oversea chinese: life in China

[yaoluck]

hi,

I am an oversea Chinese, speak and write Chinese like a native, almost.

I've had the opportunity to visit China for a month and things are very pleasant, and it's people welcoming. I have to say that it was not long enough for me to understand china only scratched the surface as a tourist.

I get alot of impressed look "you are not Chinese?, how can you speak such fluent Mandarin" and bla bla bla. I also find that my new female friends are very "positive" in our friendship. However, I do get some pokerface treatment from some people, especially the guys.

I know that in general, westeners have a good life here. They enjoy the status of being from the west. I wonder how are oversea chinese, or oversea asian treated?

I've heard that some get discrimatory treatment.

Any first hand experience?

[benhadad]

I have seen my friends from HK area who are Chinese, get weird looks and treatments because they can't speak mandarin. Normally this is from people who haven't traveled much and are not use to visitors to their area.

I have a friend who was born in Taiwan and she gets astonished looks when she doesn't know the common name of somethings in china. She living in America doesn't know some of the specific words in mandarin. I remember one time some person used a local word for Cellphone or computer something of that nature, and she said what is that? Of course the person then asked, where are you from? I guess for an American you can imagine someone who speak fairly good English saying - what is a hamburger? Or perhaps a whopper would be a better comparison.

So yeah they get treated a bit different some times.