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Chinese women and the art of 撒娇 (sa jiao)

/ knox / 3 Comments

There are many cultural difference which I have overcome over the years, some are easier than others, as they should be depending on the individual. In this blog, I will talk about the most difficult one for me, yes even more difficult than someone staring at me as if I am not of this planet.

撒娇 or sa jiao, means playfully pouting or flighty, but in chinese it doesn’t have the negative connotation as it does in the west. If you have any experience with chinese women, you have experience with 撒娇. It is ingrained in the culture, it is actually looked at as essential to feminism. Examples of 撒娇 would be pouting with your lips, making a child-like voice from time to time, basically acting like a teenage white girl from the valley after her father refuses to buy her clothes at the mall….actually, its pretty much like acting like a teenage spoiled valley girl from the burbs entirely. Everything from “Buy me this”, “I hurt my knee, look *pouty face*” “why do you love me?” (this question is asked once a week during the episodes of 撒娇), random out bursts and tantrums to get your attention, and so on.

As an american, especially a black american, this is difficult, because after H.S, after 18, you are raised to be like a spartan, independent, self-sufficient, strong, never showing weakness, never retreat, never surr….you get my drift. We learn (including the women, especially black women) very early that showing weakness can make you appear gullible, weak, immature, stupid, traits that aren’t associated with attractiveness in western culture, heck even complaining too much is an utter turn off, you’ll be called “soft” or a “lame” or in regards to women “airhead” “bimbo”. To the chinese man, it makes them feel masculine, to the american man it makes us feel like a pedo. When my gf is having her 撒娇, I try very hard not to be turned off, when she’s showing me an area that she burned while she cooked (no marking of course) with her pouty face and glazed eyes, I try to care, when she needs me to walk her to the bathroom at the lounge, I just go, when she has her random emotional outbursts, random jealousy and clingy episodes to test my emotional attachment to her, I remain calm, when she’s asking me why I love her for the 4345353 time, I just respond with the exact same generic answer. Why? because she’s chinese, this is her culture, I love her and thus ultimately this is what I signed up for.

Chinese sex

/ knox / 3 Comments

I was talking to a couple of girls about this topic. I asked them to tell me some words that chinese say during sex. After that I asked them what they thought about foreigners using these words and they said it was a complete and utter turnoff. I found that a bit strange since they sex talk in english when they’re with foreigners and I’ve not met a guy who was turned off by this. Hmm. When you ask a chinese girl which she would prefer from you (foreigner), she will almost always say english, and then when you ask them why they don’t sex talk in chinese, or you request it, they will almost always say “no!” “its strange!” ” nooo, you can’t understand anyways!” I think most guys get turned on MORE hearing a girl talk in her native tongue, I know I do….from spanish to french, heck even hebrew would turn me on more than them speaking english. Now if we could get chinese girls to be more open about sex talking in chinese….. and I allow me to say some words in chinese since I let them use english 😛

