Stupid? Or just different?

[Danski]

I guess most westerners here have their views on the intelligence levels of the Chinese, so hopefully without being racist, maybe people would like to tell us about the bizarre, odd, strange or sometimes downright dumb things you see happening in this amazing country.

I'll start:

I was in Nanjing airport yesterday and was queuing to go through the security check. The bloke in front of me had an airport trolley and when it was his turn for the security check. He picked his bag out the trolley and instead of softly pushing the trolley to the side, he pushed it away with a little force, not looking where it would end up, and continued his check in procedures. The trolley continued it's journey towards a man who was walking towards another queue, but god knows where he was looking or what he was thinking cos he didn't pay attention to the trolley that was slowly drifting towards him. Now I know most people don't expect an airport trolley to suddenly appear in your path, but this guy walked in to it, tripped over and smacked his head on to the hand rail of the trolley. I nearly fell over cos I was laughing so much. Felt a bit sorry (but not much) for the guy when I noticed he had cut his head . . . . but man, if you're not going to pay attention to the road in front of you, then at some stage you're gonna come a cropper. The original bloke who pushed the trolley didn't even notice that his inconsiderate act has caused an injury to someone else and continued on through the security check.

Now, in this instance, there were two acts of dumb stupidity that made me agog in amazement at how these bizarre things happen in China.

When I eventually got on the plane . . . . and this happens almost every time . . . .there was some dumb assed f*cker in my seat . . . . I mean, how difficult is it to look at the seat number on your ticket and find it? Do the airlines not explain to people that each boarding pass has an exclusive number which corresponds to your allotted seat?

Also, the thing that astounds me is the number of bizarre injuries you see people with, and you just say to yourself . . . . . now that injury could only been have caused by someone's complete dumbassed stupidity. For example there's a kid in Kunming who has no left arm and no left leg and hops around. Now I'm not sure, but I'd bet a lot of money that this accident was not genetic and was caused by another act of dumbassed stupidty . . . . maybe a careless crossing of a road or rail track or something.

I hope people don't find this thread offensive. I'm sure things like this happen every day in the west . . . . . just I've seen so many bizarre things happening in China that it can not be explained away as a difference in culture.

So I guess the question is . . .are Chinese people really as thick as pigshit . . . . or is it a "cultural difference"?

[sui.generis]

Mass transit areas are not the best place to test any nation's intelligence.

[jsku]

Yeah, you're absolutely right......all Chinese are just plain dumb.

Judging from your question, you're not that smart either!!

So why are you in this dumb-assed country??

[Quest]

Danski, did you mean America's Funniest Home Videos?

What I don't get is, when I bought something that was $4.10, and I gave the American cashier a $5 bill + a dime, then she returned the dime and asked her coworker for changes for a dollar bill... and then gave me $.90 in coins.

[Jim]

Danski, basing your assessment of an entire country or culture on one or two anecdotes is the epitome of racism. Your tedious observations on people you have met in China tells us more about you than either the individuals you saw or Chinese people as a group.

[Homeward]

Come on people, let's not be rude okay?

I too have witness odd things whilst my visit to China. Hong Kong, all civilised and considerate, cross the border to Shenzhen, and what do you get?

• Mainland chinese seems to like spitting a lot
  
• They seem to lack the understanding of best before dates, as I remember purchasing an "iced" lemon tea last summer, and I sensed the lemon tea to be slightly off, and so I consulted to the chinese lady in cantonese that this bottle of iced lemon tea is out of date by 2 years. She tried to explain to me that in China, the date you see on the bottle cap was the production date, so I just dumped it in the bin in front of her, as the other set of date was on the plastic label which also contained the time and date, you see that was the production date.
  
• They like to be rude, unless you flash some money about (not recommended or else they start following you like flies)
  
• Why the eyeing on the trouser pockets? I remember whilst crossing over from Macau into China, some guy was eyeing on my father's pocket and as he was about to move closer to my dad to attempt to steal, I ran out to this "dude" and mouthed off, he was speechless of course, but it stopped this guy from stealing tissues from my dad's pockets. My relatives that were accompanying were quite proud of what I did.
  

Moral of the story --

Pickpockets beware when visiting China

[jsku]

Another "bloke" from the old country.....

Hong Kong was like that not too many years ago.

