a pinoy’s peek above the Great Wall of chinese inscrutability

[ Note : On balance, this post is rather politically incorrect.  Forewarned is forearmed, thanks for reading! ] WITH THE benefit of hindsight, it’s not hard to understand why there are so many strong emotions and opinions evoked by the Chinese.  Not only are they members or descendants of the largest (so far) ethnic group on the planet, they are overwhelmingly one of the largest migrant groups, spread far and wide all over the world. Chinese are known to be adaptable, hardworking, resilient and loyal to family.  On the other hand, Chinese are also known to be rude, arrogant, materialistic and parochial.  Translated into more familiar terms, they are known to be bastos, mayabang, mukhang pera and suplado sa ibang lahi, certainly not among the more positive traits we as Filipinos and Asians like to be identified with. Lest you call me racially intolerant and insensitive to other cultures, I have more than the traditional 15% Chinese blood that most Filipinos have.  At least two of my grandparents sailed on overcrowded migrant boats from Southern China, and my features are distinctly Cantonese and Fujianese, which happen to be the provinces said forebears came from.  Call it what you want, love/hate your own, or familiarity breeds contempt, but I share affinity with the people of whom I blog. [ Additionally, people all over Southeast Asia (where we come from) like to say they are Chinese Malaysian, Chinese Filipino or Chinese Thai for example, but ethnically and to a large extent culturally, they have retained a generation or more of Chineseness (for lack of a better term).  This is technically accurate in my opinion, but I refer not to them.  Rather it is the mainland Chinese from the People’s Republic of China (PROC), specifically the portion that has migrated to New Zealand, which is of course where I am now. ] Chinese are rude and uncouth.  Let’s get our hands dirty right away shall we?  It’s hardly debatable that many Chinese are loud and unsubtle, not given to say please or may I? and frankly, say what they mean, even if it comes across (in English of course) as discourteous and impolite.  Mahal has a colleague at the sushi bar who is an expert in sushi rolling and seafood salad creation (probably the best in their branch) but is quite poor in customer relations.  She has turned off even the most understanding customer many times, and has never apologized for her behavior. Reason?  In her mind at least, she is frequently misunderstood, and her philosophy is that the customer is always right, but only if he/she is not wrong.  She is always ready to argue about the price of this or that item on the menu, if a price card has been misplaced, or if the wrong amount has been paid.  She may possess the best skills on the staff, but because of her regular “issues” with customers who after all pay all their wages, her career advancement has undoubtedly suffered.  This is too bad, because ironically, she is a kind and generous friend, is good natured and cheerful (after work, of course) and is easier to talk to than the average Chinese. Chinese are materialistic.  Coming from a history rich in famine, drought and starvation so severe people were starting to salivate at each other, it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that the here and now is primordial to the typical Chinese.  With so much emphasis placed on survival and tangible objectives in Chinese society, who can blame them for thinking of food, shelter and necessities first before anything else?   Chinese migrants come to New Zealand with one goal and one goal only, and that is to earn money.  Everything else is secondary, says the same colleague of Mahal who, with her Kiwi husband, newly built house and fat bank account, obviously has reached her goals. Confucianism and the abstractions of religion and philosophy may have been preserved by ethnic overseas Chinese outside their homeland, but not within.  After the years of want  and deprivation in Communist China, wealth and prosperity is now not just a goal but a birthright for Chinese, to make up for all those lost years.  Can you blame them? Chinese are proud and arrogant.  The Chinese like to be the biggest and best in everything, be it in national economy, military strength, science and technology, and most especially now, in sports.  This is the historical result of what Chinese people believe were centuries of persecution from the rest of the world, some of it justified (and some not). I think this blind ambition to be the biggest and best (at the expense of everything else) has trickled down to the attitude and way of thinking of many in the Han race.  A good example would be Chinese students living in New Zealand, particularly the ones who have led a privileged life as only children in China.  Their parents pay first-class tuition to world-class, give them allowances to spend on rent, food and other expenses.  It wouldn’t take much for them to surmise that in the academic sector, Kiwis depend more on Chinese than vice-versa. Now, do the same in other industries like manufacturing, and tourism and we begin to see why Chinese pay other nationalities less than the common courtesy deserved. I’m not trying to defend or even rationalize the behavior of the Chinese, especially as fellow migrants in a hospitable country like New Zealand.  However, I do admit that it is counterproductive for us to judge other races based on our own.  History, culture, values and even body types are just some of the the few variables that make it unlikely that a group of people could ever be like the next.  Hope that this helps, the next time you hear a Chinese family talk loudly in their own language without regard for anybody else. I also realize that the above are pretty strong opinions that other people, particularly Chinese would rather not hear.  Too bad. Thanks for reading!