent.
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Race
The Chinese are racist in much the same way as a child is inadvertently racist. They do not mean any harm, but as they don’t get the chance to see different races up close (except on TV), they are rather fascinated when they come into contact with them. They don’t hesitate to say what they think and gladly leap (where 4
Nationalism & Identity
others fear to tread) into sweeping generalisations and stereotypes. World summits are a delight for the Chinese, who do not separate participants geopolitically into countries, but anthropologically into races. Thus the bai ren (white people) are being extremely meddlesome as usual; the zong zhong ren (brown Younger generations people, including the South are more familiar with Asians and Latin Americans) are other races, even probably thinking about dinner; going so far as to the hei ren (black people) have mix with them. wandered off and are not paying the least bit of attention; leaving the huang zhong ren (yellow people) with all the serious work of displaying the appropriate gravitas. Younger generations are more familiar with other races, even going so far as to mix with them. As a result they are much less intrigued and much less racist. But they still think they are the best race, being none of the following: lazy, smelly, crude, unfilial, backward, cruel, or loose.
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Ethnic minorities
92 per cent of Chinese are ethnically Han, which means that more than 9 out of 10 people can blend right in and get lost in the vast homogeneous mass. This is what the world typically thinks of as ‘Chinese’. 5
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The rest of the Middle Kingdom is carved up between 55 ‘minorities’ who earn their keep by adding a splash of colour to the Chinese ethnic tapestry. They sing, they dance, they twirl, they whirl, they frisk and frolic, prance and cavort, all the while dressed in eye-catching costumes with clashing colour schemes. They beam and are happy to be part One of the worst of the mighty motherland. insults for a Chinese is Since there are so few of them, to be called a ‘banana’ – relatively speaking, they are yellow on the outside, exempt from the One Child white on the inside. Policy and are given the green light to joyfully go forth and multiply. One wouldn’t want them to die out – then everyone in China really would look the same. Anyone doubting their national importance may visit the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park in Beijing, a cross between an amusement park and an anthropology field trip. Some 5 million square feet are devoted to exhibiting their exotic culture and architecture. You will probably recognise some of them – the Korean, Mongol, and Russian tribes look remarkably like the Koreans, Mongolians, and Russians.
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The Chinese diaspora
Chinese who are born or who grow up abroad are divided into two factions: 6
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1. the commendable ones, loyal to the motherland, who still speak the ancestral tongue; 2. the disreputable heartless traitors who no longer can or never could speak it in the first place. ‘What are you? Chinese? What, you can’t speak Chinese? Ai ya, what a disgrace. A black mark upon your nation and family.’ One of the worst insults for a Chinese is to be called a ‘banana’ – yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Expatriates are sorted into a hierarchy of worthiness: – those who are able to speak Chinese as a first language are greatly admired and endlessly wondered at (a just reward for all those after-school tearfuelled lessons); – those who can partially speak it (to the standard of a foreigner) are commended for trying to keep it up; – those who have lost it but attempt to relearn it are gently pitied but encouraged; – those who cannot speak it but wish they could are disapproved of (slothfulness); – those who neither can nor want to are written off entirely and deemed unworthy to have been divinely bestowed with a Chinese face. If one looks Chinese, one clearly is Chinese wher7
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ever one goes, regardless of birthplace, nationality, culture or influence, and one has a cultural obligation to speak the language of one’s predecessors. Looks and speech must match up. This is why the Chinese become so disconcerted when a foreigner opens his or her mouth and Mandarin starts to flow.
