So I’m in a group called ‘Because China’
It’s absolutely hilarious!
The concept is much like a site I run that is about pointing out illogical things. (I’m not going to name my other site, but friends of mine can read the new articles on there)
This group‘s aim though, is exactly that, but when the answer can only ever be: ‘Because China’
Things in China often don’t work the way that they work elsewhere. You see some dodgy shit, and if you comment and add some constructive criticism, you’ll often get the reply：
‘oh but you don’t really know much about China’
Or ‘there’s a lot that foreigners don’t know about China’
Or possible, ‘if you don’t like it you should leave’
This is all while you’re not necessarily saying that things are bad, you’re just saying that they could be done better.
And I’m not even being harsh, it’s could be just obviously things like wanting your fellow human to be safe.
Or maybe you’re pointing out and obvious fake, and asking someone… ‘but this is fake, how do you guys get away with this?’
So when newbies are in China, or actually even Chinese people ask a question, foreigners that have been here for a while, just answer ‘Because China’
The real answer involves explaining a full lectures worth of material about how the Chinese education system works, the lack of government regulation, the sometimes lack of morals, the over-population etc. And even if you manage to explain this in a succinct way without intentionally trying to insult anyone, some Chinese person, or even a ‘do-gooder-retarded hippie foreigner’ will spout one of the above retorts, with…might I add no mention of how it really is, or how this particular scene really comes to bare.
And so the exasperated sigh of a response now, has just become ‘because China’
In this group people seem to vent their frustrations about living in China, as well as creating memes like the ‘Rainy’ meme, a remnant of the China Circle Jerk on Reddit.
A circle jerk by the way, is where like minded people come together in a discussion of sorts and state some event or situation, and then others either rip it apart or discuss it with varying degrees of sarcasm and trolling (aiming to piss someone off) . Everybody is aiming to ‘jerk’ everyone else, to the point where a full circle is formed and you end up getting ‘jerked’ yourself as you end up reacting to someone else’s comment formed on a discussion you originally started.
For China circle jerk, of course It’s all about China.
So everyone in the group will pick sarcastic funny things that is the stereotype and just run with it. And sometimes run with it waaaay too far to the point that it would normally piss off people that are….well lets just say, not able to take a joke.
It is a place where being politically incorrect is funny, yet still not meant to be offensive, because you’re assumed that you have thick skin.
So an example of stereotypes is that everyone has a girlfriend called ‘Rainy’
As you may or may not know, Chinese people choose their own English names, much like foreigners choose their own Chinese names. But there is a surprisingly large amount of girls with names that ….to be honest, aren’t actual names.
Rainy, Sunny, Present, Apple, Cherry.
[these are all names of people that I either know, or have studied with, or friends have worked with.. these are their real English names, I’m not making this shit up]
So anyway, it doesn’t take much imagination to believe that the girls that name themselves this, are pretty naïve.
And in China, what also sits beside this is traditional, happy and most of them have reasonably ok English yet with cultural misunderstandings which means that some phrases are directly translated, but due to foreigners not wanting to correct them, because we think its funny, or cute or whatever….or just understandable even though its not correct…& we don’t want to constantly correct everyone that utters it.
These are phrases like: ‘It’s good for healthy’ or ‘my hobby is sleeping’
These kind of things have worked their way into China expat’s vocabulary because…lets face it, it’s hilarious.
Anyway, the ‘Rainy’ meme, with this generic Rainy girl stating funny, but common Chinese phrases was made by Reddit’s China Circle Jerk, and now picked up by Because China.
Here’s a few for you to check out
And here’s more or less the original picture, if you want to make your own.
There are many cultural things such as ‘cold water is bad for healthy’ or direct things like ‘I’m sorry I can’t eat ice-cream, I’m on my period’ which is both blunt and confusing at the same time.
[Chinese traditional medicine belief that the body has hot & cold energies, and you can’t balance with the extremes or something]… Girl having their period is hot I assume.
To be quite honest I never listened to the full story, because of its obvious bullshit, and I didn’t want to end a conversation by completely losing hope that the person I was talking to was capable of rational thinking.
