# Chinese stereotypes of white people **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 14, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964 "2006-01-14T15:06:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/1 "2006-01-14T15:06:06Z")
And Indian stereotypes, too, according to my Indian friends. White people don’t manage their money. White people are irresponsible with alcohol. White people are impulsive. White people don’t educate their children. White people can’t do math. White people are more readily violent. White people are good at sport. White people are kind of dumb. White people are disrespectful of authority. White people are promiscuous. White people commit more crimes. White people are racist. 😉 I just realised this the other day. I thought it was kind of cool how you could replace “white” with “black” and nothing would change. The next time I hear a white person complaining about blacks I shall think of this list and the irony will take the edge off my pissiness. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/2 "2006-01-14T15:15:10Z")
It might be more accurate to replace “White people” with “People of any color who make bad life choices that keep them at the bottom of the socio-economic scale”. Somewhat wordy, but more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/3 "2006-01-14T15:16:57Z")
Also, according to a good friend of mine who is half-Chinese, white people smell funny. He said that when he went to China to visit his mother’s family, they remarked that he smelled like a white person. He would also jokingly say that white people had hair “like that of animals” (wavy and brown, not straight and black like the hair of real humans). He also said that he didn’t understand how we could see with those horrible blue eyes - they looked like the eyes of blind people. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/4 "2006-01-14T15:25:45Z")
> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#): > > White people are irresponsible with alcohol. I don’t know about Indians, but if the Chinese citizens I worked alongside in Asia are any indication of the norm, they have no room to talk. Those dudes were _nasty_ drunks. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/5 "2006-01-14T15:31:16Z")
> [@Linty Fresh](#): > > I don’t know about Indians, but if the Chinese citizens I worked alongside in Asia are any indication of the norm, they have no room to talk. Those dudes were _nasty_ drunks. Yeah, drinking is pretty bad these days. It’s not just that everyone pressures you to drink, it’s that they get offended if you _don’t_ drink - and most of the time there are spirits involved. My grandma used to say that thing about their eyes. She said about a kid on TV something along the lines of “So young, and his eyes are already starting to rot” - 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/6 "2006-01-14T15:59:16Z")
> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#): > > … > White people are racist. > > … This is my favorite one, coming as it does at the end of that long list. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/7 "2006-01-14T16:04:21Z")
A friend from Taiwan once told me quite seriously that “all white people look alike”. An acquaintance from Macedonia said that her people didn’t understand why Americans wore white socks all the time. I looked around and was surprised to see how often we do wear white socks. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/8 "2006-01-14T16:06:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Also, according to a good friend of mine who is half-Chinese, white people smell funny. He said that when he went to China to visit his mother’s family, they remarked that he smelled like a white person. > > … I’ve heard this is because of the higher incidence of dairy products in the Western diet. The distinctive fatty molecules don’t really get completely broken down and some get excreted in perspiration. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/9 "2006-01-14T16:14:37Z")
I was going on and on to Ingo (The World’s Most German) about Saudis. He pointed out to me (in his thick German accent) “Everzing you say about dem, ve say about you!” ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/10 "2006-01-14T16:49:31Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Also, according to a good friend of mine who is half-Chinese, white people smell funny. He said that when he went to China to visit his mother’s family, they remarked that he smelled like a white person. It’s true. But it’s a dietary issue, not a racial one. You eat a lot of meat, you eat an american diet, you smell different from someone who eats a chinese diet. Not that surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/11 "2006-01-14T16:52:05Z")
> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#): > > White people are more readily violent. And that, my friends, is how we took over the world. In your _face_, lesser races! Wooooo!!! I hope it’s obvious … that’s a joke, son. A funny. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/12 "2006-01-14T16:52:27Z")
> [@laina\_f](#): > > A friend from Taiwan once told me quite seriously that “all white people look alike”. Weeeeeeeeellll… There is a certain caliber of “white people looking alike”. Watch some of the old 80’s movies. There’ll often be two leads, two blonde, handsome young men. Well, I have trouble with faces anyway, and those kind of movies throw me for a loop every time. _Sometimes_, white people do look alike. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/13 "2006-01-14T18:07:52Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Well, I have trouble with faces anyway, and those kind of movies throw me for a loop every time. _Sometimes_, white people do look alike. 🙂 Yeah, no doubt - I’m a white guy and it takes me forever to figure out who’s who in movies with great numbers of military men (i.e. “Saving Private Ryan”, “Band of Brothers”, etc). I must really rely on hair and clothing styles. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/14 "2006-01-14T18:33:35Z")
