Chinese tourists

corner back 2

We just had a very surreal experience with some Chinese tourists while on holiday in the US. We were wheeling our 14 month old little girl in her stroller and their reaction to her was unbelievable. They were taking photos of her without asking permission and calling over friends to look at her. At first we didnt mind and she was smiling back but then there was a group of older chinese women and their reaction was bordering on hysteria. They wanted their photos taken with her again without asking and at this stage we became a bit unnerved and left. Can anyone explain their reaction. The only thing I could find online was that big eyes are a sign of beauty in China and many people do remark about my daughter's eyes but we have never experienced a reaction like this before.

DoYouEvenLift

Could be that they're mind blown at someone taking decent care of a baby, and even more so a baby girl.

clever user name

It's normal in China. I lived there for 2 years, one of which was in a smallish city. I would random people coming up to asking to have a picture taking with me. Women giving me their baby so that they could take a picture. It's a bit crazy when you first experience it. My guess would be that they were from a smaller city where there are not many foreign people. People from Shanghai, Beijing etc are more used to seeing white people.

Ohhh, and the eyes. I would imagine it was more to do with the colour of your babies eyes. Since they all pretty much have the same eye colour, they are fascinated with people who have blue/green/light brown eyes. I would often hear comments of 'Oh, I want your eyes'.

They mean no harm, they just probably don't know that doing things like that is not normal in the west.

corner back 2

Tilly wrote:

I don't understand how people can join these groups when they're totally made up.

dohouch wrote:

Yanks ( or Yankers ) is an obvious one, but maybe a new term, that has to easily understood by most of the rest of the world.

clever user name wrote:

It's normal in China. I lived there for 2 years, one of which was in a smallish city. I would random people coming up to asking to have a picture taking with me. Women giving me their baby so that they could take a picture. It's a bit crazy when you first experience it. My guess would be that they were from a smaller city where there are not many foreign people. People from Shanghai, Beijing etc are more used to seeing white people.

clever user name wrote:

They mean no harm, they just probably don't know that doing things like that is not normal in the west.

clever user name wrote:

Ohhh, and the eyes. I would imagine it was more to do with the colour of your babies eyes. Since they all pretty much have the same eye colour, they are fascinated with people who have blue/green/light brown eyes. I would often hear comments of 'Oh, I want your eyes'.

Thanks for that she has bright blue eyes. As this happened in the USA I would have thought that the Chinese people we encountered were well travelled and would be a bit more aware of western norms. We are fairly relaxed and I imagine other people might have reacted a lot more negatively and possibly even aggressively.

clever user name

corner back 2 wrote: »

Thanks for that she has bright blue eyes. As this happened in the USA I would have thought that the Chinese people we encountered were well travelled and would be a bit more aware of western norms. We are fairly relaxed and I imagine other people might have reacted a lot more negatively and possibly even aggressively.

Well like I said, I reckon they were from a small town or city. Either that or their first time abroad. The first year I was there I lived in a 'town' with only 1 and half million people. There were 6 foreign people living there, including me. We were like celebrities.

There's no privacy in China. What I mean by that is there is no such thing as "I just want be left alone". Friends and family do everything together. I had random people knocking on my door just to say hello and come in for a cup of tea. Everything knows everything about everyone. Even though they can be quite shy, if you start to talking to them some of the first questions they will ask you is how old you are? Are you married? No!! Why not?

It's kind of hard to explain unless you have been there. Rest assured when I read your post I was not the slightest bit surprised.

Amazing people though, once you get past the little oddities.

df1985

I spent a month in China last September and its the closest thing I can imagine to what it is to be famous, and if that's what fame is, then i don't want it!

As mentioned pictures, staring, pointing etc etc. I was handed babies even in shanghai for photos. Sometimes if I posed for a photo with something famous behind me etc, a chinese person would take a sneaky pic too. I sat eating an ice cream beside a tree one day and they pretended they wanted a picture of the tree....

It was mostly curiousity, no real badness in it. Teenage girls and old women were the worst for it, I was the only westerner on a three day boat trip on the yangtze river and I was the VIP on the boat! All the aul ones were looking after me!

Also, for the first two weeks I had a big bushy beard like a typical backpacker. Facial hair is non existent in Asia really, they just cant grow them. Had to shave it off as the attention was too much, couldn't eat a meal without a photo taken and when you're hungover and just want to be in peace it gets a bit much!

