Ok, what about people in your countries think about Chinese?

[CBC]

We have a lot of discussion about images of German, American or black etc . What do people in your countries think about China and chinese? Do people feel China threat?

[TSkillet]

I think it'd be very difficult for me to speak on the feelings of everyone in my country (or even a large majority) towards China - in a country where the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant is still receiving 48% approval ratings - I think it's difficult to pin down any one opinion as a general feeling.

[yonglan]

They hate'em; every last one of 'em. [sarcasm]

As HashiriKata said, such questions almost always seem pointless.

[xuechengfeng]

The people I talk to and observe usually assume / think one or all of the following..

1) Chinese are all very smart

2) They should speak English when in America

3) Think every Chinese speaks Mandarin, when in reality, many are Cantonese speakers or don't know a lick of Chinese

4) Think they all look the same

5) Has not the slightest clue as to whether a person is Japanese, Chinese, or Korean

6) Thinks characters are cool and trendy, and went them tatooed.

[ThePhatGentleman]

I like chinese people in and out of america.

[CBC]

i'm currently studying Cross Cultural Communication, so I'm just become interested in the stereotypes of each nation.

I get through reading:

men: supersmart, overeducated, dishonest, less musculine

women: submissive, mysterious, realistic, shy.

It's wrong to say that German are all serious. Stereotypes are not always right, bur as someone says in this forum, there are always something behind the stereotypes.

[tokyo_girl]

In Japan there is a stereotype of Chinese being criminals...

Unless they are from Hong Kong or Taiwan...

There probably is a disproportionate no. of Chinese

involved in property crime.

However the increasing number of really sick violent

crimes seem to be being committed by Japanese.

There is also a sense that they will work hard in

unglamorous jobs for small wages.

In Australia I think it would be hard to make generalisations.

Possibly extremes of academic high achievers but

also triad type criminals.

[woodcutter]

I think that the stereotypes of China are not very positive in the UK - and much the same as those mentioned earlier. A stereotype that a country has of itself is a very important thing, because people will try to live up to it, but a stereotype held in a foreign country (the UK in this case) may be based on misinformation.

I'm afraid that there is probably a certain stereotype in the UK that the Chinese are cruel people - which makes it somewhat surprising to find that the Chinese very frequently use the word "kind" to describe themselves. This is probably based on British attitudes towards animals, and the tendency to lump all East Asians in together.

[bhchao]

One factor why stereotypes of China are not very positive in the UK may be because of the human rights issue. The US and the UK have historically been democratic countries from the start. For the UK it dates back to the Magna Carta (correct me if I'm wrong), and the USA was born from democratic principles inherited from the UK.

But China has historically been autocratic from the very beginning. All successive Chinese governments in history inherited the autocratic style started from the Qin. There were exceptions, like the Song or the first century and a half under the Tang.

There is a thinking in China that what works for the West may not work for Asian cultures.

[CBC]

One factor why stereotypes of China are not very positive in the UK may be because of the human rights issue.

illogical -- the chinese are autocratic or the victims of autocracy?

We are talking about different things- stereotype of Chinese and sterotype of China.

[bhchao]

CBC:

I was responding to Woodcutter's first paragraph about stereotypes of China. If you would like to discuss stereotypes of Chinese, then that is a different story.

We can delve into the latter, but such sensitive discussions are pointless (as Yonglan mentioned) and usually end up with a lot of people being offended and the thread being closed.

[ananda]

Could you guys provide me an reasonable explaination in democracy

way about 'the reason that this kind of democratical government once

supported opium trade, the reason why the number of American Indian

decreased so quickly, and why the racism system lasted till 20 century"?

[J.B. Frog]

ananda: because democracy was within a group of equals - white /men/. Even /rich/ white men. Women, Blacks, Indians, even laborers without land were once excluded from political say (in America anyway).

So, democracy works well enough as long as every affected person is included.

Interestingly now, /future generations/ are excluded from democracy, so America is borrowing heavily from them (money, and in depletion of resources) for the benefit of those living now (this idea is from a recent Wired magazine). It'd be nice if but I doubt that, that becomes the next 'representation frontier'.

