Sinocentrism - To what extent should it be challenged?

[Daniel Tsui44]

You should know that "外国人" is not exactly "non-Chinese", but "people not cityzen of the country mentioned or refered". It's just that most of time you hear the word is in China and said by Chinese, so most of time it means "people not cityzen of China".

Example, 很多国家对外国人很友好。

People in many countries are friendly to foreigners.

"中国人" is not the other group to "外国人" ，"本国人" is.

In "你们中国人…" , "…" make a difference.

[Shelley]

Lead by example, don't preach. Go about your daily life changing and challenging small things. Show your intentions by your actions. You, as a single person, are going to make very little difference in the long run but every bit helps.

This kind of change is slow, very slow, maybe generations down the years will have a different attitude but who can tell.

 

 

[lips]

I've been asked quite a few times where I was from when I was in a place in North America or Europe where there weren't many "orientals" around.  I was never offended by it.

 

Now the word "oriental"―is it as offensive as "外国人“?

[somethingfunny]

I'm afraid Daniel that I hear Chinese people use the term 外国人 outside of China as much as I do inside China.  And in both circumstances it is to refer to people who are not Chinese.  

 

And while the literal translation might not be "non-Chinese", it's function very much is.

 

“她是中国人吗？”

“不，她是外国人。”

 

“外国人比我们中国人开放”

 

etc.

[889]

Why "Asian" is fine these days but "Oriental" is not so fine is one of those cultural changes you can't pin down. I suspect "Oriental" is too associated with old Hollywood stereotypes -- think Charlie Chan -- but who really knows.

 

In any event, you'd have to have a very deaf ear indeed to use it now to refer to Chinese, Japanese and other Asian peoples.

[realmayo]

OK for rugs though.

[Publius]

Interesting. There are 'westerners' but nobody says 'easterners'. Any thoughts?

[realmayo]

Well, people used to say orientals but people have now decided that that word is rude.

Most vocabulary used to describe 'other' groups has had to change over the last 30 years. Not because they're rude intrinsically but ... well, the reasons are many and controversial.

However 'westerner' isn't referring to some 'other' but rather the dominant majority therefore the language police have not interfered.

 

Edit:

Although to be honest, I'm not sure how common 'westerner' is! Maybe the only westerners who use it are those who've been to China and have been influenced by the Chinese use of the word.

[somethingfunny]

Yeah, words with negative connotations (especially in situations with a power imbalance) are much more likely to fall out of use.

 

I can't wait for political correctness to hit China.

[lips]

4 minutes ago, somethingfunny said:

I can't wait for political correctness to hit China.

Are you kidding?

[889]

Well, there are only so many words you can use out there, so I suppose they'll be recycled at some point.

 

I've always thought "the Celestials" deserves a rerun.

[somethingfunny]

No.  Perhaps I should clarify:

 

I'd like to see the kind of political correctness causing issues at North American universities being discussed in China.

[Publius]

I remember in the noughties (is that a word?) I was amused by so many new words popping up, all in the form of 'adverbially adjective', like vertically challenged, geographically undesirable, hehe.

[LiMo]

14 hours 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 

or others might have a similar response at all.

 

Actually this kind of reaction is very similar, in my opinion, to when people role play or generally engage in the fantasy genre (and sometimes science fiction). These pass times often make heavy use of racial and cultural stereotypes -the Dwarves are belligerent and gruff but loyal to a fault, the humans are weak but full of potential, elves are mystical and aloof- and people love to play to their group stereotype. I think it's a secret part of all of us, the part that wants to be subsumed in a group, to be able to follow a script already laid out for us, not to think and just do. Identity is all important to us and in some shape or form human identity is always about groups. We seldom like to labelled by others in real life though so I suppose the reaction is still a little unusual from my perspective.

 

As to the general topic, I don't think we have an obligation but I agree that overall the dichotomy of 中国人 and 外国人 isn't too great. It's funny how these generalisations work. Somewhere up above someone mentioned that a Chinese friend said that "Chinese people like to eat rice," but then that's more of a southern Chinese thing isn't it? And it's hardly a defining characteristic to begin with, unless they want to be lumped in with all the other Asian countries that like to eat rice, too. It just speaks to extreme difficulty, even for insiders, to draw "good" generalisations.

 

A little bit of political correctness would be nice actually. I doubt the overzealous college kids will be a problem for a while, if at all.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2017 at 12:40 AM by LiMo

[lips]

13 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

the kind of political correctness causing issues at North American universities

Just wondering, has the last U.S. election changed the meaning of "PC" in the U.S.?

[Daniel Tsui44]

18 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

And while the literal translation might not be "non-Chinese", it's function very much is.

 

“她是中国人吗？”

“不，她是外国人。”

 

“外国人比我们中国人开放”

 

 

 

There is an old story in China named "盲人摸象". If you stick to that, I cannot help you.

