First, I should probably explain what a laowai (pronounced lao-why) is. Literally, lao means old and wai means outside. It actually is a semi-diminutive name for foreigners. Although I’m almost positive that it can be used to refer to any foreigner in China, I think it’s usually applied to people that are obviously not from China such as those of either European or African descent. I haven’t really heard of Koreans being referred to as laowai.
Second, I should bring up a recent happening here in grand old China. In the Henan Province, which is in mid-north-eastern China (see the map), and is in any case quite far away from where I am in the south-west, martial law has been imposed in a town in order to quell ethnically motivated rioting between the Han majority and Hui Muslim minority. You can check out the New York Times article about it at http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Rioting.html. I just want to point out again that Henan is nowhere near Yunnan, and that martial law has not been imposed throughout the country, but only in the Langchenggang region, so don’t worry about me! Also, from the sounds of it, it’s probably better that there be the marshal law there protecting the citizens (as long as there are no abuses of the power of course).
I bet most of you have never thought about it before, I know I hadn’t before I came here, but there are 55 nationally recognized minorities in China…granted 90% of the population is actually of the Han majority. They’ve got everything from the Uighurs of Mongolia and Xinjiang (northwest China), to the Tibetans, to the Dai people (who are closely related to the Thai), the Bai (which means white—they wear a lot of white clothing), the Naxi, and even three aboriginal groups in Taiwan (and I will add my normal disclaimer here of: if you consider Taiwan to be part of China that is). Yunnan, the province that I’m staying in is actually home to a whopping 47 of the 55 minorities, and thus I believe makes it among the most diverse places I’ve ever lived (yeah Walla Walla… and Fort Collins… and Nantes).
I think that it makes things easier to have so many different minorities all in the same area because people here are more used to seeing people different from them, but that doesn’t mean that people are necessarily friendly, warm, or accepting to others. All I mean to say is that I think that Yunnan is probably the most open-minded place in China with regards to ethnic differences, which is actually kind of a sad state of affairs if I may be so bold as to express my humble, half-informed opinion. Nevertheless, I definitely think that it makes it a better place to be a laowai than a lot of other places in China (maybe excluding the big cities along the eastern seaboard like Beijing, Shanghai, or especially Hong Kong, but who would want to live in those smog holes?).
I have one American friend who tells tales of her experiences in ChongQing (which is just north of Yunnan in the SiChuan province) as a laowai. She describes it as unbearable. People would glare, some would shout, and the result was that she became quite depressed by the end of her stay there. She was pretty much the only thing they had in the way of foreigners in the city, and after her experiences there she has no doubt why.
Not that it’s much better here sometimes. I have one African American friend here that tries to go out as little as possible, and in any case tries to avoid big crowds (which is quite the feat in China, believe you me). I’ve personally witnessed her getting stared at, cursed out, and poked. Not that it happens all the time, but it quickly starts grating on the nerves. But even for me the stares are so omnipresent that I’ve started to not notice them anymore. What still gets me is when I’m walking down the street and I hear something like, “Look, there’s a laowai!” and they start staring at me and talking about me assuming I don’t understand. I’ve gotten to the point where I turn around and say something to the effect of, “Yeah, I’m a laowai, is there a problem?”
I’m afraid I sound like I’m complaining, or that I’m making it sound like it’s worse than it actually is, neither of which are my intent. Rather, I was just trying to explain one of what Emile Durkheim called social facts of China. I must also add that for every one person that stares or shouts or whatnot there are probably 50 more that don’t—it’s unfortunate that it’s the ones that stare that stick out in the memory. I might also add that my Chinese teacher has made the point that, and this is especially true the more rural one gets, there is still a large part of the population that has never seen a real live westerner in their entire lives, and so they’re just staring out of sheer amazement/curiosity. I think deep down I know that most of them don’t intend any harm, but it’s just as weird to have somebody stare at you with contempt as it is to have someone stare at you with undeserved awe.
All of this got me thinking about something my dad said a few weeks ago. He insisted that I try to stay in China as long as possible to become as acculturated as possible. Really though, it seems quite futile given what I just said, that the Chinese will never accept me as one of their own no matter how hard I try, and that, in any case, I don’t think that I would ever want to become truly Chinese. It’s not the reason I’m here, which I think was probably an important self-discovery! In France I could often pass as a Frenchie, or at the least European. I can’t tell you how many times I was asked in disbelief, “You’re American?!” Here I can’t even get out of the starting gate. Also, it’s not like I ever became French. I’ll always be an American, but I did become part French in the process, and I’ll imagine that I’ll become part Chinese too by the time all is said and done. And really I think that is my goal is to transcend borders and become un homme du monde.
Back to Chinese culture, I love the food. I appreciate how cheap some things are here. I can deal with the guanxi (connections/relationships, pronounced guan-she), and the face giving, the ordered chaos of millions upon millions of people, but there are some things that, although I can live just fine with someone else doing, I will never be comfortable doing, nor do I have the desire to do so. Their sanitation system frightens me at times. I resent some Chinese’s total disregard for the environment while blindly following America’s lead. It bothers me that outright cheating, lying, and embezzlement are accepted parts of daily life even though it makes complete sense to me how it fits into the culture. And, of course, I don’t want to become as xenophobic as some Chinese are (Is it ironic that I’m saying that while simultaneously making overbroad generalizations about a group of people?).
I think that I will close this with a final disclaimer that I know that, of course, not everybody is the same. In fact I’ve met environmentalist Chinese, not to mention others who are more generous and kind towards foreigners than most of the French that I met were to me there. It’s just that when acting like a sociologist and analyzing groups of people it’s hard not to make generalizations, and accounting for individual idiosyncrasies is among the next big challenges that the discipline of sociology must face. Also, I’d like to make it clear that I do indeed appreciate the Chinese and their longstanding culture And with that, I should probably stop before I stick my foot in my mouth too many times, but it was something that I had to get off my chest.
Oh, and as a last reminder, GO VOTE, I did!
No comments:
Post a Comment