Depraved

I was at a Burger Machine outlet this morning (in a very non-touristy area of The Philippines) and a 3 year old boy came up to me and tried to climb up on to my lap. His mother didn't seem bothered in the slightest. I'm still getting used to things like this. It's not unusual for strangers to come up and start talking to me and touching my arms (the pale skin is very attractive to them).

As above...personal space & privacy are non existent. I've even had a guest enter my home and then proceed to cook themselves a meal without even asking whilst I was in the C.R (bathroom).

I only spent 2 weeks in China whilst working, and I had similar reactions & behaviour.

DoYouEvenLift

Depraved wrote: »

I was at a Burger Machine outlet this morning (in a very non-touristy area of The Philippines) and a 3 year old boy came up to me and tried to climb up on to my lap. His mother didn't seem bothered in the slightest. I'm still getting used to things like this. It's not unusual for strangers to come up and start talking to me and touching my arms (the pale skin is very attractive to them).

As above...personal space & privacy are non existent. I've even had a guest enter my home and then proceed to cook themselves a meal without even asking whilst I was in the C.R (bathroom).

I only spent 2 weeks in China whilst working, and I had similar reactions & behaviour.

What the fuk. Did they at least share?

blinding

The Chinese seem a bit funny alright.

I'm off to China to feel Famous/ a celebrity.

After a week I will return to look down on my underlings here in a most condescending manner.

This will last until I get the first puck in the Gob.

ToddyDoody

corner back 2 wrote: »

We just had a very surreal experience with some Chinese tourists while on holiday in the US. We were wheeling our 14 month old little girl in her stroller and their reaction to her was unbelievable. They were taking photos of her without asking permission and calling over friends to look at her. At first we didnt mind and she was smiling back but then there was a group of older chinese women and their reaction was bordering on hysteria. They wanted their photos taken with her again without asking and at this stage we became a bit unnerved and left. Can anyone explain their reaction. The only thing I could find online was that big eyes are a sign of beauty in China and many people do remark about my daughter's eyes but we have never experienced a reaction like this before.

They do it with the designer shoes too with a view to manufacturing cheap knock-offs

Señor Fancy Pants

Does your kid have red hair?

Yurt2

I was on a train in rural China (and I'm talking the absolute sticks in West China) . Train ride was about 5 hours to get where I was going. Word got through there was a whitey on the train. About half an hour in there was a queue of auld lads wanting to have a look at me giving me food, drinking shots and buying me beer. Was blotto leaving the train. I had pictures of my family I as a bookmark which got taken and passed around the train. No sense of space or privacy as someone else mentioned. The Chinese in general are fantastic people.

Menas

Yurt! wrote: »

I was on a train in rural China (and I'm talking the absolute sticks in West China) . Train ride was about 5 hours to get where I was going. Word got through there was a whitey on the train. About half an hour in there was a queue of auld lads wanting to have a look at me giving me food, drinking shots and buying me beer. Was blotto leaving the train. I had pictures of my family I as a bookmark which got taken and passed around the train. No sense of space or privacy as someone else mentioned. The Chinese in general are fantastic people.

Something very similar happened to myself. You dont see it so much in Beijing but outside of there people get very interested when a westerner arrives in town.
You are right, they mean no harm by it, just curious is all.

arayess

i've never been to china but what gets me is in dublin - chinese tourist groups eating in jimmy chungs.
like wtf....

worked with a few chinese ladies over the years and they do ask a lot of personal questions moreso than the average punter. No harm intended it's just they like to know stuff.
I know a thai lady and she is similar but not as intrusive.

keith16

There's plenty of Western tourists guilty of the same when they head to Asia.

Links234

Yurt! wrote: »

The Chinese in general are fantastic people.

You might even say, they're a great bunch of lads?

murpho999

arayess wrote: »

i've never been to china but what gets me is in dublin - chinese tourist groups eating in jimmy chungs.
like wtf....

worked with a few chinese ladies over the years and they do ask a lot of personal questions moreso than the average punter. No harm intended it's just they like to know stuff.
I know a thai lady and she is similar but not as intrusive.

Hardly shocking that Chinese people prefer to eat Chinese food is it?

I'd say they find the dishes weird and poor quality though.

