To analyse the factors that might have formed their prominent identity as being laowai in China, I will now look at some salient features in the different cultural backgrounds.
5.2.2.1 Multiculturalism in Western Countries vs. Ethnic
Uniformity in China
The Western expatriates in my sample all come from countries that are arguably multicultural (the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Spain and Poland), whereas the Han People accounts for the majority of the Chinese population. As commented, their home countries had been so multicultural and ethnically diverse that they were shocked to see the uniform ethnicity in most Chinese cities they had visited. Even though there is an
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increasing number of foreign people coming and staying in China, the huge population density and the population ratio of Chinese people against foreigners still makes it impossible for foreign faces to be a normal appearance for local Chinese people.
5.2.2.2 Different Geographical Mobility
The lack of exposure to and understanding of different cultures might not have simply resulted from ethnic uniformity, but also because Chinese people are not likely to have travelled extensively within their own country, let alone to a foreign one. It was commented that a large proportion of the Chinese people they had encountered had not been to a foreign country before, whereas in their home countries travelling was more common and population mobility seemed much higher. Thus it was frustrating for them to connect with Chinese people because of the lack of shared experiences. One respondent compared his personal experiences with his observations of Chinese people in terms of geographical mobility:
What‘s normal in my life is I travel a lot. For most people in China, that‘s just not so. People here are restricted geographically to a much greater degree than they are in Europe. My wife is Chinese. OK, we travel. But most of her family is from Fujian Province, and they don‘t move far from their home. They are very fixed in one location, whereas I‘ve lived in 5 or 6 places for extended periods of time. They think that‘s just crazy. My wife has an auntie, who lives about 80 kilometers from Fuzhou. I was teaching in Fuzhou for a while; we went out to see her. She told me ‗I‘ve been to Fuzhou! And I‘ve been there twice! But it‘s very very far away, and I don‘t want to go again. The travelling made me very very sick‘. You know, it‘s 80 kilometers away, and here is a lady who is 50 years old, in her whole life, she‘s travelled 80 kilometers twice!
(Jake, October 2011)
As noted, this respondent had been living in different foreign countries, each for an extensive period of time, as an expatriate. It was further indicated (although some indirectly) that over half of the Western expatriates in my sample had lived and worked in other foreign countries such as in the Middle East for extended periods as well. This study thus believes that extensive travelling and staying overseas was a common behaviour specifically shared amongst these Western expatriates. Therefore, the above-mentioned particular comment certainly reflects different geographical mobility between Chinese people and people from Western countries, but it does not necessarily indicate the whole of
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China or the West.63
The geographical mobility of Chinese people has historically been restricted by the government policy of hukou (household registration), which still holds its power in population mobility and the distribution of labour in China to date. Introduced in 1950s, the hukou system of population registration essentially confines Chinese people to the land of birth and fundamentally divides them, from the very beginning of their lives, into the dichotomy of rural and urban citizenships. The hukou registration system was not only the defining factor for establishing identity, citizenship and official status but it was also the essential element for every aspect of life, without which individuals were not eligible for food, clothing or housing, nor could they be employed, obtain education or even establish marriage (Cheng and Selden, 1994, p. 644). Even though the hukou system has been relaxed to a much greater extent since the 1980s, allowing people to work and live in a different place than the cities where their hukou are registered, there are still social welfare schemes that these people are not eligible for in places other than their hukou registered places (Shen and Huang, 2003), constraining the geographical mobility of the population as a whole. Certainly people can re-register their hukou to a different city, but it usually has very strict regulations and procedures, especially for metropolitan cities where opportunities for careers are more attractive than other cities. It is thus often quite difficult to apply for re-registration for many people who do not have the financial and social resources needed.
Thus the social and institutional backgrounds of Chinese people are likely to lead to differences in ideas and behaviour in terms of travelling and experiencing different places and cultures. These contrasted to the experiences of Western expatriates who were much more likely to have travelled extensively to connect with many Chinese people. Yet more importantly, because Chinese people in general did not have much experience with foreign cultures, the Western expatriates‘ cultural identity as a foreigner exceeded their other identities and became the most significant one for them in China.
63 In Chapter 13.4, I will discuss Chinese students‘ perceived attitudes of British people in terms of tourism. It is believed that such attitudes most likely vary between different social and family backgrounds.
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