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Q: Has anyone suffered any xenophobic abuse when out with their Chinese partner?
I've lived in China for a number of years now and have been married to my Chinese wife for more than half of those. I'd say that my Mandarin's okay and like most people, I can understand quite a bit more than I can say. Therefore, I could probably understand if someone was insulting me; body language would obviously help with this too. On websites like this, you often hear stories of how not everywhere here takes kindly to their fellow citizens dating foreigners. In my time here, I've heard of foreign friends being insulted when out with their Chinese partners. Or, parents that won't allow their son or daughter to date a foreigner. If you've been here a while, maybe you've even heard of a foreigner being physically assaulted. I'm not talking about the kind of expats who are sleeping with someone's wife or being obnoxious to Chinese women; they probably deserve a punch. I'm just curious because in my whole time in China, I've never had a problem with this. What are your experiences? Is this worse in certain parts of China? What's your reaction to any comments etc?
11 years 20 weeks ago in Relationships - China
I have heard people say obviously unkind things while walking with a Chinese girl, but she refused to tell me what they said. I have sometimes noticed some very unfriendly attitudes while walking with a pretty Chinese girl. Sometimes but not often.
I once walked into a KFC with a girl who was dressed to kill. Several people cut in line ahead of me. A group of boys also cut in front of me saying something and obviously fronting so I did what any reasonable man in my position would do ... I think. I left quickly. If you face a no win situation it's best to leave.
I asked her what they said but she never tells me. Sometimes no answer is an answer.
I never have any trouble by myself, at least not so far.
Amonk:
The f***? If someone cuts in front of you, you cut in front of them right back. Don't take that s***. I thought we all learned this from our childhood trips to Disneyworld? Everyone knows Chinese are the most aggressive cutters, but they're also so small that once you push back they can't do a d*** thing.
bill8899:
Ummm no. Two people cut in front of me before the boys. There was considerable unfriendly chatter, then the boys cut in and I could not understand what they were saying but they clearly wanted me to start a fight. I did not see my advantage and I see no chivalry in putting the girl in a precarious position, not to mention myself when, after I win, if I win, everyone gangs up on the foreigner and the girl when the police arrive, or maybe they don't wait for the police.
We took the subway up one stop and ate there. I take great pleasure in giving people meaningless wins.
Choose your battles bro. Not worth it. This ain't a movie.
Just the stares and whispers. I think it's much worse in Korea for this kind of thing.
Stares and whispers, as nevermind said, but also confrontations.
"He's too tall, and she's too short!"
"Nationality doesn't matter, skin color doesn't matter, age doesn't matter, height doesn't matter, but you two... your height is not very general!!!"
"She's too short for him! Americans have heavy tastes!"
"(in the most desperate, shocked way possible from multiple men) Little sister, why did you have to find a foreigner? There are many good men in China/this city we're in!"
"Wow, he is so huge. He must have a giant penis. What is sex like with him? It must be very yellow, very violent." (this one is why these men are unmarried at 35 and still masturbating to Japanese AV while loudly condemning Japan for giving them the only outlet they'd ever have to... release)
"You're a traitor to your country. You betrayed America, and you're a worthless whore." (triad before losing his wife and car after trying to kill us)
"I want 180,000 RMB. I don't want my daughter marrying a foreigner, or leaving China. I want my daughter to stay in this rural village and suffer for the rest of her life, unless you pay me enough money."
"I want 200,000 RMB or I will kill you and the baby. If you try to leave, I will kill you, my daughter, and the baby with this metal polearm."
"I don't want my sister marrying a foreigner unless you give my mother 180,000 RMB, me an iPhone, and let me 'borrow' your expensive DSLR."
(walking down the street, minding my own business when I spot a 300lb Chinese woman, about 5'11", who just glares at me for no reason, takes a look at my gangster suit, looks at me in disgust and snaps at me while glaring, "不要!“ (don't want!))
Nope. No xenophobic abuse here.
EDIT: And yes, I've been physically assaulted, dogpiled, beaten over the head with a metal pipe, kicked, etc. All because I had to defend my wife and our unborn child from her nutbag family.
