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THE PWNER posted:Yes and I actually interact with more Chinese people than many posters in this thread who live in China! When they're talking to you for five minutes before realizing the gravity of their mistake you mean?
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Dec 6, 2016 04:02
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THE PWNER posted:Yes and I actually interact with more Chinese people than many posters in this thread who live in China! Sympathies, all around.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:03
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PWNER when do I stop being an "expat" and start being an immigrant? Since you're the authority on expats, I thought I should ask.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:43
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simplefish posted:PWNER when do I stop being an "expat" and start being an immigrant? Since you're the authority on expats, I thought I should ask. Try this simple checklist: when you don't completely despise the country you live in and its people
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Dec 6, 2016 04:49
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simplefish posted:PWNER when do I stop being an "expat" and start being an immigrant? Since you're the authority on expats, I thought I should ask. Treating it as a real question, how I use the words: expat is planning to go home, immigrant is not.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:50
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THE PWNER posted:Try this simple checklist: when you don't completely despise the country you live in and its people how old r u
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Dec 6, 2016 04:52
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Well poo poo, it's more like 70% like 30% dislike for me, I'm not sure where I stand anymore.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:53
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THE PWNER posted:Try this simple checklist: when you don't completely despise the country you live in and its people I bitch about Britain a lot but I'm (was) still an immigrant there. There's the argument about permanency or whatever but it's not or was not going to be exactly permanent for me so yeah I dunno. It's pretty much dumb pecking order poo poo about how prestigious/desirable the country you move to is. E: and yeah I got called an expat in Asia too, funnily enough, despite just visiting as a tourist. It's almost like a word for a well-off foreigner Private Speech fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 04:53
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THE PWNER posted:Try this simple checklist: when you don't completely despise the country you live in and its people you literally can not be an immigrant in China. An immigrant is someone who moves to a country to live permanently or gain citizenship. You can immigrate to Australia or the United States or Canada or England. You can't immigrate to China. You will never be Chinese. They do not want you here forever, at least right now. It is why every single foreigner in China is an expat. Because literally 0% of us, even if we wanted to, could be immigrants. It isn't that difficult to understand if you have like higher than a seventh grade reading level The Great Autismo! fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 04:58
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But but there's those like five guys who got permanent residency so the PRC is totally open to immigration Weird and xenophobic as Korea is, their immigration process is real and fairly straightforward. Not sure why you'd want to but it's there.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:01
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I just opened this thread and was a little bummed and confused. Oh well, maybe tomorrow will bring another joyful chance. Lucky I didn't see the spike earlier, or else I would have been running to the nearest bank with my American Visa to pull out some Rambos.Koramei posted:i wonder about this with a lot of the stories people have about them interacting with locals when it goes horribly Sure enough, nearly every Chinese person, with very few exceptions, reacts with "You're making this up, and you were probably doing something bad to have people be that way! Chinese people are warm and friendly and you must be bad because Chinese people do not act like this!!!!!" I had someone recently get really angry and delete me after pressing me to talk more about China, and she included "IF U HATE CHINA AND CHINESE PPL SO MUCH, YOU SHOULD LEAVE." (And anyone that reads r/China will notice a reply very similar from other foreigners when people complain about China, not realizing they have become very Chinese when dealing with criticism of China) Then if you talk these same things casually with someone from USA/CAN/AUS/GB/ETC, you get a similar reaction but called racist on top of it. So it's best to never mention anything about China and its problems to a Chinese person because the butthurt and denial is so intense that you will definitely lose them as friends or more. Since criticism about something and discussing it in a general manner is not part of the current culture, at least for outsiders to be able to do it, you're breaking every Face rule by reminding them or calling attention to problems. Even someone who has been poo poo on tremendously by every possible facet of China life will immediately get angry at you for talking about it and will probably tell you to leave or say you hate XYZ and you're bad. Acting like a giant baby and blaming is the preferred way to react. I just got a great idea for a youtube series: CHINESE REACTION VIDEOS TO STORIES FROM LAOWAIS ABOUT LIVING IN CHINA. YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE NUMBER FOUR (BCUZ UNLUCKY) ---------------------------------- I would like to thank the Awful App for breaking itself while opening this thread today. Somehow, TGA's picture post was too much for it to handle (it may have been the size of the photos) and it crashed. I tried opening it again and it super crashed and restarted my phone and now I have a "damaged" SD card and all of my apps that rely on that card have also poo poo themselves and I am bummed. LOL. THE PWNER posted:Yes and I actually interact with more Chinese people than many posters in this thread who live in China!
