{"id":3850,"date":"2017-08-20T03:22:13","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T07:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/?p=3850"},"modified":"2017-08-25T19:56:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T23:56:24","slug":"the-other-chinese-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/2017\/08\/20\/the-other-chinese-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"The Other Chinese in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

My roommate for half of this summer was a PKU international student from Malaysia. But, she was of Chinese descent; even her name is Chinese. She told me her grandparents had moved to Malaysia from mainland China. I didn\u2019t see much of her at first, but after a while I got to know her a little better. One week, I thought I\u2019d take a break from Chinese food, and she knew a decent Korean restaurant nearby, so the next day we went out for my first (hopefully not last) Korean hot pot. Over glass noodles and BBQ beef, we talked about college and how we ended up at our respective institutions. I asked her why she decided on PKU, and she told me that she moved to China for middle school with the intention of going to a Chinese university.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it hard to learn Mandarin in school?\u201d I asked, ignorantly. She shook her head, and I nodded admiringly, until she finished her mouthful of japchae and said, \u201cBut no.. I grew up speaking Mandarin, at home all we speak is Mandarin. I didn\u2019t have to learn it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t speak Malay at all?\u201d I pressed. She shook her head again, and said that all she knew was English and Chinese. Her family was the same way. In some sense, my roommate was an outsider to all nations. She didn\u2019t know much more Malay than I, and Chinese face discrimination in Malaysia, yet she was not quite a true mainland Chinese either. Privately, I thought this a sad place to be, essentially being a foreigner at home as well as abroad.\u00a0Even at PKU, international students are put in living quarters separate from the rest of the student body. Of course in the U.S., international students regularly live and interact with the rest of the student body.<\/p>\n

Through further conversation with my roommate and her friends, I learned that the Chinese-Malaysian community in Beijing is a tight-knit group. My roommate\u2019s boyfriend is Chinese-Malaysian, as are most of her close friends. Again, looking for a break from Beijing fare, we went to a Malaysian restaurant, the owner of which she knows well. She told me that the owner not only gives Chinese-Malay student big discounts when they eat there, but at times even assists Chinese-Malay students financially.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Apparently, food names are the extent of my roomie’s Malay. Though, perhaps those are the most important words to know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My roommate expressed intense frustration with the attitude of some mainland Chinese towards her, despite her 100% Chinese background. She mentioned that some people are condescending, and even downright rude when dealing with her. When she ordered us a Didi (essentially the Chinese Uber) to return home, there was a bit of trouble with getting the driver to come to the right location on a backroad because he kept asking, \u201cHow can I trust you?\u201d, apparently because he picked up on her Chinese-Malaysian accent. Although my roommate\u2019s first language is Mandarin, it is immediately obvious that her way of speaking is not a Beijing, or even mainland Chinese, accent.<\/p>\n

I asked her whether she preferred her home in Malaysia to Beijing, she did not express a clear preference for one over the other. She’s a marketing major, and said that she would feel comfortable working in China or Malaysia. Foreigners aren’t a rare sight in Chicago, or even smaller cities like Indianapolis, but Beijing is a city unused to foreigners, and if it becomes evident that you don\u2019t quite fit in with the rest, you\u2019ll draw eyes and may be treated differently. In my roommate\u2019s case, this has, at times, proven to be especially trying. Empathizing with my roommate reminded me to be grateful for the diversity that America allows and celebrates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My roommate for half of this summer was a PKU international student from Malaysia. But, she was of Chinese descent; even her name is Chinese. She told me her grandparents had moved to Malaysia from mainland China. I didn\u2019t see much of her at first, but after a while I got to know her a … Continue reading The Other Chinese in China<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2528,"featured_media":3851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[86256,112,12685,12647],"class_list":["post-3850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-food","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2528"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3850"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4187,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850\/revisions\/4187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}