APM

I live in Hong Kong, and despite the mainland Chinese tourists being disgusting spitting everywhere, they have also tried to have photographs taken with me (ginger Irish). We've also spotted them taking pictures on the sly on the train/subway. My fiancé was sitting opposite to me and beside one and saw his screen as he was taking the pictures.

At first it was a bit of fun until one of my colleagues in work told me the story of about his 3 year old blonde daughter, basically they continually wanted to touch her hair wherever they went.

It turns out, they believe not that they will "get luck" from touching her hair but actually they will steal her luck away from her. Not really what you want when you have a 3 year old daughter

Even without that, I don't appreciate Chinese tourists taking my picture so they can later on have a chuckle with their mates.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ant_eidw/18260548510/sizes/m/

APM

murpho999 wrote: »

Hardly shocking that Chinese people prefer to eat Chinese food is it?

I'd say they find the dishes weird and poor quality though.

Except in China, Chinese food is just called "food"

blinding

APM wrote: »

Except in China, Chinese food is just called "food"

Heh hold on a minute…………….:eek: A Yeah your right ! ! !

Rawr

I lived in a rural city in mainland China for a year way back in my youth. A little place with just a million people living there. (Smallish by Chinese standards)

Despite being a city, it was very much off the beaten track, and I was one of only probably 12 - 15 foreigners living there. The experience was surreal to say the very least, with an entire city noticing you immediately. As one poster put it, it was kind of what I imagined be famous would feel like.

Although I like them, the Chinese can be an *interesting* bunch to say the least, and I could go on for many pages on the various quirks that they tend to have.

However I can certainly confirm the OPs experience with the tourist's reaction to their child. Some Chinese seem somewhat interested the appearance of Caucasians but go nuts whenever they encounter a Caucasian child. Especially a baby or toddler. I'm not sure why it is so, but my guess is that this pushes all of their 'cute' buttons at once and they need to react.

Although China is interacting a lot more with the Western World in the last couple of decades you are still probably going to encounter Chinese tourists who have never left their particular corner of China before, and thus they're still going to go nuts for babies such as the OP's

biko

I'm still trying to figure out whether OPs baby is very cute or very ugly.


These are cute
http://s24.postimg.org/et4dyovg5/CFTd_Z9b_W0_AAw_God.jpg

Yurt2

APM wrote: »

I live in Hong Kong, and despite the mainland Chinese tourists being disgusting spitting everywhere, they have also tried to have photographs taken with me (ginger Irish). We've also spotted them taking pictures on the sly on the train/subway. My fiancé was sitting opposite to me and beside one and saw his screen as he was taking the pictures.

At first it was a bit of fun until one of my colleagues in work told me the story of about his 3 year old blonde daughter, basically they continually wanted to touch her hair wherever they went.

It turns out, they believe not that they will "get luck" from touching her hair but actually they will steal her luck away from her. Not really what you want when you have a 3 year old daughter

Even without that, I don't appreciate Chinese tourists taking my picture so they can later on have a chuckle with their mates.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ant_eidw/18260548510/sizes/m/

I see you've embraced the Hong Kong attitude towards mainlanders. Mainlanders are rough and ready but the HK attitude towards them stinks. Their noses firmly in the air thinking they're a higher class of Chinese person.

Interesting how British colonial attitudes of superiority were subsumed by Hong Kongers and projected on to other Chinese people.

HK prosperity is only possible because of the mainland, and the 'locusts' bring hundreds of millions of dollars (probably billions) into the HK economy each year.

seamus

Yurt! wrote: »

I see you've embraced the Hong Kong attitude towards mainlanders. Mainlanders are rough and ready but the HK attitude towards them stinks. Their noses firmly in the air thinking they're a higher class of Chinese person.

Interesting how British colonial attitudes of superiority were subsumed by Hong Kongers and projected on to other Chinese people.

HK prosperity is only possible because of the mainland, and the 'locusts' bring hundreds of millions of dollars (probably billions) into the HK economy each year.

To be fair, Chinese tourists have been building a bad reputation worldwide for being dirty and disrespectful. Like not understanding the concept of queueing and just rushing things all at once, or carving their initials into 3,500-year-old artifacts.
That's not to say that everyone else is perfect, but it's a bit much to make some hipsterish proclamations about old colonialism, when even the Chinese government themselves have admitted an issue with their tourists' conduct overseas.

