I’ve lived in China for 5 years.
Many of the things you list indeed grind my gears (esp the spitting).
But you can’t view everything in western terms and say everyone is a jerk. For example, on the pushing in thing, the “pushee” is rarely annoyed. That’s because it’s not about someone pushing in because they think their time is more valuable than the next man, but because they’re blinkered and just not looking or thinking about what’s going on around them.
In fact, if you just see Chinese people as having tunnel vision it makes sense of a lot of things; like how if you walk up to a counter you need to grab the attention of the teller before they acknowledge your presence.
And in some ways it’s liberating. “You do you” is the philosophy here. If I needed to, I dunno, ride home one day on a pink girl’s bike, I wouldn’t hesitate.
And this goes with the fact it’s a less violent culture; they might have jerks but without the macho culture (like we have in the west) to go with it, most such situations are pretty benign.
This also proves the OP is right. Your egg rolls and Moo Koo Guy Pan arrive an hour late and the little Chinaman thinks nothing of it. He still expects a tip or he’ll spit on you. That’s just the Chinese culture, brought over from China (or, as the OP would have it, china). Our culture here in the west is that you get your pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free. This is why we’re superior to the Chinese (or “chinese”).
Chinese can be very blunt on some topics that seem way out their to Westerners, but nothing to do with your reason above. Like what’s your salary, what kind of benefits to you get. In the 1980’s when I first went to China it was a litany checklist as soon as I was discovered I could speak Chinese "where are " “how are your parents health” “how much money do you make”…The money shot was always awkward and most folks would want to know exactly how much. 6 figures was not going to cut it. As a poor college student, I would frame it in terms of I pay xxx for rent (wahhh, so expensive), pay yyy for food (how can?), pay zzzz for transportation (you have a Ford Pinto junker that costs more than my village income, etc. Then and only then would I confess to a staving students salary which would still sound like a princely sum with most locals made around RMB20/month plus some ration coupon or about USD4/month at today’s exchange rate.
From the Chinese culture, that was not a rude question. It was a way of measuring rank in an erstwhile egalitarian socialist economy. The Chinese eliminated class but not rank, and those in the know could figure out your rank based on the monthly salary (even if it were $4/month, or $5/month, or a princely $8/month, or by the number of fountain pens one could sport in the breast pocket, or if one could smoke foreign cigarettes or any number of other clues. A poor college student from America could break that norm.
Chinese (and Russian) bluntness has little to do with political liberation; it’s how they think. They’re collectivist cultures, and collectivist cultures have less regard for individuals and their feelings. If you’re doing something wrong, if you’re messing up a project, if your route to work could be 2 minutes shorter by taking another route, if you’re fat, if your hair looks messed up, if there’s a wrinkle on your shirt, if you look ugly…the way they see it, somebody needs to tell you. They don’t give a shit how you feel about it, either. From their point of view, it’s better to hear the cold, hard truth and be given the chance to improve, even if just a little bit, than to walk around having your little ego protected. Maybe the OP got his feelings hurt?
Yes there’s a bluntness, but as I mentioned upthread, if someone doesn’t know you, they are less likely to get involved in your business (or just give you disapproving looks) than I find in the West. I find zero need to conform here.
I’ve never been to China, but among the Chinese people I know, there are several really kind people, several blistering assholes, and mostly normal people in between.
The spitting thing was one of the hardest things for me to get used to. Its fucking gross… That, and being stared at all of the time. I spent some time in Beijing and every time I took the train, I could plan on being stared at for 45 minutes straight. I realize that a 6’2" bald white guy with a full beard is a bit of an anomoly, but it got really old after a while.
I mentioned this thread to my wife. Apparently women with babies will hold them over bins when they need to poo. Which shows the mums are good at telling the signs of oncoming poo and that binman must be an awful job there.
Also my brother in law (6’8" skinny black guy) got along really well with locals but government and business people were massively racist.
They were really nice to father in law but he’s fairly rich and brushes up well so that’s probably part (BiL is a bit of a yardie)
I’ve never been to China, but I had the misfortune of living in Flushing, NY for a mercifully brief period*. Flushing has become one of the biggest “Chinatowns” in the U.S. My God, what is the fucking deal with all the FUCKING SPITTING? It’s not just “ptooey” but rather hawking up great gobs of phlegm. All ages and genders. It’s foul.
*My overall dislike of Flushing had nothing to do with Chinese people or just the spitting. It’s an ugly, over-crowded shithole no matter who lives there.
I do know that I’ve read multiple accounts of defectors from North Korea who said that going to China was the first time they experienced genuine human kindness from strangers. But again, life is hell on earth in North Korea.
Does Mao and the cultural revolution/famine play a role in this? Did people’s sense of community get damaged by Mao and his revolutions?
I do wonder if China recently being poor is a reason, but South Korea was poor recently and they don’t act like this.
I’ve lived in China for five years now, one year in Maoming and four years in Beijing. I have never seen anyone hold their kid over a bin. What I have seen quite often is the kid urinating or crapping when and where the urge strikes them. No worry about the trousers getting soiled since the crotch is cut out of the pants to facilitate the excretion. Thankfully more parents seem to be switching to diapering their little darlings.
I also see loogie minefields almost everywhere, along with dog droppings. Thankfully more dog owners seem to be switching to walking their pets on a leash and cleaning up after the critters.
We limerick fanciers must object to that assessment. A limerick requires a distinct rhyme and meter. Allow me to illustrate:
There was a young lady from China
(The Chinese men all called her Dinah)
But appalled by the spitting
not to mention the shitting
She moved out to North Carolina