Amonk:
Sometimes I wish your wife had a sister, just so we could get some evil-American-stealing-daughters solidarity.
Hulk:
Oh, and a 12 year old kid glaring at me with extreme anger in his little nationalistic face for 30 minutes. I just ignored him and remained emotionless, and that made him even angrier.
:
Hulk, out of this list I can do some sort of anthropological study. It's a list of subjective/objective reactions raising out of the local more-or-less culture, out of ignorance and/or misunderstanding of the meaning "we" and "us" in which you look to have no place whatsoever. A very informative source your story, your personal story about meeting your Chinese wife's family and their world.
I guess the love for your wife made you face the whole struggle as I understand you've been and are through. Yes, definitely it is the love, the Western understanding of Love.BTW. I'm a fan of your story and anytime you pick on small victories with your wife' s family I feel just great.
grimya:
OMG, I've read parts of your story in different threads but I would love to read the whole story...can you open a thread so we can learn :)????
Hulk:
Don't wanna right now. It's really stressful, and I mostly post here to vent / offer advice.
which city are you in? and to be honest the way you asked this question is sets off my BS detector. you are trying to sell your story .
let's get to the answer. it happens very often. not just with my gf, with my female friends. and it is mainly chinese guys. and it varies to subtle comments "young girls love foreign men" to trying to pick a fight with me (once). 99% of the time they target the woman (they are cowards). one time in kfc some guy with his family was yelling things and looking at her, i got up and walked to him showed him my pinky finger, and said "small man" (in chinese) over and over again. i turned to his wife and daughter and said "small man ma?"
i try to avoid confrontations but when you target the woman i'm with you're playing with a nuclear bomb. chinese men need to understand that foreign men are not pu$$ies as they are.
chinese men are so stupid they do not see the effect of their behavior. they are driving chinese women away.
i 've experienced subtle negative reactions in beijing but not a lot . shanghai, never (but only a few days in shanghai)
Hulk:
I love you for this comment. LOL I would probably say "你小弟弟很小" ni xiao di di hen xiao. Your little brother is very tiny.
Amonk:
I think I'm going to start carrying a picture of my penis in my wallet. That way, I can open it up and show douches like this two ways in which I have a leg up on him.
I haven't, no, but then i'm 6.2', I have scars on all four sides of my head and tattoos on my hands. But really, I don't think that's it, I think it'll take a few years before foreigners are so many that they begin to make the Chinese uneasy. Then such abuse may become a problem for It's that fear which causes aggressive, abusive reactions. So far so good though. No trouble for mArtiAn. Having said that though, I do know of a fella who was chatting up a Chinese girl and some guy got angry about her flirting with a westerner so he cut her face. The foreign guy broke his jaw, ribs, I don't know what else. Really did a number on him. When the police arrived enough Chinese people backed up the actions of the foreigner for him to be able to stay out of trouble. At the end of the day such things are inevitable. Whites and blacks, Chinese and westerners; jeez, look at poor old Lady Diana, they clipped her because she was gonna marry an arab. Happens everywhere. The world is a gumbo, and it's still not quite ready yet.
Hulk:
I'm a tad over 6'8", have scars and a semi-huge build, but people still challenge me all the time, and say crap about us behind our backs.
You're probably in a really nice town. Hunan is dog shit. All the Chinese friends I meet here from other provinces say they can't stand Hunan people.
mArtiAn:
Well from what you've had to say about the place, it does sound pretty bad. Yeh, I think Guangxi people are pretty damn good. Everywhere i've lived people have been really cool to me. Not to say there's never been anyone be rude. There was one guy who called my wife on the phone and told her to dump me. He said i'd leave her. I called him and bawled him out. Told him to f**k off. He actually made a death threat, but it was empty. Otherwise I remember one old guy on the bus in front of me telling his grand-daughter (I assume) that foreigners are all devils. She looked at me and I could see she was not at all convinced. Another time a fella asked my wife if my dick was big enough for her. She didn't let me know at the time of course, otherwise i'd have gone mArtiAn Hulk and smashed. Ahhh, it's all swings and roundabouts. People aren't perfect. I find if I look for the best in people I can usually find it though.
crimochina:
hulk: do you really believe this load of crap?