But the point is, some Chinese people will just utter phrases like this which in Chinese culture is…actually normal, but they won’t have the sensitivity to realise that it’s not in other cultures, so will just do a direct translation…and utter it anyway.
Other phrases include: ‘you’ve got fat’
(Being fat is traditionally a good thing because China has had many famines, even just think ‘the great leap forward’ and even before then, traditionally, people have had a mainly vegetable based diet- so being fat is a sign of being healthy, of having eaten well. In fact up until very recently, 你吃了吗？ Have you eaten? was a normal Chinese greeting, because it showed that you cared about someones well-being)
Note. Some people also mean it as an insult.
‘Wow that man is so black’ turning to a white person that they’ve overheard speak Chinese ‘can you ask why he is so black?’ 1 meter away from a black guy who can probably speak pretty decent Chinese.
And as if they have no comprehension that the people don’t have a choice being the colour that they are.
Or believing that stereotypes are not a generalisation of people, but that it is the truth for every single person they meet of a certain demographic. ‘he is American, Americans eat too many hamburgers… I don’t like Americans’
Or…. Really dodgy things, like believing all Russian women are prostitutes.
I suggest you watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7tIln7Hz-c
The things uttered in this clip are things that I’ve heard uttered so many times before. These guys are bang on the money.
The other thing that happens quite a bit is just uttering non-sensical things like when you ask ‘why?’ they will just reply ‘没有为什么’ literally ‘no why’ And …in China, this is a perfectly reasonable answer to that question.
For most situations, there is in fact an answer, but either they don’t know it. ..or, they haven’t been bothered to think rationally to figure out what the reason might be.
And what has to be noted, this is not really the individuals problem, it has to do with the culture, education system.. government… which brings us back to the answer being ‘because china’
So shared on this group are videos of how other foreigners perceive China, for instance check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rq49t-NFQM
(absolutely hilarious, and again I’ve seen heard these things 100’s of times before)
This video by the way made it rounds on the expat community in China, where everyone thought it was hilarious. And then…inevitably found itself onto Chinese social media, where of course Chinese people took offence to it. Because… of course nobody wants to admit that one’s culture is…..lets say, not the most open and diverse in the world.
Especially when they’ve be taught from a young age that China is the best country in the world, the ‘middle kingdom’ and things like ‘well, China has 5,000 years of continuous history’ has been drilled into them so that they regurgitate it any moment a foreigner points out anything that compares Chinese culture with non-chinese culture, or maybe just questions some beliefs or something.
One of the most annoying phrases, because you just know that the majority of people saying that…..have no idea what this means.
Plus the Australian aboriginals have 40,000 years of traditional culture. Which rather ironically is the lucky 8 times more than Chinese culture. （8 is a chinese lucky number)
If you do point out that little fact, not only will they be annoyed….(for the ones who have heard of Australian aboriginals and don’t just think that there are only Kangaroos on the continent) but they might mumble a few choice words like ‘野蛮‘ literally ‘savages’ or ‘yes but we did more with our civilisation then they did… which is more important.’
From which you then point out that the Romans did far more than them in less time, and Europeans have done a lot in their time too, which was all less than 5,000 years.
Which…. Doesn’t make them happy either… since they come back with the same retort ‘foreigners don’t understand China’
For which again, you’re thinking….’well I don’t think that was the question…. But ok…. Perhaps we’ll just put it down to ‘because China ‘ ‘
Another favourite is uttering phrases that don’t lead anywhere.
I think much of, not even western but non-chinese conversation is made with direction, And by that I mean that one phrase is uttered for a reason, it leads to another point, or a question, and thus you have a discussion or find out information.
But…. not necessarily so in China. Sometimes you’ll just hear things like ‘you have a beard’
And not in a intrigued, or questioning tone just .. ‘You have a beard.’
Or.. as a colleague told me as I was getting on the company bus, ‘you’re late’
‘Yes… yes I am a little bit late, …what’s your point?’
She literally had no point, it was just a thought that went through her head…and there wasn’t enough processes and limitations in place, and then suddenly she was already saying it.
Fascinating to be honest. Annoying as hell. But fascinating.
Because I really thought people didn’t do that. I really thought when people grow to be adults, they think about what they say… and then say it, not just utter whatever was in their head out loud.