I guess we'll need Her Majesty's Government to send an envoy to China to straighten things out!

[Homeward]

They could, but I don't think China is gonna care or listen

[Catdiseased]

Pickpockets beware when visiting China

Man..you don't seem to travel alot, do you.

[gougou]

Mainland chinese seems to like spitting a lot

[...]

My relatives that were accompanying were quite proud of what I did.

I'm sorry, I don't get the connection between things like that and intelligence. I mean, come on, these are just different customs!

Also in the UK, there is a lot of stuff that may seem strange to foreigners, the most obvious probably being driving on the other side of the road (BTW, notice the wording, more subjectively, one could put it: the wrong side)

But I never felt the urge to attribute this to a less developed intelligence.

The examples from the airport are of course no traditions, but also here, I believe carelessness is mores suitable a judgement than stupidity.

I also noticed that in China, people are less friendly too strangers (unless they see a potential benefit) than a European might consider appropriate. This might explain the guy not caring about the trolley he pushed away.

But who are we to judge that? In a society where everybody has accepted that you order the waiter around instead of asking him for something, and were you don't thank somebody you pay, this works until there are some foreigners that measure it against their own system of values.

About the other guy, I have trouble understanding your point of view. I mean, did you never trip? Come on, we're humans, not radars. Not looking in front of you for a second or too, which is enough to get overrun by a trolley, is certainly not connected to intelligence.

[Homeward]

Since you quoted a bit of my post, then you would have read my post, and you would have read this:

I too have witness odd things whilst my visit to China. Hong Kong, all civilised and considerate, cross the border to Shenzhen, and what do you get?

It helps to read doesn't it?

Also, I've never been pick-pocketed before in China, but many haven't visited China before therefore, they don't know how the mainland Chinese think or in this instance do, you see, I'm always prepared, they like to cheat and be rude, I be rude to them, I mouth off, if they mouth off at me.

I travel, I like to travel, I've travelled to a lot of places and chances are, I've seen and been to more places than you have, Catdiseased.

[gougou]

Yeah, I did notice that. Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

Just the fact that you mentioned these under this topic left me unsure whether what you mentioned was meant to support or to confront the thesis that Chinese are stupid...

[Homeward]

Well, if I did, I think it would be alright too, since I'm British-Chinese, and I'm rightfully a Hong Kong citizen and I have relatives that live in both HK and China. Even though I'm currently residing and was born in the U.K.

[carlo]

This erudite discussion reminds me of something Fei Xiaotong, when discussing the differences between traditional and modern societies, wrote (see 乡土中国 － 文字下乡）:

乡下人在城里人眼睛里是“愚”的。我们当然记得不少提倡乡村工作的朋友们，把愚和病贫联结起来去作为中国乡村的症侯。关于病和贫我们似乎还有客观的标准可说，但是说乡下人“愚”，却是凭什么呢？乡下人在马路上听见背后汽车连续的按喇叭，慌了手脚，东避也不是，西躲又不是，司机拉住闸车，在玻璃窗里，探出半个头，向着那土老头儿，啐了一口：“笨蛋！”——如果这是愚，真冤枉了他们。我曾带了学生下乡，田里长着包谷，有一位小姐，冒充着内行，说：“今年麦子长得这么高。”旁边的乡下朋友，虽则没有啐她一口，但是微微的一笑，也不妨译作“笨蛋”。乡下人没有见过城里的世面，因之而不明白怎样应付汽车，那是知识问题，不是智力问题，正等于城里人到了乡下，连狗都不会赶一般。如果我们不承认郊游的仕女们一听见狗吠就变色是“白痴”，自然没有理由说乡下人不知道“靠左边走”或“靠右边走”等时常会因政令而改变的方向是因为他们“愚不可及”了。“愚”在什么地方呢？

[...]

　　说到这里我记起了疏散在乡下时的事来了。同事中有些孩子送进了乡间的小学，在课程上这些孩子样样比乡下孩子学得快、成绩好。教员们见面时总在家长面前夸奖这些孩子们有种、聪明。这等于说教授们的孩子智力高。我对于这些恭维自然是私心窃喜。穷教授别的已经全被剥夺，但是我们还有别种人所望尘莫及的遗传。但是有一天，我在田野里看放学回来的小学生们捉蚱蜢，那些“聪明”而有种的孩子，扑来扑去，屡扑屡失，而那些乡下孩子却反应灵敏，一扑一得。回到家来，刚才一点骄傲似乎又没有了着落。[....]