> [@laina\_f](#): > > A friend from Taiwan once told me quite seriously that “all white people look alike”. > > An acquaintance from Macedonia said that her people didn’t understand why Americans wore white socks all the time. I looked around and was surprised to see how often we do wear white socks. In 9th grade Social Studies, we had to read part of an account given by a Chinese official who had met a Portuguese envoy, his first encounter with westerners. He started out with “They all look alike, although some are taller than others.” ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/15 "2006-01-14T18:57:40Z")
Synopsis of a comedy skit from Canadian TV (probably [Shaun Majumer](http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/cast.html#shaun)) : Scene: a Toronto enclosed bus shelter. One lone white chap is skulking in the corner whilst a gang of subcont. Indian toughs block the exit. I.T. #1: " What’s that _smell?_" I.T.#2: " Ewwww, _Kraft Dinner!_ ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/16 "2006-01-14T18:58:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Gweilo all look the same, just vary in degrees of height and fatness. And hair. Some have hair which is dark like the yellow man, but beneath, on their faces, their pudgy, pock-marked skin and flabby eyes, sometimes a shallow watery blue, resemble a cruel charade of our natural beauty. Some have yellow hair, which highlights their pink, pointed noses. Some, and these I cannot look upon, have hair which looks like threads of goldfish, and brown spots across their translucent faces. They grow hair all over their bodies, and look like fat monkeys. The ugly sproutings also extend to their women, gweipoh, some of whom have hair on their legs like a man and under their armpits, making me nauseous. > > Gweipoh are shrieking harpies; they push their way into everything, intrude on the real business of men. It is from their subservience to their women that we see the weakness of the barbarian races. Any country which allows a gweipoh to rule over them indicates that its men have lost their grip on the situation. Gweipoh are usually ugly and also fat. I make exception for the few who make their way into the films or dance naked in the Crazy Paris Show in Macau, who are attractive in a perverse kind of way, their liberation hinting at an unnatural predilection for sex. > > The white races turn green in the face of chicken’s feet or a healthy Chiu Chow duck intestine hot-pot. They deem our tastes bizarre and unhealthy. Few will even dare to try dog stew, even in the winter. They have forgotten their time in the huts, squatting by a single field, when to own a chicken is to have three meals. They imbue their animals with sentimental personalities, and, especially the gweipoh, often refuse to eat anything that moves on the earth on whose back the sun shines. Yet the majority sate themselves with obscene quantities of meat, which is why they are all fat. Their predilection for beer makes them smell, and in the warmth of the South China coast they sweat disgustingly, which makes them smell worse. > > Their fledgling culture is blunt and brutal, unsophisticated cant. They constantly and loudly spout what they perceive as truth, but ignore the subtleties which colour every argument. Their social gatherings are filled with noise, whereas those with intelligence know that more may be perceived from silence than from ceaseless chatter. They call themselves individuals, then constantly behave like each other. I grew tired of trying to understand them long ago. I know them, of course, and can predict what they do, but I couldn’t tell you why. They are an unpleasant tribe, universally despised, humoured when politic, occasionally used, normally ignored. (I wrote this as fiction, from the PoV of a racist Chinese businessman.) ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/17 "2006-01-14T19:18:54Z")
A software company I once worked at had a quite mixed set of employees – various European, Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Korean ancestries. One day, one of the Chinese fellows needed to take a document to one of the secretaries, “Maureen.” “Which one is Maureen?” he asked me. “You know her,” I responded. “She’s the Irish lady.” She had the stereotypical Irish look – pale complexion, red hair, greenish eyes. The Chinese man had no idea what I meant. He looked a bit embarrased. “You all look alike to us,” he admitted. We talked about this further. He honestly saw little difference between the olive-skinned Italians and the pale Irish folks. OTOH, it was quite obvious to him which of the Asian folks were Vietnamese and which were Korean or Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/18 "2006-01-14T19:25:40Z")
> [@laina\_f](#): > > A friend from Taiwan once told me quite seriously that “all white people look alike”. [Cecil says](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030523.html) that this is to be expected. ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/19 "2006-01-14T19:50:38Z")
When I lived in the far north of Japan few foreigners (of any nationality) lived there. One of my friends was a British woman, very short and petite with very long hair, then, in the same town, an American woman came - she was very tall and heavy (butt was a shelf), with long hair. You’d be surprised how many times people confused them. Denise was often told she’d been seen somewhere she hadn’t been and Andy was complemented on her saxophone playing skills, when she didn’t play saxophone! ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964/20 "2006-01-14T20:48:50Z")
Actually, I think most Chinese men think Americans are wusses when it comes to alcohol. We don’t have really strong alcohols and we don’t drink nearly as much as them. Drinking in China is part of the culture. It’s a bad part, in my opinion, but it is part. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-stereotypes-of-white-people/339964.md?page=2)