Sinocentrism - To what extent should it be challenged?

[Matthewkell]

I'm talking in particular about things like the use of 外国人 as an all encompassing, homogenous group. When I first came to China I found the naivety of it amusing and proudly adopted the title of "外国人," but as time has gone by the use of 外国人, in particular blanket statements about all foreigners, (e.g. 外国人都很开放 and so on) has started to get on my nerves a little bit, and given China's increasingly aggressive and unreasonable stance in international politics I no longer find the naivety of it quite so charming. 

Do you think it is best to just 入乡随俗 and accept it for the sake of getting along with people? Or do you think we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China? Generalisations about foreigners as one group are so common that it is not realistic to consistently challenge them, and the sinocentric worldview is so deeply rooted it can actually take quite a long time to explain what is wrong with talking about "foreigners" as a unified group. So I usually just roll with it but explain to closer Chinese friends why I don't like it and why it is absurd to expect me to be representative of not just my country but of people from places as diverse as the USA, Brazil, Congo, India, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, all of which are "foreigners." What are other people's thoughts on this?

[Guest realmayo]

Just now, Matthewkell said:

do you think we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China?

 

Certainly not and even if you tried you wouldn't make any difference to the country.

 

Just now, Matthewkell said:

the sinocentric worldview is so deeply rooted it can actually take quite a long time to explain what is wrong with talking about "foreigners" as a unified group

 

I think there are two issues, one broader, one narrower.

 

Broadly: 'as we know,' group identity and individual identity are treated differently in different cultures, especially (and crudely) east versus west. Recently I read a Chinese author say that for the first couple of years living in the UK she felt too uncomfortable to say "I like eating rice" and instead stuck to "We Chinese like eating rice". So, when Chinese people refer to foreigners and a big group, I would suggest it's less about saying "all foreigners have characteristic A" as it is about saying "all non-Chinese have characteristic A, while we Chinese have characteristic B". I think that in discussions with foreigners, a lot of Chinese are less focused on how people in country X might use forks and people in country Y might use their hands to eat; they're more interested in that Chinese people use chopsticks and most non-Chinese don't.

 

Narrower: in the West there's been a recent cultural attempt to stop people generalising; personally I think prejudice is to be avoided, but generalising about people is unavoidable. However it's hard not to carry that cultural baggage of 'generalising about people is wrong' when leaving a western country. But maybe if you were a Martian looking down on Earth you'd think that both attitudes ('lump people together for easy reference' and 'generalising about people is wrong') were simply current cultural attitudes, neither one being morally good or bad. So I think part of your discomfort is perhaps because we tend to mistake our own local cultural norms for universal goods. And I think "all foreigners do that"!

 

[somethingfunny]

People everywhere are guilty of this to a certain extent.  How many people do you know who would 'joke' about people from Japan, Korea or China being very good at maths, or only eating rice?  Isn't this just the same thing?  There are worse stereotypes floating around and it isn't hard to find people who talk about all people from the aforementioned countries looking a certain way or eating a certain type of food.  I've seen Chinese students in the UK trying to explain to non-Chinese students that no, they don't eat cats and dogs.

 

I'd recommend taking this in your stride.  As realmayo mentions, there has been a tendency to react extremely negatively to this kind of thing in the west (you may want to look into the concept of 'microagressions' and decide for yourself whether or not this is a good thing).  Sure, it's jarring if you're used to referring to people in terms of the specific country they are from, and it can make you start to chalk this up to Chinese cultural arrogance (that's what I did), but you can't start going around preaching to people about what they should and shouldn't say.  Instead, lead by example, show that non-Chinese people can be 保守 or 传统 or whatever, and Chinese people can be pretty 开放.  Refer to your non-Chinese friends and co-workers the way you would in English, rather than reverting to 外国人.  Engage in conversations with people - Chinese people are very often aware of this linguistic habit and will often attribute it to the fact that China isn't an "移民国家".  

 

I think your approach is right.  Concern yourself with those around you who you can realistically influence.  This isn't something that's going to change overnight - people will need a long time to change deep-seated habits.  I've known some very intelligent and open-minded Chinese people who it had never really occurred to that the term 外国人 might be inappropriate (and I mean when used for referring to non-Chinese people while outside of China).  

 

My advice:  follow this principle 修身齐家治国平天下.

