Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Many young locals think the KFC near Tian'anmen Square is the ideal place for a first date.
Chinese people do like to generalize. If you're proud about your cultural heritage, for
example if you're Canadian and hate to be mistaken for American, or a New Zealander and
hate to be mistaken for an Australian, or have any such notion of personal identity, throw
it in the trash now. If you have a white face, your nationality is “foreigner.” Be ready to
hurdle assumptions that you can't eat spicy food or won't nibble on any variety of offal;
get ready to combat presuppositions that you can't understand a single word of Chinese, let
alone read it; you might even want to tackle to presumptions that all foreigners shower in
the morning or that all foreigners are lazy. On the upside, this pervasive homogenization of
the West and its people does often give you the element of surprise, which can be highly
entertaining. If you have an Asian face but are Western-born, then your experience will be
very different. You might not get gawked at on a general basis, but should you suddenly
start speaking perfect, unfaltering English on your cell phone while on the subway, then
you'll find that all eyes are on you.
One previously held assumption that has done a bit of a backflip in recent years is the be-
lief that all foreigners are wealthy. This attitude still seems to hold some value at tourist hot
spots, such as the Silk Markets, but it appears to be losing ground as the Chinese gain con-
fidence in their own financial position. Previously, foreigners were typically employed on