By the way, you think the Meanwhile in Russia stuff is interesting… I am seriously looking forward to making a Meanwhile in China , or just ‘because China’ video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D6sXfWjJ5U [meanwhile in Russia]
In the ‘Because China’ group I came across a very funny article I think made by one of the guys in the group.
Many youngish foreigners that are in China for a long time were teachers at one point or another, something that the China circle jerk members refer to themselves as, as well. Although their aim is to come across as the typical foreigner for which this is their first job, and that ‘because they weren’t skilled enough to do anything else, they have kept at it’
Referring to themselves as 屌丝老外 loser laowai (foreigners) As often when Chinese men get annoyed at Foreigners…. for whatever misunderstood complex they have, this is the standard shit that they pull out of their arse.
So… the point is, that many foreigners that have been here for a while, will know the ‘teaching requirements’ when it comes to foreigner teachers.
That is:
-must have a degree （any degree, not necessarily in teaching）
-be over the age of 24 (these 2 are important for the visa)
-Be a NATIVE English speaker
-Be from either the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Ireland
– &…. Must be white.
Yep you read that correctly. White only.
Now you might be thinking….that sounds a little racist.. and yep, that’s a little known fact about many mainland Chinese people… they are indeed a little bit racist.
Racism stems from ignorance…. And it definitely can’t be said that mainland Chinese people are lacking ignorance of other people and their cultures.
But there’s this miscomprehension that native English speakers can only be white.
And also that if you are black, then you either don’t count as being native, or are not qualified to teach…. (regardless of the fact that they are trusting others who have no qualifications to teach, to be ‘qualified’ ) or… they will say something like ‘children find black people scary’
Wow, yep, just wow. And… of course, that’s because of historical non-openness, and ignorance, and not a lot of rational thinking.
I’ve personally worked at a school where there was a British guy working there, he was born in Birmingham, held an actual teaching degree, had 5 years of work experience actually teaching English for the grades he was meant to be teaching around the world, and he told me it was incredibly difficult to find a job because he was ethnically Egyptian.
That’s right, he was a native English speaker, from the UK, had the actual qualifications, had 5 years working experience, and the only reason he was turned down so many times was because his skin was slightly brown.
Again miscomprehension and very incorrect perceptions/ pre-conceived ideas, or perhaps it’s trying to show ‘face’ or something that many schools, parents and agents that find work only care about the teacher being white.
Of course, bad schools that only care about money from, ignorant and bad parents that only care about showing face that they have white teachers which is ‘professional & a show of wealth’ and just plain old racist agents that facilitate the whole process.
I’ve heard of many white people being from Lithuania or Russia, and lying to say that they were American so that they could get a job. Ridiculous!
So anyway, this article is about that.
Here’s the link again if you missed it: http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzIwNzQ4NTg0Mw==&mid=2247484056&idx=3&sn=584c5e77a3cfe727fc076d22c32976da&chksm=9710ec64a0676572ad1c92bfe14462889690200f22b2d4687e3d71c035eb4b7a27b9a8d4735a&mpshare=1&scene=1&srcid=11019qpZQPvvqovUjkH90cPe#rd
Also,… hardly anyone can understand what Irish people are saying anyway, it doesn’t matter if they’re native speakers because their accent is too strong.
Plus if an actual native English speaker finds it difficult to understand Irish people, why should you assume that a kid trying to learn English would be ok with it？
That’s just dumb no?
Why do they only care about native speakers anyway? You want your child to learn, and to be able to learn you need a teacher. And teachers need to know how to teach.
Just because you’re native, it doesn’t mean that you know how to teach.
‘Why is this sentence like this?’
(most native speakers answer) – ‘I don’t know, it just sounds right.’
Unless its only about pronunciation, then a real teacher, or… someone whose English is NOT their native language, yet speaks it perfectly is surely the better option, because they can explain how to properly construct sentences, and the reason why to do it like that.
But… maybe the Chinese are not caring about that, because it seems a lot of the time, they don’t care about the ‘why’.
After all, the perfect Chinese answer to ‘why?’ (为什么) is ‘no why’ (没有为什么).
Because China.
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