[Lu]

49 minutes ago, realmayo said:

So, when Chinese people refer to foreigners and a big group, I would suggest it's less about saying "all foreigners have characteristic A" as it is about saying "all non-Chinese have characteristic A, while we Chinese have characteristic B". I think that in discussions with foreigners, a lot of Chinese are less focused on how people in country X might use forks and people in country Y might use their hands to eat; they're more interested in that Chinese people use chopsticks and most non-Chinese don't.

This is an interesting insight, never thought of it this way but it makes a lot of sense.

 

On a more practical level, I usually let things like 外國人 and 外國 (as opposed to 國外) go, because you can't go around being annoyed by everything, you'll have no life left. Occasionally I remind people that 外國很大 and not all 外國 is the same. Because you can't really answer questions like 'how much money does housing cost in 外國' or 'what do 外國人 think of this'.

 

And either way I prefer being lumped in with all the 外國人 than with 美國人, like people tend to do in Taiwan. Nothing wrong with Americans, I'm just not one, never have been, and I hate it when the whole rest of the world gets ignored like that.

[889]

"Or do you think we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China?"

 

You might want to read Spence's To Change China.

 

Alternatively, you could just go and beat your head against a brick wall.

 

[Matthewkell]

1 hour ago, realmayo said:

 

I think there are two issues, one broader, one narrower.

 

Broadly: 'as we know,' group identity and individual identity are treated differently in different cultures, especially (and crudely) east versus west. Recently I read a Chinese author say that for the first couple of years living in the UK she felt too uncomfortable to say "I like eating rice" and instead stuck to "We Chinese like eating rice". So, when Chinese people refer to foreigners and a big group, I would suggest it's less about saying "all foreigners have characteristic A" as it is about saying "all non-Chinese have characteristic A, while we Chinese have characteristic B". I think that in discussions with foreigners, a lot of Chinese are less focused on how people in country X might use forks and people in country Y might use their hands to eat; they're more interested in that Chinese people use chopsticks and most non-Chinese don't.

 

Narrower: in the West there's been a recent cultural attempt to stop people generalising; personally I think prejudice is to be avoided, but generalising about people is unavoidable. However it's hard not to carry that cultural baggage of 'generalising about people is wrong' when leaving a western country. But maybe if you were a Martian looking down on Earth you'd think that both attitudes ('lump people together for easy reference' and 'generalising about people is wrong') were simply current cultural attitudes, neither one being morally good or bad. So I think part of your discomfort is perhaps because we tend to mistake our own local cultural norms for universal goods. And I think "all foreigners do that"!

 

You make good points - I would agree that some generalisation is necessary, otherwise it is impossible to talk about anything cultural, and overall there is a cultural tendency in China to put group identity in a higher position than Westerner's do. (e.g. the "We Chinese like eating rice" instead of "I like eating rice" example that you gave) This is fine, and I don't have a big problem with that sort of generalisation as such. 

But it seems to me that the division of the world into two camps, 外国 and 中国, is more than just a generalisation and reflects a deeply rooted sinocentric worldview. As I'm sure you know, historically China viewed Chinese culture as a kind of universal culture, and that outside of China was all barbarians. This is largely a product of China's geography: for most of Chinese cultural development it was somewhat isolated from other relatively advanced civilisations in the Middle East, India and Southern Europe and had good reason to believe that the world outside China was mostly just savage nomads and so on. Although this worldview was shattered when the Europeans came on ships with guns and advanced technology, some of the basic assumptions of China being the cultural centre of the world still persist, and it seems to me that these assumptions inform Chinese foreign policy quite a lot. e.g. China still doesn't seem to view itself as a nation state in the sense used by the rest of the world, which seems to be behind a lot of dubious territorial claims and the dogged insistence that Taiwan not merely *should* be a part of China but actually *is* a part of China, despite it clearly being a de facto independent nation state. 

I guess what I mean is that the Chinese exceptionalism in foreign policy is quite strongly connected with that kind of sinocentric worldview. Taking a broader historical view, China has traditionally assumed itself to be the center of human civilisation but, as transport and communication improved in the last couple of centuries, China was thrown into a kind of profound identity crisis when it discovered that the world was much bigger than it previously believed. Still today, China is grappling with its identity crisis and relation to the rest of the world, and I have a bad feeling that the deep belief in China's specialness/uniqueness/rightful place could be putting it on a collision course with the international system as a whole. At the same time, as communications and transportation continue to improve far beyond what was imaginable two centuries ago (and education and foreign language skills improve) it seems inevitable that in the long term this kind of sinocentric worldview is not really sustainable. I also think that the possibility of a catastrophic collision between a rising China and the international status quo would be reduced a lot by the countervailing trend of a more international outlook, so from that perspective maybe we do have some role to play in pointing out the absurdity of questions like "what do foreigners think of xx?" and so on.