[aline]

I'm from Mauritius. There, some people have a bad opinion of chinese people mainly because there are workers from China who are working in industries in my country and those chinese people act differently from Mauritian people.

As a huayi ,I often got teased "ching chong chang" when walking in the streets. Saying "ching chong chang" is the non-chinese people's way of making fun of the chinese language.

[Lollipop2000]

Disclaimer: this post contains some offensive material but I'm just relating the situation where I'm from and the general opinion (which I don't share).

I'm from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. More than 80% of the population of my country are expatriates of various nationalities, including a lot of Pakistanis and Indians who are here because of labour work or for other jobs.

Dubai is expanding at a fast rate, and I heard that initially they wanted to build an artificial Chinatown and actually invite Chinese workers to live in it. They thought that there were too many expatriate Indians, and they needed another nationality in big numbers to balance them out in case they started to take over everything.

There weren't that many Chinese in the country before, so this was the first time I heard the general public comment on them and expose the stereotypes they have. I think a lot of the local Emiratis have some racist views towards people of other nationalities because they feel overwhelmed by foreigners in their own country.

The complaints I heard were about how it's worse to be getting Chinese, because they have "dirty" practices which are un-Islamic such as their dietary habits. They said at least Indians are closer to us culturally and we understand them but the Chinese are very foreign, and they have more gangs and mafia who will come to the city. Some people referred to a newspaper report in which 4 Chinese in the UAE were arrested for cannibalism. They supposedly ate 2 Pakistani doorkeepers of their building. Also, Dubai has a lot of prostitutes from a lot of nationalities, and suddenly a lot of Chinese were coming in, so that it became associated with them for a while. Massive ATM scams were traced to a Chinese gang. I think the media was highlighting a lot of bad things, and people were propagating this bad image. Some refer to China as the land of Gog and Magog.

The Emiratis say a lot of bad things about the Indians as well, and vice versa. The country is a melting pot where a lot of stereotypes are made about different groups.

The Chinese are seen as smart and hardworking, but also as people who would easily cheat to get what they want. People from Hong Kong are classified differently than those from mainland China, but generally, people don't know the difference between Chinese or Japanese or Korean, unless the nationality is stated. The Japanese and Koreans have a better image than the Chinese I think in Emirati and Gulf Arab eyes.

[atitarev]

Stereotypes - Russians don't smile, Japanese don't cry.

There's growing interest in Chinese in Russia and Universities offering Chinese language are full, it's hard to get a place. On the other hand there's uncontrolled immigration in Russia and many regions with scarce population are now being populated with Chinese illegal immigrants. The government is not copying with uncontrolled immigration at the moment, not only from China but China makes the largest percentage. Well, the perception of Chinese in Russian border regions, Siberia, Far East is not always the best - a lot of poor, uneducated people (many not speaking any other language but Chinese) from northern provinces come in search of work or doing small business in flee markets. Newspapers start talking about threat of China. I am not sharing these opinions, besides, I don't live in Russia but if you need a full picture you may want to look into this. A lot of Russians travel to China as well but not in such big numbers.

Russia has the longest mutual border with China. The mutual trade and communication are increasing dramatically all the time, more checkpoints are created. There are some small tensions, of course, which will hopefully go away. Many Russians are not accustomed to such an influx of foreign looking people who don't speak their language and don't undestand their culture.

EDIT:

The link in my signature is a forum for East Asian cultures (in Russian), one major block of which is China. The issues with immigration are discussed a lot.

[fenlan]

I don't think this is a very nice thread. People who are confident about their own culture and their own future don't even have to think about how other countries view them. Ask yourself why English people never take any interest in how China views the English.

[atitarev]

I agree with that. Fenlan, your avatar/nick has the word Finland in Chinese. Are you from Finland (Suomi) or you just like the word?

[fenlan]

I have one great-grandparent from Finland.

[atitarev]

Kiitos (thanks)