How they see themselves
Deep in their hearts the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, now well rid of their dynasties and sons of heaven (emperors), believe that they are still at the core of things. If there was The 2008 Beijing ever any shadow of a doubt Olympics showed the that this was so, the 2008 world that China could not Beijing Olympics showed the only put on a gargantuan world that China could not show but also smugly only put on a gargantuan command homage from show (rivalling North Korea every distant land. for clockwork military precision), but also smugly command homage from every distant land. This was a show no-one dared to snub, thus publicly confirming what China had secretly suspected all along – its superiority over less physicallysynchronised civilisations. Celestial sons and spectacular choreographed showmanship aside, primarily the Chinese see themselves as
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a practical, stoical, harmonious, and hard-working people, capable of great things, and contributing significantly to the world. They are inordinately proud of having invented, among a whole host of other things, the compass (without which the world would have got lost), paper (without which books would not exist), the printing press (ditto), porcelain (no pretty matching chinaware), silk (no decadence), pasta (what would the Italians eat?), the wheelbarrow (how would civilisation have fared They are inordinately without it?) and the bristle proud of having invented, toothbrush. among a whole host of Taiwan and Tibet are other things, the compass, regarded by the Chinese simthe printing press, ply as part of China. In fact porcelain, silk, pasta, the Taiwan is thought by mainwheelbarrow and the landers to be more Chinese bristle toothbrush. than Hong Kong, filled as the former British colony is with foreign devils. However, everyone has much more pressing things to attend to than geopolitics, like bending over backwards to ensure their only child trumps other only children in the Chinese game of life.
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How they would like others to see them
Exactly as they see themselves. A dynamic, benevolent and wise force to be reckoned with. 9
Character
Character Loud, direct, inquisitive, expressive, opinionated, clanorientated, food-obsessed, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Chinese are the Italians of the Orient. Like them, the Chinese also go through life rather theatrically (street stalls and restaurants being two very popular playhouses). If Italian life is one big performance, Chinese life is most like a boisterous and chaotic rehearsal, punctuated by rare moments of silence when the occasion absolutely demands it.
Face at all costs
Face is the key to the Chinese spirit. Grasp this, and everything else will follow. All things in life revolve around the concept of face – not a face to be washed or shaved, but a face that can be One must at all ‘granted’, ‘saved’, and ‘lost’. times keep face intact. Most likened to the Western Those who bestow face concept of reputation and dignity, are beloved; those who one must at all times keep face lose it are pitied. intact. Those who bestow face are beloved; those who lose it are pitied. It is advisable not to even contemplate denying it to others for that is committing social suicide. It is every Chinese’s nightmare to lose face. Even crying toddlers are habitually admonished with ‘Ai ya, what loss of face.’ People have flung themselves off
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10
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bridges because of irretrievable face. Sons have been disowned for losing face on behalf of their family. To preserve face, it is rare that anyone will agree or disagree with you directly. Instead, they will take the diplomatic route of hedging their opinions, leaving you to decipher what they really mean. They may appear unfathomable and reticent, but this is their way of saving you face and not offending your delicate sensibility with their true thoughts. When you get to know them, they are still reserved and composed. But dig deeper and you will find that on the contrary, they are actually very forthright and have no shortage of opinions. To preserve face, it To experience this takes knowis rare that anyone will ing them extremely well, and agree or disagree with requires some event to trigger you directly. the temporary setting aside of face. The best catalyst is adversity. Learning that their child got an A minus in his maths test will instantly turn them from inscrutability into a fire-breathing Medusa. Because of face, you must never accept an invitation the first time round. Unlike the Germanic soul who holds back his invitations until he means to make a lifelong friend, the Chinese will readily and quite eagerly proffer their hospitality, their help, their mother’s cooking, their only son, and all else on first meeting. Most likely they will be ‘giving you face’ – the
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Chinese version of social grace. If they are really serious, they will harass you to accept many, many times. Only then is it safe to assume that your company would indeed be welcome. However, once they press you (and since invariably they will ask you to eat), you must drop what you were planning to do for the rest of the day. Declining a repeated invitation will be taken as a denial of face, and you will be unlikely to receive another genuine offer, or indeed their good opinion, for ever after. There is simply no getting past face. So a visitor should memorise this proverb: ren yao lian, shu yao pi (a person needs face; [like] a tree needs bark).