 

[Matthewkell]

21 minutes ago, 889 said:

 

"Or do you think we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China?"

 

You might want to read Spence's To Change China.

 

Alternatively, you could just go and beat your head against a brick wall.

 

Actually on some things I think interactions with foreigners do make a difference. e.g. Around the time of the Olympics there was a big public campaign against some "uncivilised" behaviours like staring at people, which I suspect was influenced by feedback from foreign visitors to China. Small things of course, but like I say - over the course of the next 100 or 200 years, the volume of international communication, migration, mixed marriages, and so on, are going to have a huge effect on the world. To say that China will be impervious to any sort of cultural change resulting from this is just not true in my opinion. I would also argue that Chinese people's relatively liberal stance on homosexuality (compared to, say, Saudi Arabia, and indeed compared to China a generation ago) is also influenced a lot by Western media. 

[Daniel Tsui44]

Check other words like "外省人","外地人","本地人","异乡人","他乡".

Example, I'm from Hunan Province and I'm now in Guangdong Province, I say "外省人" to other people as well, when I say "外省人" I mean myself included. While I'm in Hunan, I say "外省人", I'm not included.  

Also, when listener is different, it means different. When I'm talking to a people from Hunan province, "外省人" can be "people not from Hunan" no matter where we are.

[Flickserve]

6 minutes ago, Matthewkell said:

had good reason to believe that the world outside China was mostly just savage nomads and so on. Although this worldview was shattered when the Europeans came on ships with guns and advanced technology

 

I thought that Europeans coming with guns and artillery would have reinforced the savage nomads belief. Or do I have a distorted viewpoint . 

[Matthewkell]

2 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

I thought that Europeans coming with guns and artillery would have reinforced the savage nomads belief. Or do I have a distorted viewpoint . 

 

Well, no doubt it did among many people, but there's no denying that that period caused a profound crisis in China's worldview.

[Guest realmayo]

1 minute ago, Matthewkell said:

it seems to me that the division of the world into two camps, 外国 and 中国

 

My sense is that these two words don't represent two different camps: 中国 represents one camp, sure, China, but 外国 refers to what-is-not-in-the-China-camp, and so the defining element of 外国 isn't that it is one single camp with a shared piece of canvas, but just that it's not China. So it's defined not as being a place but as not being a place.

 

A Chinese friend mentioned that when chatting with him I might sometimes say 你们中国人 blah blah and he said that he likes hearing it, it makes me sound friendly towards China ... I hadn't realised I was doing it and in a western context you'd expect the opposite reaction ... I don't know if native speakers like @Daniel Tsui44 or others might have a similar response at all.

[889]

"To say that China will be impervious to any sort of cultural change resulting from this is just not true in my opinion."

 

And just whoever said that? You're creating a strawman.

 

Of course Chinese culture, like all cultures, will change. But the notion that one foreigner, individually or collectively, can influence that change is naive. Culture will change in its own unpredictable way.

 

Don't forget Mao and his years of trying to change Chinese culture. His changes didn't last much longer than he did.

[Matthewkell]

1 minute ago, realmayo said:

 

A Chinese friend mentioned that when chatting with him I might sometimes say 你们中国人 blah blah and he said that he likes hearing it, it makes me sound friendly towards China ... I hadn't realised I was doing it and in a western context you'd expect the opposite reaction ... I don't know if native speakers like @Daniel Tsui44 or others might have a similar response at all.

That's interesting, and rings true in my experience too. What is it about that style of statement which sounds friendly to China, do you think?

[Matthewkell]

Just now, 889 said:

 

Of course Chinese culture, like all cultures, will change. But the notion that one foreigner, individually or collectively, can influence that change is naive. Culture will change in its own unpredictable way.