I do hope one day that people from other country call Chinese as "外国人" since, at that time, the Chinese language should be widely used and better understood.

Examples helping to have a better understanding of "外国人":

“美国的外国人比中国多得多。”

“你是美国人吗？”

“我是中国人。”

“他是美国人吗？”

“他也是外国人。”

“出了国门，我们都成外国人了。”

 

As for generalisation, since the word is not created by Chinese, it should be general in many cultures. In my humble opinion, as long as we take it as someone from a group tend to be that rather than should be that, I think it's fine.

[grawrt]

17 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

I can't wait for political correctness to hit China.

 

Me too!

 

I feel like encompassing every non-chinese as a 'waiguoren' is more detrimental to chinese people than anything else because they create this subdivision of 'us vs. them' no matter where they go. If they go overseas technically they're the 'waiguoren' but you still hear chinese referring to the countries people as 'waiguoren'. I've spoken with a lot of chinese students who have studied overseas in Russia and England and have mentioned how they felt bothered by the fact that they spent most of that time just hanging out with Chinese students. As an exchange student myself I can understand how hard it is to get with the locals, but im always shocked that their specific group to hangout with is chinese students and not lets say students from other parts of the world. And I think part of that is because they encompass every non-chinese as 'waiguoren' and the thought of even hanging out with a fellow student from a different country is kind of like impossible. And it's sad because I think one of my favorite things about studying in China is having the opportunity to meet so many people from so many different parts of the world and share in different cultures. 

 

I always try and encourage these students to try and break from the pack and just say hey, or something. I'm always like 'waiguoren' are still people. How you'd meet or talk with a chinese person is the same way you should treat a 'waiguoren'. 

 

But as a woman nothing disturbs me more than when a chinese guy says '你们外国人都很开放’ because what they really want to say is 'wow you foreign girls are so easy' Just.. no. 

[Lu]

2 hours ago, grawrt said:

As an exchange student myself I can understand how hard it is to get with the locals, but im always shocked that their specific group to hangout with is chinese students and not lets say students from other parts of the world.

I think this is a matter of numbers. If there are 20-30 Chinese students at a given university, they'll gravitate towards each other. If there are only 3, they'll gravitate to each other and to other Asian students (Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese). I haven't studied abroad in a while, but when I was at Beiyu in 2002-3, the French predominantly hung out with the French, the Russians with the Russians, the South-Koreans with the South-Koreans, etc. And most of the groups were much smaller there.

 

I think at more and more foreign (hah) universities, there are two big groups, namely the locals and the Chinese, and then a smaller group of people from other countries. In such circumstances, it becomes really difficult to mingle with people  in the other big group and staying with your own group is very easy, since it's so big you have a good chance to find the type of person you usually like and be friends with them.

 

I agree with your 開放 comment, but at the same time, many western women feel free to date various people before settling down (or not settling down), or to leave a relationship if it goes sour, and so we are, indeed, 開放. I, and many other western women, are very happy to have this opportunity, this freedom. So I won't deny that I am 開放 even if this is a bad thing (or a thing to take advantage of) in the eyes of some men.

[somethingfunny]

I'm just speculating, but I'd say the extent to which any particular student tends to hang out with other students from their own country depends on two factors:

 

1. Second language ability - if English is the lingua franca for you and your classmates, but you suck at English, then you're less likely to spend time with them.  In my experience, Chinese students are weaker than their peers when it comes to second language ability. 

2. Familiarity with different cultures - if a French student studies in the UK they will already be familiar with British culture, and they will also be familiar with the reality of many different cultures mixed together.  Chinese students, obviously, do not find themselves in this situation.

 

You could argue a third, personal cause, but things get a bit complicated in trying to work out whether people have stronger language abilities and familiarity with other cultures because they are naturally more open, or if it is the other way around.

[carlo]

My automatic response is to derail the conversation and point out all the differences that exist within groups. So if someone casually says that the Chinese eat rice, I'll start rattling off all the exceptions I've come across over decades of Chinese eating anything but rice. It's rude to get a kick out of confusing people, but I can't help it. I believe it has to do with how I grew up, never fully identifying with any one group, but kind of flitting around, always fearful of being subsumed by a "simplified" version of what I should be according to someone else. So I tend to project this on to others.

 

There's also the opposite type of insecurity, the need to fully belong to and being absorbed by a large powerful group. I'm sure this phenomenon exists and it's not specifically Chinese either. Whether the current situation makes it more likely for Chinese to suffer from the latter rather than the former, I'm not sure. Some people, eg teenagers, are probably more susceptible to it. I've seen both behaviours in all cultures I've ever come across.

 

As to the "sinocentric worldview", I know the theory but be wary of reading too much into everyday conversations. Some people won't even know where 外国 is exactly -- much like some Americans think of Paris as the capital of Italy. Just tell them and move on.