Ask a Chinese person
Posted on 08. Dec, 2010 by Simon in Curiosities, Race
Fact one: we here at the Ashcan are a multi-ethnic motley crew. Think of us as the Captain Planet of blogs, with disparate elements from far-reaching corners of the world coming together to form a heroic, mullet topped defender of environmental justice.
Fact two: I am bad at analogies. But the part about us being diverse is totally true, and you know what? We’ve never taken advantage of our racy resources before by asking all the questions we’ve secretly been harboring about each others backgrounds. So, in light of educating the world (which happens to be goal 17 of my personal manifesto) I present to you the questions about Chinese people you probably didn’t even know you wanted to know.
Remember, these are all real questions from real people (well, from Jef, Jesse and Anupa, respectively).
Q: If Chinese food gives the rest of us major itis, how the hell do Chinese people stay awake all the time? The idea of eating Chinese food three meals a day + the stereotype of Chinese people being hard workers does not compute. Chinese people should be the laziest people around.
This can basically be summed up in two words: monosodium glutamate. This tasty little ingredient is at once what simultaneously makes commercialized Chinese food so tasty (along with instant Ramen) and so coma-inducing. It is more associated however with Chinese “fast-food” type places such as small restaurants and food court joints where you can get a box of noodles or rice for $3 flat (WITH A DRINK).
Almost no Chinese person would cook with MSG at home nor do higher end restaurants sully their food with this epicurean equivalent of crack cocaine. Bonus note: instant ramen is a common breakfast item in Hong Kong, often ordered in the morning and served with spam (seriously), a raw egg cracked into the soup and coffee.
Q: Wang and Huang are the same last name right? I stay pronouncing them slightly different just IN CASE.
Yes, in Chinese they originate from the same root name and are variations derived from different dialects. In fact, the following names are really all the same: Huang, Hwang, Wang, Wong, Wone, Bong, Oei, Oi, Ooi, Uy, Wee, Ng, Ong and if we expand to Vietnamese and Korean names, Huynh and Hoang.
More mind-blowing? Huang is only the 7th most common family in China.
Q: Does it kind of please you on some level that all us other Asians are always being mistaken for Chinese? Are you like, we run this Being Asian shit?
If you are an Asian who is not Chinese and regularly get mistaken as such, rest assured it totally goes both ways! I am often mistaken for Korean here in Toronto and, when abroad, am regularly mistaken for Japanese. To more directly address your query however, no, I do not harbor any sense of cultural imperialism over Being Asian, nor do I suspect this to be a sentiment amongst Chinese people at large. Except inside the Government of China of course – if those guys had things their way, everybody would be Chinese. Just ask Tibet!
Q: Why are there no Chinese country singers? I just got back from Nashville and didn’t see one. Not in the hall of fame, nor any of the honky tonks or the opry. What gives?
Having never been to the exotic locales of which you speak, I cannot say with absolute certainty, but I will posit a theory: because there are no Chinese people in Nashville? There are, however, Chinese country singers in the Chinese equivalent of Nashville. Apparently, this would be Yunnan province. Photographic evidence below.
Q: Why do Chinese girls always cover their mouths when they smile/laugh/eat?
This is an insightful question that only those who have spent time around actual Chinese people (read: non-English speakers) would have observed enough to ask.
Basically, this is a matter of etiquette. Not to perpetuate stereotypes, but there are a lot of demure Chinese girls out there. In fact, I would wager there are more demure Chinese girls than sassy ones out there despite what Hong Kong pop-culture would have you believe (and I know you are all up-to-date on your HK pop-culture right?). As a result, talking with food in your mouth or laughing gregariously are both decidedly unladylike (in a testament to lingering British colonial mannerisms). Thus the hand over the mouth; to hide said chewed up food or stifle any overly hearty laughter. Plus, you know, in general, being slack jawed — not so prim and proper.
Q: What’s the deal with Chinese people loving pork?
Well, for starters it’s delicious, no? But let’s be honest here – Chinese people love to eat everything. Isn’t that the joke? But you know what? Here’s a secret… it’s not a joke. Us motherfuckers will eat anything. We are the raccoons of cuisine. And we don’t just eat anything, we’ll eat every single part of everything.
Eating habits may be partly attributable to the sheer number of Chinese people around. With such a large population surely there will always be small groups that develop less than appealing habits which then get projected onto larger populations. It’s not like all Canadians eat seal, for example, but people in Peru might believe we do if someone told them so. Then again, I have personally tasted both dog jerky and water cockroach so… you know. Just stop judging us until you’ve tried it ok?
Wow, this answer got way off track.
Q: Do you like Manchu Wok?
Yes. Yes I do. I mean, I don’t love it, but I certainly don’t hate it. Make no mistake, this is bad Chinese food. But when you grow up eating rice every single day, sometimes even bad Asian food is more appealing than another bite of processed ground beef patty.
Also, it is a cost effective meal. If you order a combo to go, the volume of food to cost ratio is fairly high, and if there’s one thing everyone knows Chinese people most definitely like it’s a deal.
Q: Why is it so common for Chinese people to anglocize their names? If a person goes by/retains their Chinese name, are they considered “militant”?
For those unsure what this question is asking, Chinese people (very often) have two names; an English name and a Chinese one. True story, I cannot remember the last time my parents called me Simon. They refer to me exclusively as Yau Lai-Hai. Such is a classic example of the duel identities Chinese people must exist within.
The historical reasons we give ourselves and our children English names are hazy. When I posed this question to my parents, they simply shrugged and said that’s just what people do. They looked at me like I was asking them why they gave us names at all.
