A group of ex-pat teachers and I were recently joined for a restaurant dinner by a couple of Chinese girls who attended at the invitation of one of our group. At best they were only modestly interesting and attractive, and typical of most Chinese I’ve met (especially the women), were entirely absent from the discussion when it came time for every one, including the lone female ex-pat, to cough up their share of the bill. The Chinese girls did not offer a thank-you for their dinner and drinks.
They were happy, however, to join us when we decided to make a night of it at a nearby club. Even better, no sooner had we arrived at the club than we were joined by the male friend of one of them. In China it is typical for nightclubs to require payment upon ordering, prior to drinks actually arriving at the table. So we ordered a bottle of Scotch and enough beer to see all of us through the evening, for which the bill came to about 800 yuan, roughly $130.
Naturally enough, we divided the total among the group and asked the Chinese to contribute an equal share. Within moments, all three unceremoniously got up and left without bothering to say good-bye.
It has been my consistent experience that foreigners are viewed locally as resources to be exploited, by right of skin color, ethnicity and location of birth. This incident, one of many, has in no way altered my opinion.
I met a rather pretty young Chinese woman recently who speaks fairly good English and has lived, worked and studied in Brussels. She and I have exchanged language lessons – I teach her specialized English in topics such as economics, law and politics, while she teaches me basic Chinese. She is clearly intelligent and hard-working, yet her teaching skills are poor – I have had to instruct her on the best methods for teaching me Chinese. (To be fair, this is a problem I’ve encountered back home as well – I can almost always teach myself faster and more effectively than any instructor).
I took Sasha (her self-given ‘English’ name) for lunch shortly after meeting her, and while she impressed me with her non-parochial world-view, education and intelligence, I was also a tad dismayed by a couple of things. One was the fact that she told me at least five times over the course of our meal how handsome I am. I appreciate flattery as much as anyone, but the compliments felt forced, perhaps even manipulative. And in all honesty, I just ain’t that handsome.
Another thing that turned me off was her skin. Open pustulating pimples, greasy and oily face, coupled with hair that was clearly washed only weekly or so, were enough to put me off my feed, so to speak. This is not rare, either. I don’t know if it is a cultural or economic issue, but it is uncommon in Benxi for me to meet a woman who looks, and more importantly smells, fresh and clean.
Perhaps of most interest; we were discussing the myriad ways by which the Chinese take financial advantage of Westerners (through dishonest and illegal contracts and outright lying and cheating), when she came up with the comment that she felt Chinese were more intelligent than Westerners, by virtue of their ability to ‘outsmart’ them in business dealings. Needless to say, I merely nodded and smiled.
While teaching a class of sixth-graders, a boy in the front row was fooling around, so I absently tapped him (quite gently) on the head with the blackboard eraser I was carrying in my hand. A few small bits of chalk dust drifted onto his face, and apparently into one of his eyes. He made a big fuss over it, so at the end of class I examined his eye, but saw zero signs of irritation, such as redness or swelling, and told him he would be fine.
Shortly thereafter, I was hauled unceremoniously into the English supervisor’s office. She informed me in no uncertain terms that abusing the children in anger was not to be tolerated. When I pointed out that there was no anger or abuse involved whatsoever, merely a trivial incident, she launched into an utterly irrational discourse, including calling me by the wrong name, reminding me that Chinese parents love their children much more than American parents, and that I would be required to pay for the obviously necessary visit to hospital.
When I pointed out that I am Canadian, not American, that she got my name wrong, that the boy’s eye was fine, and that the Chinese love for their children includes allowing their Chinese teachers (almost all female) to punch, kick, slap and otherwise physically abuse them without mercy (I’ve seen this dozens of times, with the boys taking the vast majority of the abuse while the girls cry), and that her position was disingenuous at best, she subsided and contented herself by pointing out that it had better not happen again.
My response was to go home and look up the Chinese for ‘go fuck yourself, you stupid cunt,’ which I did, and am thus now armed for our next encounter, which, judging by past experience, ought to be next month or so.
A fellow ex-pat in Benxi, an Irishman who teaches at another school, showed me a video he took of a young woman in Shen Yang ( a large city just north of here). He was motivated to point his smart-phone at her because she was behaving oddly, squirming and fidgeting while sitting on a main street public bench.
This young woman, wearing a skirt, positioned her buttocks over the back edge of the bench, whisked off her panties, hiked up her skirt, took a shit in full public view, pulled out a piece of tissue and wiped herself, tossed the tissue behind her, then put her panties back on and walked away. Yet, there are public toilets available almost everywhere one goes in this city. There is no explanation. I am hoping to get a copy of the video, and will post it online if possible.
I can offer many more examples, but the point is this: the irrational, self-serving, deceitful and abusive behavior I’ve witnessed here is primarily female. Male treachery is of course present, although I have almost no personal anecdotes to relate, but in my estimation it bears the hallmarks of masculinity – it is obvious, undisguised, rationally selfish, and thus fairly predictable.
Not so the women.
