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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Is it possible to live in China for an extended period of time and not become bitter?
yeah you just gotta stay grounded.
make smart choices about what you do and where you live.
You can live pretty comfortably here if you're smart...it's just no cheaper than in the west. try and cut too many corners and you'll end up miserable in a shitty situation
RiriRiri:
That's part of the problem. Being comfortable means staying secluded, and changing patterns means inevitably facing a good dose of the usual moronry no matter. It gets old.
expatlife26:
yeah but I personally don't give a shit about having any kind of cultural learning experience anymore. I did that for a term...no regrets, but then I settled into as normal a life as possible.
I'm not on vacation. I DO want to live as I would back home, if I was in the US would I be hanging around ghettos and high-crime trailer parks or would I be "secluded" away from that?
Judging by many of the posters on this forum... no.
i'm sure it's possible. But you'd need to be a complete sociopath, not caring about what goes on around you. The bitterness is a result of your humanity, and if you don't get bitter from China exposure, you're probably not a good guy.
Gettin' some is the key to most people's self-fulfillment, so feel no guilt in that department. But you can get loads of 'fulfillment' without turning zombie, so don't.
You must switch off a great deal of your empathy to retain functional sanity in China. If you can switch it *all* off without some psych. side-effects (bitterness), then welcome to your paradise: This place is definitely for you, and you will do well here, with a Western education and no conscience. Do I envy you? Perhaps your furure success, but I wouldn't want to be you.
Yes it is possible. Lived here 5 years now and not bitter. Frustrated sometimes on bad china days but enjoy my life here. I live on the edge of a nice area in Guangzhou but frequent less salubrious places at times.
It's what you make of it. If it does make you bitter then leave.
Anybody I ever met who hit the 10 years mark has developed what we can politely call bitterness.
Myself included.
It's just the nature of things.
It definitely is, it depend a lot on where you live, if you are in first tier cities and some second tier cities which are more westernized then you can live decently, find foodstuff from back home, find expats or locals who have hobbies or interests in common with you, ...
If you live in a third tier city where nobody speaks English, where the local folks are staring at you all day long as if you couldn't see them, where your neighbors spy on you because they think that you are a spy for the CIA and might even call the police to denounce you then never apologize (true story), where people constantly talk about you but not with you, where you can't find decent imported food and where all the shops are selling the same crap, then you will probably develop a bitter sentiment against China.
I lived in both, my first 3 years were in crappy third tier cities, my second year was even in the almost countryside (fortunately only one hour from Beijing), it was interesting but I wouldn't renew the experience even if I was offered 100000 RMB per month.
DrMonkey:
The neighbors calling the police... Once, my neighbors did that. They did not hear any noise from my flat, that made suspicious and worried. The police found me, asked me and my then employer if I lived there... Yup I live there. End of the story. Apparently, the neighbors could not wrap their head around the idea that one can live mostly in silence : no TV, using headphones, no shouting, etc.
I think getting out and about more can help you see a lot of the good things too. As positive thinkers, we all know that we tend to see the best things when experiences are fresh, and disregard the worse ones. Whereas when you stay in a single place too long, you only see the bad things and not so much the good ones. So get out every once in a while and travel somewhere. I came to Beijing for my first time in 2 years and I'm having an experience on a different level of what I had in Shanghai (which was great in itself).
Can't say everything is perfect but I can say that I think Chinese people are very hospitable and welcoming again. For a while I was convinced of the opposite from reading too much news and not meeting enough people. So go and get out!
Like they all said here, if you let all the small things get to you, you're not going to last very long. You need to learn to shut yourself out to those things that irritate you. Find out where the nice places are, the bars , restaurants etc. Maybe get some retail therapy in the better parts of town. In time, you'll feel better. Good luck!
Yup, I get fustrated at times, but not bitter. Bitter about what?
I thought bitterness was something you felt towards another person who you consider got better breaks than you.
The bitter people I know at in my home country. Propping up the same bar every night blaming migrants/Government/the rich people in the posh estate or whatever else is flavour of the month, as the cause of their woes.
I wouldn't call myself bitter. I would just say that my tourist phase wore off, and I am eager to leave once my contract has run out. I've seen behind the veil of this country, and I won't pretend that I haven't. I will admit that there are things that I enjoy about China, but this culture is really impeded by its baseless superiroty complex, or the selfish peasant approach the people here seem to take towards everyone else.
I do have one friend who is still hyper-cheerful about China. I can't be sure, but I think her cheeryness rests on two things: 1. She has never had a job here where she had to work with or for Chinese people. You can really persist in ignoring the rampant xenophobia when you don't have to deal with them on a non-stop basis. 2. She tends to just make self-delusional comments all the time. Like 'the only problems I have ever had with Chinese people is with the tuhao' and 'I think Chinese people just seem like assholes because there are so many of them. The asshole-non asshole ratio is basically the same as my country.'
Still happy in Xiamen after 3 years...and planning to stay many more!
The only thing that pisses me off is the traffic but it's much worse in other places
I've been to. The subway is being built as well!