Stereotypes about China and Chinese People

It is strange to hear an America say that some Americans hold the opinion that Chairman Mao is still alive. It puts up a question. What are the stereotypes of Americans towards China and Chinese people?

It is well-known that Chinese people are traditional and conservative. They are not used to expressing themselves. They do not use thank you or I love you as much as Americans do. They emphasize a lot on a woman’s purity or which may be called virginity. A woman may commit suicide if she is raped. This results from people’s prejudice because she is not pure any more. They are not very open-minded. Most of them do not have beliefs. They have no faith in God. But they think highly of Buddhism. They cherish a family or a clan. They will live with their parents in some cases even at a very old age.

Well, basically these are true. But the situation is not always the same. For some Americans, they think that the Chinese people wear old-fashioned clothes like people did in Qing Dynasty. They also conceive people in Tibet are nice and highly-educated. But people in the mainland are rude and uneducated. Chinese people do not declare their human rights but pay more attention to their faces. Chinese students are good at mathematics but they are not so capable of manually doing things.

Most of the information is transferred to American mass by media. It is easy to say that there are biases in it. As more American travel to China, they may experience something by themselves. This mysterious and ancient land in their eyes may be totally different. They will see good Chinese people as well as bad ones. They will see the positive side of the society and the negative one. They will go through the huge gap between the rich and the poor as it is in America.

The person mentioned in the first paragraph also points out that Americans think products of China are cheap and cute. But they could not name any one brand of China. They may use the products everyday yet they know little about Chinese entrepreneurs or business. Thus some public relation companies are devoting themselves to this. It is still a long way to go.

In a word, Americans have some prejudices against China and Chinese people. It means a lot if they can understand each other well. Chinese people tend to praise highly for America’s freedom, justice and optimism. Sincerely hope some day Americans will think this way verse visa.