[roddy]

I think you’ve told us a lot about yourself, Danski, and very little about anything else. Even IF ‘dumb’ incidents are more common here, putting it down to ‘intelligence levels’ is pretty weak – did intelligence levels in the UK rise with public education campaigns or legislation about drink-driving or seat-belts? Nope, but the level of dumb incidents fell. I didn’t get any more intelligent when I got the whole ‘Stop Look Listen’ process of crossing roads drummed into me at school and home, either, but perhaps this stopped me losing my left arm and leg, who knows.

I’ve very little patience with topics like this, and feel they’re better suited to ex-pat forums where there are a plethora of ‘whine / laugh at the Chinese ‘ topics. I’ll leave this one open for now as there’s already a bit of discussion going on.

[wushijiao]

那是知识问题，不是智力问题

That's the heart of it. My uncle, who was a VP at Armstrong tiles, came to Wuhan in the days when that giant city only had 5 stoplights. So, it takes a long time to change many of the transportation-safety (my grandfather was run over by a truckdriver asleep at the wheel in 1949, and thus my Dad grew up and was fanatical about trasportation safety, which was his career) related issues in any country, not to mention one in which people are finally undergoing masisve economic changes that allows them to buy bikes, cars...etc. In America (我国), for example, it took society at large 30 years to accept wearing seatbelts even though there was tons of evidence to support the use of them. It also took decades beofre drunk-driving laws with sharp teeth could be enacted. Developing countries can learn from the empirical evidence of more advanced ones, but they still have the complicated job of running propaganda campaigns to promote them among the masses. Not easy.

I think also, to be fair, as an ex-pat one often forgets how many stupid things happen in one's own country.

[gougou]

I think another important thing to take into account is that the results of some of these 'dumb mistakes' are more visible in China than in more developed, or more uniformly developed, countries. I mean, while chances to be victim of a catastrophic traffic accident in Europe are far from negligible, you have more reason to hope that afterwards you can find someone to stitch those limps back on to you than a person that, even according to Chinese standards, is considered poor.

I did my social service in a hospital and believe me, injuries that make you scratch your head there are a lot in Europe as well. Just maybe you can't tell quite as easily once the person leaves the hospital again.

[马杰]

I remember someone telling me about a Hong Kong movie called "my mainland uncle". The plot basically revolved entirely around picking on the mainlanders in the 1980s, I'd like to find it just for laughs. I had been in discussions with various people about those sorts of phenonmenon (why don't mainland people get out of the way of a fast moving bus?).

Many of those kinds of odd behaviors on the mainland, even among the newly minted weathly (who still hock big luggies in nice restaurants and get obscenely drunk) can be chalked up to things like "face" and also to the "Beverly Hillbillies" syndrome.

As for the seatbelt laws and DUI laws, I never was big into 列mine until I was in a car accident, now I wear one fervently.

I think the American attitude about those kinds of laws is more like "this is a free country, the gov't can't tell me what to do". It is somewhat similar to French taxis drivers who don't obey the stoplight because they feel their lives should not be controlled by a machine.

I had to draw a line when some obvious first time flier cut in front of me while qued at PuDong airport. He was obviously embarrassed when some other more seasoned mainland travelers told to 排队

[Danski]

What’s this? A collective denial? Just because you say it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. People deny the holocaust, but we all know it’s true.

They were feeding the monkey’s at the zoo M&M’s and Coke yesterday, whilst blaring loud disco music. I saw it. I did see a woman ride her bike off a two foot high pavement and end up in a heap under it the day before last. I did see a bloke ride up the wrong way on a carriageway, crash in to someone else and then try to blame the other person.

I’ve seen China with my own eyes. I’ve seen it I tell you.

[马杰]

No one is saying that there aren't odd behaviors, but most of the people there haven't been taught things like that. People everywhere like to feed stuff to animals they shouldn't. Check out Yellowstone park. The bears didn't come up to cars just out of curiosity, they knew a hotdog or a dozen was in it for them.

Jumping off of the curb, I have some friends in Shanghai who do that but they are riding Santa Cruz's, etc. She probably thought her rusty pigeon tail was just as good and she was wrong.