Hot noise
To be re nao, or hot and noisy, is extremely desirable. This is why the Chinese invented fireworks – life as they knew it simply wasn’t hot and noisy enough. This is also why the ear-splitting, body-swaggering lion dance is Chinese rather than the comparatively tranquil ballet. Can anyone who has witnessed the cacophonous spectacle that is Peking opera doubt its quintessential Chinese-ness? Festivals call for the loud clanging of cymbals and tooting of horns, and traditional weddings are as red and raucous as church weddings are white and hushed. Re nao represents life and vigour. The Chinese prefer being surrounded by 12
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others and being effervescent and vivacious, to having peace and quiet. After all, the latter is what death is for. In fact they become dispirited when no re nao is to be had, and will periodically announce that they ‘must re nao re nao’. This is the Western equivalent of selfprescribing a double dose of heat and noise in order to restore oneself to optimal functioning mode.
Getting around it
Driven by practicality and need, the Chinese are highly talented at getting around things. If there is a loophole somewhere, you can bet your grandmother’s teeth that they will find it. And it will be an ingenious one at that. There are simply so many Chinese that the probability that someone will come up with an alternative is almost guaranteed. In addition, minimal provision of welfare infuses a certain chaos into There are simply so many life, creating a fertile climate Chinese that the probability for an ‘anything goes’ attitude. that someone will come The Chinese see nothing up with an alternative is wrong in being magpies and almost guaranteed. ‘borrowing’ from others to better themselves. Foreign manufacturers complain that instead of importing a billion refrigerators, the Chinese will buy four – one German, one Italian, one Korean and one American – take them apart, and start building their own hybrid fridges.
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As little heed is paid to intellectual property (it is there to be outwitted), China has become a counterfeiter’s heaven. Replica designer handbags are often indistinguishable from the real thing which are made from the same materials to If you are at the bottom the same specifications by of the wheel just sit tight the same workers in the until the wheel turns and same factories, located, of you are at the top. course, in China. The only person who can tell your ‘man playing polo’ from the rather more expensive ‘man playing polo’ is you.
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Whatever will be, will be
The Chinese set great store by their belief that life is like a giant Ferris wheel of luck. If you are at the bottom of the wheel and having a rotten time, just sit tight until the wheel turns and you are at the top enjoying a marvellous view once more. All lao bai xing (ordinary folk) have a strong matter-of-fact outlook, even the ones masquerading as idealists. From their Confucian love of harmony and dislike of confrontation, the toiler in the field and the man on the street have developed a high level of fortitude. The French will strike at the drop of a hat, but the Chinese will sigh dramatically and utter ju zhe yang (just how it is) when encountering a difficulty, seeing no point in expending precious personal energy 14
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in trying to overcome the blockage. They may express their frustration in loud grumbling but they will ultimately resign themselves to the situation. This allows them to remain philosophical and stoical when things come unstuck (after all, the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ is the same as ‘opportunity’). So when the bus breaks down and the journey takes three hours instead of one, you fit in a nap on the way. And if the frozen pork dumplings from the supermarket gave you food poisoning, you try the frozen beef ones. One still has to eat.
Keeping your nose to the grindstone
Few nations, if any, would appear to have the singlemindedness and patience of the Middle Kingdomers. The Chinese excel at perseverance. As Confucius said, ‘It does not matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop.’ Only in China will you find sayings in praise of slow progress. Few nations, if any, There is even a parable to would appear to have illustrate the point. Legend has the single-mindedness it that, on his way to school, the and patience of the celebrated poet Li Bai chanced Middle Kingdomers. upon an old woman grinding an iron rod on a large stone. Driven by curiosity he asked what the old woman was doing. ‘Making a sewing needle’ came the reply. ‘But it will take many years!’
