By Corey Pyke. Corey lives in Xiamen, and has been a teacher in China since 2019.
Every country has some well known stereotypes, and China is no exception. Whether it’s the movies that cast the Chinese actor as a maths genius, or the social media post that tells us that everyone is eating dogs, there are plenty of ways that these stereotypes can appear. Today, I’m going to talk about the most common stereotypes, and see how true they really are!
Let’s start with a common one. Chinese people are all maths geniuses. In movies and tv shows, Chinese actors are commonly cast as the nerdy genius who excels as maths and science. Well, that’s not entirely true! Like every country, there are people who excel at many different subjects. I have worked with children who are excellent artists, or who prefer sports over the more academic subjects. The only slight truth to this stereotype is that the level of maths that they learn from the lower grades at school is a slightly higher level than we would learn at that age in the west. This is mostly down to the fact that in the final year of high school, students take a university entrance exam called the “Gaokao” with maths being one of the subjects. The Gaokao is known to be one of the most difficult exams in the world, so it explains the need to have a higher level of learning.
Another stereotype that commonly appears in both movies and tv shows is that Chinese people are bad drivers. This one most likely depends on your definition of a “bad driver”! There are definitely things that happen on the roads here that would absolutely be frowned upon if you were driving in the west, such as very limited use of the indicator, or drivers moving lanes into a space not even big enough for a standing person, let alone a car! Of course, there are taxi drivers who will make you fear for your life, but that’s common in a lot of countries! The majority of people here are good drivers, they stick to the speed limits (there are speed cameras on most roads!) and give passengers a safe ride. There are so many drivers out on the road that some things are bound to be a bit different to how we drive in the west, but that doesn’t mean that they’re bad drivers!
This next one is an unfortunate myth to have to dispel, but unfortunately not all students are all well behaved and willing to learn. I’m not entirely sure where this stereotype has come from, but I have seen it talked about online, and it has often been used as an advertisement to get people to move to China. As much as we would all love to teach children that behave perfectly all the time and are always willing to take part in lessons, it just doesn’t happen. Why? Because they’re children! As with any country you will have all types of children in your classes. You’ll have the ones whose favourite subject is English, putting their hands up to answer questions and helping others. You’ll have those who enjoy English but aren’t confident enough to answer questions, so just sit there quietly. Of course, you’ll have those who just don’t enjoy school at all and will do anything to distract themselves. Even with there being different types of children in the classroom, anything can affect their mood! Maybe they won an award, so the quiet kid is a bit more confident for one lesson, or maybe the good kid got shouted at by another teacher so now doesn’t want to talk. But don’t worry, you will be fully prepared for any behaviours before you step into the classroom!
This final myth has always got a shocked and amused reaction from my Chinese friends, and that is the Social Credit Score. I came across a social media post the other day from a so called “influencer” talking on a podcast about how bad the Social Credit Score system is. He mentioned a programme called “Skynet” where the public have a score and are surveilled constantly to catch them doing things that are seen as not helpful to society – specifically mentioning jaywalking and walking the wrong way down a road. If they are caught, they will lose points, and a loss of points can lead to being locked out of their apartments, or being unable to make payments using WeChat or Alipay. Others who have talked about the Social Credit Score have gone so far as to say that there is a ranking system, and the further you fall in the ranking, the worse the punishment. Of course, this is all absolute rubbish! I highly doubt that the “influencer” has ever actually been to China. The social credit score he and many others, talk about does not exist, and people can not be punished for anything that is not defined by law. Whilst yes, jaywalking is frowned upon (walking the wrong way down a road is not!), people do not suddenly find themselves unable to enter their apartments! The credit score itself is a real thing, but not in the context that it is widely spoken about. Instead, it primarily focuses on business and debt repayment. Unfortunately, there are always going to be people spreading misinformation about China, but a simple Google search will usually prove them wrong!
The reality is that most of the myths I talk about in this blog come from the fact that things are done differently in China to how they are done in the west. Living in China can be a huge learning curve and there will be many differences from your home country. Whether you consider these differences positives or negatives is up to you – but to make the most of it you need to embrace all of it, the good and the bad!
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