Learn Yu Wen Learn Chinese language and culture.

The concept of “foreigners” in China is much different than it is in the USA. “Foreigners” typically refers to White people in China (as well as Korea and Japan from my understanding). While Japanese are called 日本人(ribenren)， Indians are called 印度人(yinduren)，Black people (no matter if they’re Americans or Zimbabweans) are called 黑人(heiren)， White people (no matter if they’re Americans or Russians) are called 外国人(waiguoren=foreigner) or 老外(laowai=foreigner)。

While I believe many aspects of America are more similar to urban China than Russia, most Chinese will ask me if “foreigners” like this or like that. I try to explain that “foreigners” don’t share a collective culture, environment, or set of experiences. However, I doubt that I’ve convinced many Chinese that us basketball-loving, KFC-eating, capitalist-driven Chinese and Americans have more in common than Americans and Russians.

China is a country that is almost entirely made up of one ethnic group (92% Han Chinese), and most people find it difficult to differentiate between different White ethnicities. That coupled with the fact that most White Americans are a mix of many White ethnic backgrounds, causes most Chinese to refer to all White people as one similar group of “foreigners”.

“Foreigners” is a hot topic in China. I study at Starbucks every day, and I have yet to go and not overhear at least one conversation that Chinese were having about “foreigners”. Many times these conversations also touch on issues relating to 国外(guowai=outside the country)， or foreign affairs. These “foreign affairs” seem to almost exclusively relate to America, however they sometimes touch on Western Europe as well. However, as people will simply say, “某某东西在国外很便宜”(such-and-such a product is very cheap outside of China), most people think that said product is cheap all throughout North America, Europe, and other places with White people. There isn’t the concept that price differences between Holland and Greece may be much bigger than they are between the USA and China.

Most Americans do not have a great idea of life beyond the borders of the USA, however they don’t seem to discuss it very often (I will let you readers discuss your opinions on that statement).   However, in China there is a great interest in countries that are heavily populated by “foreigners”， and they are constantly discussed. The only problem that I see with this is the current language that is used to discuss these topics. 外国人 (foreigner) and 国外 (outside China) are used to discuss vast regions, and therefore lead many Chinese people to have incorrect concepts about many areas of the West. That said, incorrect ideas about everything being one way in the West might be better than the majority of Americans lack of ideas about the East.