"excuse for the behavior but i have never experienced such behavior"
mArtiAn:
You posted that 'just' after I posted my last one. There's a lesson here mate.
Hulk:
Hey, crimo... actually, I believe it. He's in Nanning, and I only hear good stuff about that place. I've also been to other places all across China where people aren't so dbaggish. I also agree that there are bad people everywhere...
Problem is, there are much more bad people in China than anywhere else I've seen before. It's extremely common here (though maybe not in his area, I'll admit), and I feel that they are much worse people than your run-of-the-mill bads in most countries.
Not really. there was one time in Qingdao we were walking down some famous street ("beer street" perhaps?), and as is the norm there, people were constantly getting in our way and shoving menus in our faces. As China is a very rude place I will also be rude if I feel like it and I did use some rude body language or something to this one dickhead with a menu. I don't think my girl noticed anything but after another second the guy said something about me being with a pretty girl and we should "da si ta" (beat him up). Nothing else came of it though. Overall, I've experienced more negative racism coming from Chinese people in Canada than in China, probably because they've also experienced negative racism from whites in Canada.
I don't get too bent out of shape over Chinese men who are unhappy to see their women dating and marrying foreigners. In a few years there will be a surplus of 30 million men in China fapping to Japanese porn, and men like me are only adding to this problem. I just don't care that I'm adding to the problem. They can come to Canada and take a shot at my sister if they want. And we all know that the killing/aborting of baby girls is also a reality that landed them in this situation, so whatever.
Not really. there was one time in Qingdao we were walking down some famous street ("beer street" perhaps?), and as is the norm there, people were constantly getting in our way and shoving menus in our faces. As China is a very rude place I will also be rude if I feel like it and I did use some rude body language or something to this one dickhead with a menu. I don't think my girl noticed anything but after another second the guy said something about me being with a pretty girl and we should "da si ta" (beat him up). Nothing else came of it though. Overall, I've experienced more negative racism coming from Chinese people in Canada than in China, probably because they've also experienced negative racism from whites in Canada.
I don't get too bent out of shape over Chinese men who are unhappy to see their women dating and marrying foreigners. In a few years there will be a surplus of 30 million men in China fapping to Japanese porn, and men like me are only adding to this problem. I just don't care that I'm adding to the problem. They can come to Canada and take a shot at my sister if they want. And we all know that the killing/aborting of baby girls is also a reality that landed them in this situation, so whatever.
wow everyone needs to go to Shanghai LOL. I'm a student so girls would show me many places, pretty girls at that, I never ever had no one scuff at me, and I'm black haha. One time in Suzhou though a Chinese guy said to the girl good job at conquering a black guy, but I laughed because I understood him.
wow everyone needs to go to Shanghai LOL. I'm a student so girls would show me many places, pretty girls at that, I never ever had no one scuff at me, and I'm black haha. One time in Suzhou though a Chinese guy said to the girl good job at conquering a black guy, but I laughed because I understood him.
yep. not near as dramatic as Hulk's & Martian's, but yep, every girl I ever dated in China has told me she was uncomfortable because her fellow citizens do something mean to her when we are out and about. I am not totally sure how they convey their hostility towards us, other than staring like fools, but there is something that has made my three long-time gf's (in around six years) feel uncomfortable when we are out and about in lovely China.
btw: I am way an average looking white guy. not big, not small, dress modestly. I probably look like a 1980's American movie character. ... think Marty on 'Back to Future', and gf's look/act modest also.
apart from the staring I have not experienced anything in the two years I have been here. of course some could pass by me due to not understanding the language, but my wife has never mentioned anything. perhaps the Pearl River delta is at an advantage as people here see a lot of foreigners due to Hong Kong and Macau attracting lots of people from all over the world, and Shenzhen having lots of international companies.
of course there is the starring, which most often comes from people who looked like they just came in from the village
Haven't had it yet but I know deep down it will happen one day
you will know when it does as it will most likely not go well
the worst I have had was from a Blonde Australian woman in Brisbane
who wanted to know why Chinese women were so much better