Some internet sleuthing revealed this great, pertinent article on Slate:
Laurie Duthie [is] a UCLA doctoral candidate in anthropology who’s finishing up her dissertation in Shanghai. Duthie has studied Chinese white-collar workers since 1997 and traces the popularity of English names in China back to the influx of foreign investment following Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms. With foreign investment came foreigners, and many of Duthie’s research participants told her that they got tired of outsiders butchering their Chinese names, so they adopted English ones
So, as I suspected, much of it has to do with convenience. Over time, this has become conventional practise and English is now even considered somewhat a status symbol in China. If you can speak English and have an English name, odds are you have an education, which probably means you have some money.
An interesting result of this cultural idiosyncrasy is that I personally know many individuals who have experienced the existential angst of picking their own English name. For better or worse, this means I have acquaintances named Jacky, Apple and Rainbow. Fine folks, all of them might I add.
To not have a Chinese name does not necessarily mean someone is militant, but it largely depends on context. Most rural mainland Chinese citizens for example do not need English names since they may never in their lives encounter anybody who speaks English.
If you do speak English however or live in an English speaking community, yet consciously choose to not adopt an English name or purposely choose to not give your child an English name, I do believe that is a very obvious statement about identity. The practice is so accepted amongst Chinese immigrants now that, in many of these cases I think not doing so indicates… not militancy perhaps, but at the very least hints at promoting values based on individualism as opposed to collectivism, without necessarily a racial or nationalistic impetus.
Q: Why do Chinese people call air conditioning “air-con”?
What do you mean? What do you call it?
ernie
Dec 8th, 2010
i think huang and wang actually are different if you go by the chinese characters. one means yellow, the other means king. and as an hk-er now, i can attest to the popularity of instant noodles with egg and spam for breakfast, and it is delicious!
Dust
Dec 8th, 2010
My grandma uses a pinch of bouillon cube (contains MSG) in her dishes. She doesn’t know what it is. It’s like a ‘magic’ ingredient to her. On that note, high-end chinese restaurants use MSG. If not MSG, then HVP (hydrolyzed veg protein) which is just as bad (and just as tasty).
-d
Simon
Dec 8th, 2010
@ernie: it’s possible you’re right. I do know wong and huang are definitely the same, and I was unsure but somewhat under the impression wong and wang were the same name as well, but not as certain.
@dust: Nicer restaurants use MSG as a spice so they may (in moderation) add it to certain dishes, but it’s not the same way most lower end restaurants use it (as a universal ingredient). You probably won’t get MSG itis from a pinch here or there.
blt
Dec 8th, 2010
wait, i wanna know what other people call A/C, too. air-con just seems to make sense. like, why do people call Mo Pete that? just flows
otherwise, very insightful. that HK breakfast – does not sound appetising
Bob H
Dec 21st, 2010
If I name my dog (a chow) Shaolin, will that offend anybody? I mean, using the name Shaolin, for a dogs name, that is.
Simon
Dec 22nd, 2010
No, that’s cool. But you’d then have to teach your dog Kung-Fu.
Jef
Dec 22nd, 2010
More things should be named Shaolin.
LW
Feb 19th, 2011
The Huang Vs Wang distinction is actually very confusing.
Surname1 means “yellow”, surname2 means “king”. If you just got off the airplane from Beijing today, surname1 gets transliterated as “huang”, surname2 gets transliterated as “wang”, based on the Pinyin system in use in mainland China. It gets confusing because there are other transliteration systems (plural) in use or were in use over the last few decades.
So “surname1″ can be transliterated as Huang Hwang, Wong, Wang, Ng, Eng,….. while “surname2″ can be transliterated as Wang, Wong, etc. So really, if you met someone named “Wong” and met another person named “Wang”, they could have the same or different last names, it’s all very confusing, I know. But, if the 2 people used the same system (perhaps they’re both recent immigrants from mainland China), then that removes some of the ambiguity.
But to make it more confusing, even if 2 people used the same Pinyin (or Wade-Giles) system, they could still have the same English transliteration while having separate names, but this is rarer. For example, there are 2 surnames that map into “Xu”, same is true for “Fu”, “Lu”, and “Yu”.
On a side note, you can sometimes make guesses about where Chinese people are originally from, and possibly when they or their ancestors immigrated. For example, if you see “Hs” (as in Hsu) that means probably Taiwan (Wade-Giles system), and if you see “X”, “Q” or “Zh”, (as in Xu, Qin, or Zhang) that probably means mainland China. Also, recent immigrants from mainland China or Taiwan will have surname “Chen”, while HK people have “Chan”, but I think back in the mid 20th century some people used “Chern”.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames.
LW
Feb 19th, 2011
Regarding the pork thing, I think it just happened that way. For some reason or another Chinese people (I don’t claim to know why) just raised more pigs than cattle. I guess you could even say that the roles of pork and beef have been reversed from what is typical in North America, that is, pork is seen as more of a “staple” meat while beef is a bit less common.
I remember a Chinese person asking me the reverse of your question: “why do Americans eat so much beef?”
LW
Feb 19th, 2011
Btw, to make the Chinese transliteration topic less confusing over the next few decades (not only for the purpose of surnames), apparently Taiwan plans to phase out Wade-Giles in favor of a full-blown Pinyin system.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Pinyin_in_Taiwan
Simon
Feb 19th, 2011
LW: That was throughly (literally) enlightening. I have noticed there are indeed a few names that are distinctly Taiwanese at this point but didn’t know why. Interesting!
Preston
Jan 23rd, 2012
I find most of these questions insulting to people everywhere! I am a white person yes but no body i knowmakes fun of people like that! I find all of these questionis dumb and un-nesscicary! Why ask questions like that?: Why do y’all like pork? C’mon people! I find this an out rage and i will not be using this site again! (: kaythanksbye(: