Are 老外s more 'open' than Chinese?
xiaophil
June 24, 2010, 08:40 AM posted in General DiscussionFirst of all, this post is a bit pg-13. If that kind of stuff bothers you, I do apologize for it, and perhaps you ought to consider not reading further. I will try to be discrete, though.
Anyway, ever since coming to China, from time to time I have heard Chinese people say that foreigners are too 'open'. This can have different meanings, but often it means 'cannot control one's carnal urges'. I must admit that this baffles me because I find it hypocritical. One of the things I have noticed in Shanghai and other cities is that businesses that 'cater to the needs we often feel uncomfortable talking about in polite company' are not hard to be found (although since the expo, it seems the seedier places have been pushed away in Shanghai). For example, this post is inspired by two articles I stumbled upon online today. One is about a movie about a sex toy shop in China, and the other is about a very interesting competition that was on display apparently at a mall where Children, old people, you name it, were free to gawk at it. I myself once went into a place that I thought was a perfectly legitimate barber shop only to find that nobody there knew how to cut hair. I am not lying, they called someone up on a cell phone who came over and cut my hair. Even though I am from a foreign country, I have to say that in my hometown, a barber shop is a barber shop.
Now why am I bringing this up? well, I really want to know, have any of you had similar observations in China? Do you think Chinese people are just unaware of the change that is going on? Or is it just another case where this only reflects a very, very small segment of Chinese society that just so happens to be fairly visible? And I might add, I am not trying to criticize Chinese. This is something that honestly has never made sense to me.
xiaophil
Indeed, sometimes 'open' is used in the way that you expressed, but the way in which I mention is also used.
Girls do cover up more here. If my wife wears a dress that exposes too much of her shoulders, she has to find some way to cover it up. I never really thought of shoulders as a particularly sexual thing, although they can add to the package. But I noticed that bikinis are being promoted left and right in Shanghai. Just the other day I was walking through a subway tunnel when I saw poster after poster of sexy young ladies in bikinis. It was a long tunnel. Another thing is the sex toy shop phenomena. (I think they call them 'sex health shop'.) They are found all over the place and there doesn't seem to be any ordinance rule whatsoever. In front of a high school... why not?
RJ
did you ever notice that none of the models in the bikini or underwear ads are Chinese? You are in China, but all the ads use western girls.
svik
From my short stays in China during the past few years, it seems to me that the impression that many young people have of Americans is shaped more by the many films and television shows they have watched on the internet, rather than by the few actual Americans they might have met.
In the 1980s people in China had much vaguer ideas of foreigners. A guy in Luoyang once asked me if I were Japanese. (My beard was a little red then!)
xiaophil
RJ
That is often true, but more and more it isn't (or at least they are Asian and I can't tell the difference). The ads I specifically referred to above appeared to be Chinese.
xiaophil
svik
About TV and movies, you have a point.. I sometimes hear Chinese say something like, "I think foreigners are like xxxx because I saw on Friends xxx".
bababardwan
你就说你不是日本人吗？？
svik
当然。我不是日本人！
bababardwan
duibuqi ,wo zhi kaiwanxiao
orangina
June 24, 2010, 10:30 AMWell, I see people making out in pubilc on a level I never saw in the States. Not all of these people looked like teenagers either. (And confoundingly, popping each other's zits on the ditie... not sexual, but a bit intimate for public from my viewpoint.) And last season the shorts were... short, and the boots were tall, which is somehow more immodest than sandals or pumps. With boots the eyes are drawn a bit north of the knees. I found myself staring at a few crotches, and there is nothing there of any interest to me. And this was in the winter. But this season skirts are long and flowy.
And I think there is a difference in viewpoint between the city, where people care about trends (and behaviour as well as dress can be 'trendy',) and in towns. I had a 20 year old American born Chinese friend who insisted that public displays of affection were not acceptable in Chinese culture. I think if she came to GZ she would have quite the culture shock.
So from my kanfa there are more extreems in modesty in both directions in China than in the US. And perhaps the idea that westerners are too "open" comes from TV, and not how people actually behave.
pretzellogic
I'd agree with the observation that the amount of skin being revealed depends on how close you are to a major metropolitan area. I've definitely seen more Chinese skin in urban areas than in rural areas. I've also seen more kissing and other public displays of affection in the city from native Chinese than from foreigners.
xiaophil
The small towns are still quite conservative, but then again, what country's aren't? But I suppose Chinese small towns are even more so. My wife is from a small town. Everybody knows each other, and most everyone is in constant contact with grandparents, aunts, uncles and so forth. Add on top of that no KTV or any other fun spot to go to, I don't think I would feel comfortable showing skin either.
RJ
June 24, 2010, 12:27 PMWhat amazes me is that you actually let this guy cut your hair. :-)
As for sexual issues and hypocricy, they tend to go hand in hand in all cultures.
xiaophil
RJ
Haha, I know it seems foolish, but he did have the right tools, and honestly, I never get the haircut I ask for in China. It usually looks good, but not in the way I expected. So my attitude was, sit back and enjoy the bizarre-ness.
