Job Discussion Forums

[MoggIntellect]

Funny... I find some of the same horrible questions coming from ex-pats:

"How long have you been here?"
"Do you like it?"
"Have you been anywhere else in China?"
"Why are you here?"
"How long you plannin on stayin?"
etc... maybe they are all spies for the PSB!

It seems whenever meeting some new foreigner you have to go through the questions.

I really hate the "How many cities you been to in China?" because the longer I stay the longer the answer.

I dislike their responses to the questions more than the questions themselves. They seem to think that having been in China a couple years I still have no clue about China or I am misguided, for example this common conversation:

Person: Do you like the food in Chengdu?
Me: No, not really.
Person: Oh too spicey!
Me: No, it's spicey in the north as well. There's just not much variety.
Person: Oh you just don't know where to go. I can show you.
Me: Have you ever been out of Sichuan?
Person: No, but I want to in future.

The audacity of them to think my opinion is crap (despite the fact that I have been to many parts of China) just because I wasn't born here really irks me! That attitude gets played out in every situation including the Japan/Taiwan issues always concluding with the resounding, "You don't understand, you're not Chinese!"

[voodikon]

what's with the food in sichuan? why does everybody say it's "SO DELICIOUS?" have i ...

a) passed the year point in china and am just now sick of it all?
b) gotten used to the food in suzhou and now prefer that, despite the fact that even the suzhouers said sichuan food is SO DELICIOUS?
c) hit the nail on the head, and sichuan food is just an overload of ma, la, and oil? it totally gave me explosive diarrhea tonight, which i had to hold all through a particularly painful english corner (the topic was HALLOWEEN--god) and then an hour-long van ride back into town in a van that must have wooden boards for springs, all the while hearing my chinese coworkers blather on about ... well, i don't really know. my mind was on other things.

[MoggIntellect]

voodikon - I can see you don't know where to go in Chengdu for good food. If you like I can help you! You know Chengdu's food is "faymrs" is China!


edit: I see you have toilet troubles... you should wear more clothes!

[shuize]

I've gone through various phases of answering unwanted questions. Although, I have to say I like the idea of answering every question with a question mentioned above. I'll have to try that next. But for most of the people I deal with, I may just shorten it to "Why?"

For a while I used to answer everything in the negative. I got so I could even answer before the questioner had finished.

Q: Do you like ...

A: No.

I've also gone through phases of giving deliberately wrong answers. This works best with annoying little kids who already know the answers before they ask.

Q: (In Japanese) How do you say cat in English ... It's 'cat' right?

A: No. It's 'dog'

Q: Dog?

A: Cat.

Q: Black?

A: White.

Q: My teacher said it was 'black'.

A: Too bad. She's wrong.

[Rabid]

I look forward to
Q "Do you like Chinese people?"
A "Yes they're delicious"

[shenyanggerry]

I tell my Ss to ask any question they want. I answer most of them. I love 'do you like NBA' - no. Next question. When asked about Taiwan I usually say 'do I look stupid enough to answer that question'.

[Rabid]

[Babala]

After reading both this thread and the thread posted by Kevin, the Chinese student I gave an EC today on questions we ask foreigners. I read off the lists of the questions that everyone hated and explained why we hated them and used many of the suggestions people had for alternatives. Everyone was very receptive to the new ideas.

[Roger]

I hate these questions not because they are so inane but because they are so repetitive, and they are so repetitive because they are predictable; why are they predictable? IT is because our students even memorise the questions they ask us, and the answers we are supposed to give them.

This is just a side view of the communications malaise with Chinese: any topic out of the blue cannot be covered; people have a compartmentalised thinking. What doesn't fit into a drawer doesn't fit into their minds, hence is taboo or off tangent.

You see the same problem when you do discuss things: I ask for a THAT'S Magazine at the desk of the hotel's concierge; the guy sees the mag every month, but he doesn't read any English (though he speaks it quite well with many visitors who need his help in directing a taxi driver to a given address in town); he won't find the latest copy, so instead he gives me a map of Guangzhou..., saying "here you are! Good bye!"

Good bye indeed!

[Mark Loyd]

[tw]

[MoggIntellect]

Roger, yeah you touched on another part of their personality, language aside. I have had more than one vexing experience in which they give you what THEY want not what I wanted nor asked for. Like you said they have this pre-constructed or set idea of what it is that should happen and they cannot cope with anything else.

For those who are not aware of this, try something simple like when you go to a restaurant, order a dish and ask them to use a bowl instead of a plate or vice versa... they will never get it. Or ask for dish #1's noodles with dish #2's sauce. No comprende amigo!

[frigginhippie]