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Li Bai exclaimed. ‘That doesn’t matter, for as long as I persevere, there is nothing I cannot achieve.’ Where a person of another nationality would have given up long ago, the Chinese one When the Chinese sits serenely grinding the iron bar, get into things, it with enough patience to spare to is always for the teach passing children the moral of long haul. the tale. When the Chinese get into things, it is always for the long haul. Surprisingly, for such a resigned and patient people, they can be relatively impatient with minor things. They do not like crossing at designated pedestrian crossings or waiting for green lights, which results in accidents that cause further delays. Nor are they too fond of letting passengers off the train before swarming on board. They are also genetically incapable of forming an orderly queue. People are far too eager to see what is happening at the front of the queue, something that cannot be achieved by actually standing in it.
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Candidly curious
Nothing escapes Chinese curiosity. They are naturally nosy and have little sense of personal boundaries. Strangers can be asked things which few Westerners would dream of broaching: ‘How old are you?’, ‘How much do you earn?’, ‘How much do you weigh?’, 16
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‘How come you’re not married?’ (or if you are, ‘How come you’ve been married for two years and have no children?’). It is not seen as an infringement of privacy, but merely as the gathering of information. Not only will they ask about anything and everything, they will also offer their candid opinions on all and sundry. Consequently, ‘You’ve grown fat’ is not an insult or a criticism, but a frank physiological observation.
Friends in high places
Similar to networking, guan xi is a personal relationship between two people who have implicitly agreed to provide mutual assistance. How one enters into such an arrangement is highly nebulous – not a few stumble into it quite unawares. The larger the web of As soon as you make a new guan xi connections you friend, you must ready yourself have, the less you have for that guan xi call. Be it helpto play by the rules. ing to get their numericallychallenged son enrolled in a physics PhD, or looking after their manically suicidal Pekingese, you must agree with a charming don’t-you-worry-I’ll-take-care-of-it smile. However, you can count on their readiness to return the favour. After all, your aestheticallychallenged daughter will not find any takers by herself. The larger the web of guan xi connections you have, the less you have to play by the rules. Your child is a
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year too young for school? You can always ‘go through the back door’ thanks to the great-uncle of your sister’s friend, the headmaster. Guan xi has been relied on to procure all manner of things – from jobs, to foreign chocolates, to wives.
Following the herd
In China it takes just one person to do or discover something new for the rest of the population to speedily catch on. If a consumer can Nobody wishes to be convinced that fermented deviate in the slightest seaweed has anti-carcinogenic from the norm and properties, it will take roughly be labelled bian tai 1.7 days for shops across the (perverse). country to stock this miraculous nourishment for the millions who will demand immediately that they too be similarly protected. This herd mentality is a god-send for corporations selling things (witness the meteoric rise of McDonald’s and Starbucks all over China). If other people are born, go to school, find jobs, get married, have children (who in turn repeat this cycle), look after their parents, and die, it must make sense to do all those things, in that precise order, for surely more than a billion people can’t be wrong. Nobody wishes to deviate in the slightest from the norm and be labelled bian tai (perverse), and thus be cruelly
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detached from the bosom of Chinese social camaraderie. Few Middle Kingdomers will walk up the down staircase of either life or the subway.
Language & Conversation The Chinese neglected to invent an alphabet, thus saddling themselves with one of the most complicated languages in the world. In an attempt to remedy this, they created the pin yin (transliteration) system in the 1950s, which in itself is so complex it almost defeats its original purpose – to help the lao bai xing learn the language in the first place.
Reading and writing
To convey the ideas in their heads, the Chinese use a set of symbols, or characters. Since there are thousands of ideas in the brains of Chinese is one of a highly civilised people with a the few languages where long, long history, there are to you can very easily date over 30,000 characters, be illiterate even if each made up of many compoyou are fluent. nents. Seeing a character on the page will leave you none the wiser as to its sound. So Chinese is one of the few languages where you can very easily be illiterate even if you are fluent.
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