 

Fair enough, but is it not that the case that some of the changes in western culture have not just been automatic, organic reactions but driven to some extent by the conscious setting of new norms of acceptability? e.g. realmayo said something above about the recent cultural attempt to stop people generalising in the west, which is both an unpredictable change resulting (probably) from multi-culturalism and immigration and also the result of some conscious boundary setting. Now I'm not suggesting that we make some sort of organised effort to stop people lumping 外国 together as one group, but I don't think it is pointless to discuss how we react to it either.

[Guest realmayo]

10 minutes ago, Matthewkell said:

What is it about that style of statement which sounds friendly to China

 

I think it's the group dynamic again: some cultures seem to be more comfortable getting a boost from belonging. In the west it's hard to think of an example now because of the anti-racist messages of the past 30 years have produced as a side-effect a real aversion to characterising people in any way by their background, particularly ethnic or national one.

 

But I can imagine perhaps a big extended family Christmas party and being told by someone: 'no doubt about it you're definitely (say) a Smith, you Smiths all... (know how to throw a party blah blah)' and perhaps that's quite similar. As long as what's being described is nice or at least neutral then I think most people would react quite warmly to the person saying that. In that kind of context. And perhaps with China, the contexts in which those remarks would be received warmly are more extensive than in the west.

[lips]

3 hours ago, Matthewkell said:

we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China

responsibility !!!!!!??????????

This, my friend, is the source of human conflicts and miseries since the dawn of civilization.

"I have something better than yours so I have a *responsibility* to change you, whether you want to change or not.  If you resist, you're the bad guy and the good guy is justified to use force against the bad guy ,,,,,,,,"

[Matthewkell]

3 minutes ago, realmayo said:

 

I think it's the group dynamic again: some cultures seem to be more comfortable getting a boost from belonging. In the west it's hard to think of an example now because of the anti-racist messages of the past 30 years have produced as a side-effect a real aversion to characterising people in any way by their background, particularly ethnic or national one.

 

But I can imagine perhaps a big extended family Christmas party and being told by someone: 'no doubt about it you're definitely (say) a Smith, you Smiths all... (know how to throw a party blah blah)' and perhaps that's quite similar. As long as what's being described is nice or at least neutral then I think most people would react quite warmly to the person saying that. In that kind of context. And perhaps with China, the contexts in which those remarks would be received warmly are more extensive than in the west.

 

Good example, I get it.

Just now, lips said:

3 hours ago, Matthewkell said:

 

responsibility !!!!!!??????????

This, my friend, is the source of human conflicts since the dawn of civilization.

"I have something better than yours so I have a *responsibility* to change you, whether you want to change or not.  If you resist, you're the bad guy and the good guy is justified to use force against the bad guy ,,,,,,,,"

 

Hey now I didn't say that we do have a responsibility, I merely asked if anyone thinks that

[lips]

3 minutes ago, Matthewkell said:

Hey now I didn't say that we do have a responsibility, I merely asked if anyone thinks that

Indeed you did not say it.  My apology.

[somethingfunny]

My experience is that how much a Chinese person likes the phrase 你们中国人 depends almost exclusively on the content of what follows it.

 

 

26 minutes ago, realmayo said:

中国 represents one camp, sure, China, but 外国 refers to what-is-not-in-the-China-camp, and so the defining element of 外国 isn't that it is one single camp with a shared piece of canvas, but just that it's not China. So it's defined not as being a place but as not being a place.

I think this is the problem - it oversimplifies the problem.  Essentially, this language implies two types of people: Chinese and not-Chinese.  This means that the Chinese identity has been elevated above all others.  In other words, my identity as a British person is not on an equal footing with Chinese, but is rather a subcategory of the two main categories.  There is something a little unsettling in my identity being defined by my non-Chineseness, or as you say, rather than being defined by what I am, instead I am defined by what I am not.

[Guest realmayo]

3 hours ago, Matthewkell said:

Or do you think we have a responsibility to encourage the development of a more international outlook within China?

 

Thinking about it, I think we do have a responsibility. And that is to Chinese people we know who will be visiting where we're from: simply to identify any misconceptions which might end up negatively influencing their stay. Concentrate on that and on those people. So they don't visit and then return to China saying that 外国人 are very unfriendly because 'although in China people will always talk to foreigners on the subway* and ask where they're from, no one talked to me on the tube in London'. 'But if I don't push my way into the carriage how do I know the doors won't close on me?'

 

It can be framed as a responsibility simply to reciprocate the patient explaining we've received ourselves in China when certain things we've said or done have been not quite suitable or convenient.

 

*may not be true