Easter has me thinking: Chinese and Christianity

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I have come across a handful of chinese whom when I ask “what religion are you?”, a question I like to ask to gauge how many buddhists or confucians are there, have been met with ‘christianity’. Now this comes to surprise to me, and it could be because I’m american where I see churches on damn near every major intersection, yet I don’t see any churches other than historical archives from temporary invaders like the germans, nice cathedrals which have become empty halls for tourism. I don’t recall reading about any intense missionary work in china like one might have in africa, south america or the many other places colonized for decades, the chinese did a great job curbing that nonsense. Where did these individuals find this christian identity? Although I’m a pantheist, I grew up a christian, I had to wake up every sunday morning to go to church since I was a wee young lad, I remember sunday school learning about Jacob, Job, Noah, Ishmael, Jesus, Paul, Peter, Revelations, the distinction between the old and new testament and what have you. Even the westerners that didn’t go to church religiously, they know about christianity, its around us, we have the holidays, christmas, easter, attending church for weddings. And so one might just ‘call’ themselves a christian even though they may have only attended church a handful of times in their lifetime. But how does this transfer over to the chinese? Have these individuals ever gone to church? One girl I asked stated yes, they’re hidden, instead of church it will be a hall with foreigners, when asked if she owned a bible, said no, asked if she knew who Cain was, said no, another said he just did his research and liked the stories, I didn’t quiz him. I take this to be how some westerners claim buddhism after reading a few books, quotes, yet have never actually been to a temple, probably couldn’t recite a buddhist chant, have no real buddhist beads, but a folder and fb wall full of quotes. I guess to some, christianity is just a cool label, a cool ‘cross’ tatt or ‘cross’ on their wall for decoration while admiring the teachings of jesus, the cool walk on water story, but I don’t get a sense that they are true christians as we in the west would call them. Now I’m not saying there are no christians in china, I am pretty sure there are, but I’m talking about the collective group who choose the label while not actually attending a single church in their life or couldn’t tell you a story past jesus and his disciples which hadn’t been picked up from the movie passion of the christ.

Such an odd religion to pick when you have such cool ones here but I guess thats the influence of capitalism where I find myself surrounded by christmas decorations on christmas (first time I saw this I said wtf pretty loud lol), where folks celebrate “St” Valentine’s Day and Halloween, you might even see some easter candy on sale. Bit funny how they know most of our religious holidays and even celebrate them (Valentine day is the most popular, you see loads of things on sale), but not our national ones (of course). Meanwhile we in the west couldn’t tell you a single chinese holiday past chinese new years. Intriguing.

People ask me if I’ve ever been denied access into a place for being black or a foreigner

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Yes I have. Not often, maybe once or twice in 3 years, but I have. Now before you assume China is extremely racist, let me put things into perspective. China used to be a bit of a  ‘hermit’ country, so they have a bit of xenophobia and are still learning to cope with globalization.

Me and my boy from London (white guy) got denied access into a chinese hostess bar. Typically I stay away from places like this, but we just wanted to see how weird it was – the door man  however, had other plans: access denied lol. I guess it doesn’t bother us foreigners that much because this isn’t our home, it’s not like its happening in OUR country, that would be a bit different. Out here, you kind of just respect it, like you know you may not have access to everything its their country and maybe culturally you being an outsider might not be able to stomp around where ever you want like you own the place, basically as a foreigner, you know you may have limited rights. They also have a history of invasion so they’re a bit uptight. On the flip side, you don’t want to really go places where there’s not SOME foreigners and you’re out numbered anyways. Girls + Liquor + Jealousy + Tribalism = Violence. This is why some westerners are always getting their asses kicked. I’m too street smart and been doing this for way too long to get caught up in that drama, but these fresh out of college kids don’t pay attention to their surroundings and think shit is like in the west, where you can just walk up to any ol girl and start making out, you gotta be careful because SOME chinese and koreans (not all but some, you know, swagless non female getting guys) are protective of 2 things; their women and their country. In some respect, the doorman was  probably saving our asses by not allowing us in and being outnumbered by 150 dudes.

Westerners are considered expats, ‘3rd worlders’ are considered immigrants.

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I noticed that in america, we call foreigners, specifically those from “3rd world” countries; immigrants.  Even if they are just there for a vacation, visit or work. However, a westerner abroad in any country is considered an expat. Why is that? Truth be told, I am an american and  I am indeed an immigrant in a foreign country. Why am I called an expat, but a chinese person in america, even just going to school or business contracting is considered an immigrant?  Funny psychological business going on here……

I’m not one to buy into stereotypes, but chinese drivers…..

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…are absolute shit.

It still blows my mind the maneuvers some of these people perform while in traffic. Earlier today someone stopped, while a nice flow of cars were behind him, for no apparent reason. He got out, looked around, then got back in his car and drove off? wtf? why? why would you do that? why would you stop right in the middle of traffic like that?