You certainly are right about sexual issues and hypocrisy. I would like to know how widespread the hypocrisy is. In China, with so many people, just because something is visible, doesn't mean that it is many people or even a sizable minority.
tvan
June 24, 2010, 12:45 PM@xiaophil, your barbershop story reminds me of an identical experience that I had in Taipei, circa 1983. I was later told that, if you wanted a haircut, you had to look for a barbershop without a stool outside. Likewise, in those days many coffee shops only served coffee with sugar.
This seems pretty much the norm for all countries where prostitution is "not allowed." As RJ says about sexuality and hypocrisy above...
bodawei
June 24, 2010, 02:19 PM'First of all, this post is a bit pg-13'
In Australia it is on page 3 - something we have Rupert Murdoch to thank for. I am surprised he hasn't moved it towards the front of the papers in the US - he may be bound by local sensitivities about sex?
Xiao_phil - I am not absolutely sure what your questions are here. It is one of the few areas of life in China that I do not find particularly puzzling - maybe I need to take a closer look?
xiaophil
I don't know about the papers, but foxnews.com does have a lot of smutty gossip right on front. I am not so offended by such articles, but I do think they belong in a different place. As for having this discussion here, I didn't want to annoy anyone, and I didn't want to turn this into flat-out Chinese sex talk.
Maybe you do need to take a different look :-). I don't know. Perhaps being married to a Chinese women, often having very, very small classes with Chinese from all colors and living in mainland's most cosmopolitan city has given me a different perspective than you. Although, this view could be distorted as well. Being too close sometimes makes one even less objective.
Tal
June 24, 2010, 02:19 PMIt could be that the commonly-held Chinese view of westerners as "open-minded" (euphemism for sexually promiscuous when all is said and done) is simply one way of marking the separation between "them' and "us". Different human tribes naturally find ways to damp down xenophobic feelings in this way I think. There's the influence of foreign films and TV of course, and many Chinese don't see these as unreal and unrepresentative of real life, (which westerners do naturally.)
And then of course, it may be also be true.
xiaophil
Yeah, these are all good points. I get scared when Chinese 'teach' me something about my culture through insight derived from Desperate Housewives.
xiaophil
June 25, 2010, 01:12 AMI think this topic really started to come to the front of my mind earlier this week when a friend sent me a link to an article at chinesesmack.com (unfortunately, the website seems to be down now... due to this article?). It's a translation of a Chinese blog entry called "Chinese Women Don't Sleep With Foreigner Men". I didn't even read the whole article because right at the beginning the author says something like, "Many foreigners say that they came to China because of its culture, long history, but the truth is because they are not good enough to get good jobs in their own country, so many of them come to China to have an easier life and have some thrills." The blog also had a bunch of pictures of rather portly, middle-aged, average-looking white guys partying with Chinese girls. It actually stung just a bit (but only just a bit) because I really did come to China because I am interested in culture. I am annoyed that this woman is telling Chinese that I am here because I'm not good enough for my country. Thanks a lot! And to think that I like Chinese culture! (Okay, that is venting.) But the truth is that I have met some foreigners who are clearly just as she said, and have met more than a few whose intentions are dubious. China definitely attracts people for different reasons.
That said, I think, how can she and others like her rip on foreigners? Sex is everywhere in Shanghai, and it is mostly Chinese buying, and from what I have seen, this is about the same in the other cities. Prostitution 'barber shops', dubious karaoke bars, sex 'health' shops, from what I hear, mistresses, plus exponentially increasing semi-sexual/erotic advertisements, articles, books, not to mention the crazy public breast beauty competition (see second link way above) can be found in at least Chinese cities, and often in high doses.
But is this a trend that is far from the lives of ordinary Chinese? Do they just walk by and see these spectacles and feel ashamed but think nothing can be done? Will the government come through and throw out the worst and tighten down the rest and the Chinese society will leap for joy? This I haven't figured out.
But regardless, the blog entry I referred to above was written by the wife of the owner of New Oriental, a popular language traning chain. If any of you work there, I suggest asking the management if they agree with the owner's wife. Better yet, ask the owner directly.
xiao_liang
June 24, 2010, 09:35 AMObviously I don't live in China, so my input is limited, but from my experience of Chinese people, I'd say the "openness" that's referred to is emotional openness, rather than a level of physical embarrassment.
For example, when Chinese friends greet each other, and say goodbye, usually (obviously, only a Sith deals in absolutes...), it will be with a wave. Westerners, by and large, if they are close, will do so with a hug. We're also not as good at concealing how we are feeling - we wear our emotions on our sleeves.
Which I suppose might go some way to explaining why we're more offended by open displays of sex? I don't know - I always was led to believe that there's a lot more covering up in China, not least because bare skin means cold air might (shudder!) touch your skin!