Living in China, but am I truly immersed?

Date: 2012.01.20 | Category: Chinese Culture, Chinese Language, Chinese People, Expats, Life Abroad, Me | Response: 10

Tom wrote a great blog post last summer about how immersed you truly are when living in China. I left a comment on his blog about my own experience at the time, but I think it’s time to re-evaluate my immersion rate.

Chinese language

My classes are completely in Chinese and I speak Chinese with my classmates. Only on few occasions I speak English with my American classmate, but she also prefers to speak Chinese (She’s actually native Cantonese speaker). Outside classes I hang out with my classmates or with my boyfriend (whit who I speak Chinese all the time). I meet English of Finnish speaking friends once in a while and sometimes speak to my cat in Finnish.

Most of what I write is in English or Finnish, that’s an area I should improve. Just wait for Monday and my first blog post in Chinese!

For spoken language my immersion rate could be somewhere between 80-90%.

Chinese food

Because it’s a holiday now I’ve eaten more Finnish food than usually. When the semester starts I will probably eat out more and that means more Chinese food. I’m also lucky to have such a great cook at home who can cook delicious Chinese food for me!

So perhaps about 50-60% what I eat is Chinese food.

People

All of my teachers are of course Chinese and two of my classmates are originally Chinese. Other classmates come from many different countries, but we almost always talk in Chinese with each other. At home I have one Chinese boyfriend and one Chinese cat, but I’m not sure if my cat Lucy meows in Finnish or Chinese.

I’m still trying to find good Chinese friends, that could almost be my most important goal for 2012. I don’t make friend easily or quickly, I need time to get to know someone and let someone to get to know me. I don’t expect my friends to teach me Chinese and I’m not teaching English, but I still hope to make non-English speaking Chinese friends. I think my Chinese is good enough to be a friend.

It’s really hard to rate this one. 11% of my classmates (and friends) are Chinese (even though they don’t speak Mandarin fluently), 100% of my teachers are Chinese, 95% of people I see outside are Chinese.

Pop culture

This is the section I hope to improve this year. If I listen to music I do listen to Chinese songs, but most of the TV shows I watch are American ones. It’s hard to find Chinese TV series that I enjoy because all of them seem to be too fake and too dramatic. I do like 裸婚时代, are there other series similar to this one? And where are Chinese versions of Desperate Housewives or Gossip Girl? Or where can I find them dubbed into Chinese?

All the magazines I read are basically in Finnish because my mother sends me new ones every month. I’ve tried buying Chinese magazines, but then in the end I didn’t really read them.

For pop culture my immersion rate is only about 20% at the moment and I have to get it up. I’m thinking of a goal for this section, but I’m not sure what if could be. How many episodes of 裸婚时代 I should watch per week? How much American TV am I allowed?

Thank you again Tom for your great original post!  Now I just want to know how immersed are you, my Chinese learning reader?

What is wrong with Western men in China?

Date: 2011.08.12 | Category: Expats | Response: 78

Let me start with a story from last spring.

An Italian young man came to China as an exchange student to study Chinese. He and his fellow classmates enjoyed having fun on the weekends and usually headed to bars in downtown Guangzhou. He noticed that he got a lot of attention from Chinese girls just by doing nothing. Just by being a foreign man. Perhaps the muscles didn’t hurt either.

Soon he found himself a Chinese girlfriend and spent time with her and with his friends. But every time he went to a bar he didn’t want his girlfriend to come with him. Once he said something like this: “But I like those other girls too!”

Then one day his Italian girlfriend, who have been missing him for months, came to Guangzhou to see him. They went to dinner with his friends and the Italian girlfriend sat on the right side of him. Who sat on the left side? His Chinese girlfriend of course!

Luckily his Italian girlfriend wasn’t that naive and soon figured out what was going on with her “boyfriend”. She flew back to Italy and took one thing with her. His passport! I guess he deserved it.

No, I didn’t make this up. This is a true story and unfortunately just one of many I’ve seen. I know men cheating on their girlfriends back home. Single men having fun with several Chinese girls and letting a girl think that she is special and his only girl. I have heard of husbands cheating their wife without getting caught.

What is wrong with these men? My theory is that because it’s easy for a Western man (even easier if you’re tall and good looking) to get attention and more from Chinese girls. They are more popular here than back home. Suddenly there are so many girls around them that it gets to their heads. They start to think they are better than they are. They think that it’s impossible to get caught.

I don’t accept cheating at all. I know what it does to people and it’s nothing good. I have been myself cheated very very badly before I moved to China. Why don’t these men just man up and break up with their girlfriend or wife if they want someone else? Why they only think of themselves? Why they don’t feel responsible for their family that will get hurt?

Remember, not every Western man is like this. You don’t have to assure me that you don’t belong to this group. But you if you get angry after reading this, think for a minute, why are you angry to me about something you have done? I have seen enough cheating here in Guangzhou.

For all the Chinese girls reading this, take care of yourself. I don’t want to see your hurt. For all the good Western men out there, thank you.

5 Reasons To Hate China

Date: 2010.06.23 | Category: Expats | Response: 31

1. It’s dirty. People drink their coke and dump the bottle in the ground. When closing their shop for the night they take the garbage and throw them outside on the street.

2. They are disgusting. They spit, burp and fart right in front of you. The lady selling you vegetables uses to pick her nose by her fingers.

3. Traffic will kill you. They don’t care about any kind of rules. Red light is not red if there isn’t a police officer reminding it. They speed and overtake you like they’re in F1.

4. Food is inedible. You can have all sorts of disgusting creatures on your plate even you didn’t order them. They eat steak with a rice. And when it’s the hottest day of the summer they don’t have any water in the restaurant but they’ll ask if you would like a cup of tea.

5. They are stupid. They can’t solve any problem that requires creative thinking. They sit on the aisle side of the seat in the bus even the window seat is free. They keep the door open when they have air conditioner on.

China is everything. It can be like this if you are only concentrating in the negative things. But is that really the way to see another culture?