I touched on this topic before but today I got road rage. You see some downright illogical shit, like people making left turns from the far right lane WHILE A STEADY FLOW OF TRAFFIC IS BEHIND THEM. why????????

Also, maybe its just me but I can’t recall seeing speed limit signs (ill look for them tomorrow), but that doesn’t matter since speeding is never a factor, its people driving slower than molasses that’s the issue!!!! :facepalm:

When you go to computer city to buy something, you will return 3-4 times because it won’t work the first time.

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I swear every time I go to  computer city to fix my computer or buy an item, I end up having to go back because something else goes wrong or the situation I went to fix never gets fixed. I haven’t been around because my laptop has been getting ‘treatment’ and I haven’t taken any pictures because my camera is under construction. oh boy oh joy.

Thing is, the place has great prices so you’re always drawn back and plus their aren’t very many places like it, but, they do mickey mouse jobs. For example, I went in to do some upgrading, I want to get 16gb of ram because one of my sticks flopped (I bought this stick from best buy wtf) and they put in another one. At the time, which was my mistake, I probably should have looked at what stick they entered, but I didn’t. I get home and I get the blue screen of death….wtf. So I open my laptop and I see some no name, off the wall stick that looks like Wang (actual person) just created in his basement. I go back there and I ask them for a name brand. She brings me a samsung, I get home, again blue screen of death. LOL. I laugh but its not funny. This place is a good 45 min away. Next afternoon I go back again, I tell them something is wrong, I did a diagnosis on it and of course the 2 sticks are different……they must be clocking different. They try to put 2 samsung sticks (per my suggestion), they turn on the comp (yea I’m not leaving this time) and instantly bsod. Had I gone home I think I would have thrown the fucking laptop against the wall. They tell me they don’t know whats wrong (I know what’s wrong these sticks aren’t actually samsung and they’re shit), but they suggest I just keep my current stick (which came with the laptop) and wait for them to find another one of my exact stick. How is it I go to this place for an upgrade and manage to go back home with only 8gbs of ram? LOL.

…..but that’s not all. I get home AND NOW MY KEYBOARD DOESN’T WORK ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?????? I push I and it’s y. I push 5 and its z. WOW. I call them and go off. They tell me that they will order me another keyboard. 4 days goes by…….I go down there….again…..they install the keyboard which only takes about 10 min, HOWEVER THE NEW KEYBOARD THEY JUST INSTALLED DOESN’T WORK LOL. The lady apologizes profusely and tells me she will order another. I go home…45 min away. 4 days later…..she calls me, I GO BACK DOWN THERE AGAIN……45 MIN. and finally my keyboard works. Bet I don’t have to go back down there again. WRONG…..WRONG.  Did I forget to mention my camera needs a new sensor, and this whole time it’s been under commission and is on the second floor of this place where I dropped it the first day because I thought…THOUGHT…I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone? HA! So yup, you got it…I have to go back down there to pick up my camera hahahaha.

Let’s see if the camera will be fixed the first time around……..

Well. I have finally caught up. From here on out my blogs will be current not archives.

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No more entries from the past. Just in time for the new year!   All I can say is that now that I am talking PRESENCE, I have gotten quite used to living in China. I know of course this confuses many people that I live abroad but as I try to explain to folks that there are 2 different people in the world, there are those that stay near their family, comfort, home, and then there are explorers, people that go to far away lands and venture out. These type B people are the sort of people that discovered the americas, married locals, hell, america is full of people that they themselves left their home country for a better life in which was foreign to them. Try not to be confused and try to understand. Some people feel comfortable being uncomfortable if that makes any sense…..

anyways its nice to know that from here on out my thoughts will be current. I’m just glad to have an archive I can look back on and compare my *new in china eyes* to my now *veteran eyes*. funny because QD is a transit city most folks don’t last more than a season yet I’ve been here this long.

anyways, its late. but I’m excited to finally have fresh writing material. 🙂

If there’s anything you want me to cover, any ideas, by all means share. I could use some feedback. 🙂