I've a friend who spent two years living in China, probably a "small" town of million like others have mentioned. One of the only foreigners around, 6'2" beanpole, Irish white and bright red hair & beard. Found himself being followed in the streets most days by groups of schoolchildren.
Was celebrated like a rock star at the local pub for being able to drink 6 pints in a single sitting. Even the barflies couldn't match him. He also managed to drink it dry of Guinness one week (they must have only got stock in every few weeks or something). We've always found this funny because at home he's notorious for getting pissed on the fumes and heading home locked after 4 pints.

Alun

df1985 wrote: »

Also, for the first two weeks I had a big bushy beard like a typical backpacker. Facial hair is non existent in Asia really, they just cant grow them. Had to shave it off as the attention was too much, couldn't eat a meal without a photo taken and when you're hungover and just want to be in peace it gets a bit much!

That reminds me of when I was in China back in the 80's, and my wife and I took a rickshaw ride in Beijing. The driver was fascinated by my hairy legs as I had shorts on, and at the end of the trip wanted to stroke them :eek: If that wasn't bad enough he then called over all his fellow rickshaw drivers as well. Time to beat a hasty retreat!!

We were also constantly surrounded by Chinese kids if we stood still for more than 10 seconds all wanting to try out their English.

biko

People seem to confuse how we treat foreigners with how others do.

First of all - we see immigrants of various shapes and colours every day.
In places like China and Japan they don't. Seeing white foreigners there is a big deal as the population is 99.99% homogeneous.

Secondly - just because it's impolite to stare in your culture doesn't mean it's impolite in another. I have found Asians and Arabs to stop and stare when they see me, and I'm not even blonde. Just take it on the chin and move on.

silverfeather

Bull**** post is bull****. I have found Chinese people to be super polite and very friendly. Go home OP.

Yurt2

seamus wrote: »

To be fair, Chinese tourists have been building a bad reputation worldwide for being dirty and disrespectful. Like not understanding the concept of queueing and just rushing things all at once, or carving their initials into 3,500-year-old artifacts.
That's not to say that everyone else is perfect, but it's a bit much to make some hipsterish proclamations about old colonialism, when even the Chinese government themselves have admitted an issue with their tourists' conduct overseas.

I've a friend who spent two years living in China, probably a "small" town of million like others have mentioned. One of the only foreigners around, 6'2" beanpole, Irish white and bright red hair & beard. Found himself being followed in the streets most days by groups of schoolchildren.
Was celebrated like a rock star at the local pub for being able to drink 6 pints in a single sitting. Even the barflies couldn't match him. He also managed to drink it dry of Guinness one week (they must have only got stock in every few weeks or something). We've always found this funny because at home he's notorious for getting pissed on the fumes and heading home locked after 4 pints.

Hipsterish?? Again, Chinese can come across as rough around the edges, but it's rich of Chinese people only a couple of generations removed from the mainland themselves to have an outright xenophobic and 'us and them' attitude towards people from the PRC. If they have a problem with the CCP let them say so, but the prevailing disposition is that the mainlanders coming to shop in HK are 'locusts'. It's sucky to be contemptuous towards fellow countrymen and women because of a haughty post colonial attitude. And that haughtiness and superiority complex is evident all over HK media as well as on the streets and is very observable if you've been there.

*Rides off on fixie bike with 'hipster opinion'*

silverfeather

How many non Irish close friends do you have OP??? Seriously?

one day man

Sounds like a great laugh. Must go there for the attention and maybe charge a few coins for my freakish blessing.

Rawr

Yurt! wrote: »

Hipsterish?? Again, Chinese can come across as rough around the edges, but it's rich of Chinese people only a couple of generations removed from the mainland themselves to have an outright xenophobic and 'us and them' attitude towards people from the PRC. If they have a problem with the CCP let them say so, but the prevailing disposition is that the mainlanders coming to shop in HK are 'locusts'. It's sucky to be contemptuous towards fellow countrymen and women because of a haughty post colonial attitude. And that haughtiness and superiority complex is evident all over HK media as well as on the streets and is very observable if you've been there.

*Rides off on fixie bike with 'hipster opinion'*

Perception may be that you don't get away with 'dissing' the old CCP in China Could be easier (or safer) to just complain about mainlander habits.

They are essentially in the same country, so it would be nice if they got on. They could learn a lot from each other. Mainlanders could learn the manners that the HK folk got off the British, and HK could learn to lower the damn price of everything and make it more like mainland prices. That city is expensive as hell!