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Dec 6, 2016 05:02
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The Great Autismo! posted:you literally can not be an immigrant in China. An immigrant is someone who moves to a country to gain citizenship. You can immigrate to Australia or the United States or Canada or England. You can't immigrate to China. You will never be Chinese. They do not want you here forever, at least right now. It is why every single foreigner in China is an expat. Because literally 0% of us, even if we wanted to, couldn't be immigrants. What if you marry someone from there and plan to spend your lives there? I mean you won't get citizenship, but doesn't that make you an immigrant kinda. More relevantly in lot of Western countries there's a list of things that forever make you ineligible for citizenship, like being a felon or whatever. But you'd be hard-pressed to have foreign felons in Britain not called immigrants, even if they legally can't stay there past five years time (unless they are EU citizens anyway). E: oh and yeah it was literally impossible for me to become a UK citizen unless I married someone local for boring procedural reasons, despite living there for about a third of my life. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 05:02
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Private Speech posted:What if you marry someone from there and plan to spend your lives there? I mean you won't get citizenship, but doesn't that make you an immigrant kinda. If you're planning to stay that would make you an immigrant though you can't work on a family vosa so I have no idea what you'd be doing. I'm not sure I've ever met someone from a country that actually has diversity and immigration and first world amenities and have them be like "yup we are never going back to Australia, we're going to stay here and live in Henan" I don't know how people describe felons and all this stuff, your words are your problem and yours alone. Call them illegal felons if that's what they are, I couldn't care less. An expatriate is someone who is working or living abroad from their home country with no desire to settle long term. A immigrant is someone who wants to settle forever or gain citizenship. Which China doesn't want you to. So u less you are like one of the eight random people China has luckily granted citizenship and Chinese names to, you can't be an immigrant to China.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:07
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Private Speech posted:. that sounds like a you immigration issue, not England being anti-immigration
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Dec 6, 2016 05:08
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Private Speech posted:What if you marry someone from there and plan to spend your lives there? I mean you won't get citizenship, but doesn't that make you an immigrant kinda. You still get a temporary (but easily extended) visa and can be deported freely. There's no way to get like a marriage permanent residency. Or, well, there IS a way on paper but it's effectively impossible.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:08
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there are definitely no shortage of people who will actually just be dumb/butthurt/lovely for the sake of it (and btw Haier I don't think you've written anything that gave me that reaction as far as I remember) but then when you get the stories of "well I was just insulting their culture and they totally flipped out for no reason" "I was just asking them why all their countrymen suck so much" "I was just casually telling this stranger how their beliefs are all bullshit" I mean we are all goons, I guess.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:10
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Democracy would never work in china. People wouldn't be able to handle it. The Dalai Llama is a bad man who has brainwashed his followers.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:11
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I'm just saying that the word expat seems to apply mainly to white foreigners in Asia, and it doesn't even matter if you live there long term. Like fine you can't "immigrate" (by your definition) to China, but what about something like Philippines or Singapore? There's people there called expats who live and even were born there (in which case it's an "expat family" and I do know one guy like that). Maybe it's just a popular word in Asia. I dunno. But in Britain you're an immigrant unless you are American/Australian or Canadian maybe. Possibly western European but that depends, I've had young French teacher friends who went to teach French in the UK for a few years and nobody called them expats. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 05:13
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Private Speech posted:What if you marry someone from there and plan to spend your lives there? I mean you won't get citizenship, but doesn't that make you an immigrant kinda. Apparently there's a quirk with the Chinese marriage visa that makes you ineligible for a work permit (these two things are separate in many countries). I don't think anyone from the West has ever fully immigrated to China in the formal sense (eg: now carries a Chinese passport and has all the rights under the law of a Chinese citizen -- certainly no one from the West has ever been accepted in China as actually Chinese by regular people -- this is something basically limited to the US and Canada anyway). There are workarounds for the obvious problems stemming from the above but they are none the less workarounds.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:16
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expat = white immigrant = other races Not even joking.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:17
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Even India with their huge population allows people to immigrate easily, as far as I have looked into it: You have to legally stay (with stamps and permits to prove) in India for at least 10 years, 10 months per year, on whatever kind of visa you're using (work, business, tourist, spouse, etc). You have to prove you can speak one local non-English language. Pay the fees and do all the paperwork. Maybe pay a bribe, because that's India. Become an Indian citizen. They aren't too keen on people keeping two passports, but I am sure there are ways to deal with it. I have met a few non-Indians who became Indian citizens and gave up their original citizenship. One came in the 70s as a hippie, got married to a local girl, and just stayed on working illegally. He learned a couple local languages and passed the requirements and became a citizen decades ago. Another friend of mine that I used to talk to a lot has been there about 8 years now and will probably be getting his citizenship if possible. He speaks at least two of the languages fluently and is the caretaker of a big hotel. The only way he'll be coming back to the US is to renew his passport and then leave again. Also, if you marry someone with Indian citizenship, you get 5-year-stay visas for life, or as long as you are married to them. It makes it very easy to transition. This is the hot-ticket out of Russia for all the Russian girls I see there with their Indian husbands.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:18
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I can't help you with how some people use the word. Expat for someone born there is bizarre. Expat to me is inherently temporary, there's nothing racial involved. It used to be a specific kind of job where you worked for a western company but were sent to the Japanese division or whatever to work for a couple years. Now that's specifically called expat package in my experience. It's not like this is one way either. There are a small number of white/black/whatever obviously non-Asian people born over here who get to spend their entire lives being called foreigner and treated with disdain by the only country and culture they've ever known, which seems hellish.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:18
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Private Speech posted:I'm just saying that the word expat seems to apply mainly to white foreigners in Asia, and it doesn't even matter if you live there long term. Like fine you can't "immigrate" (by your definition) to China, but what about something like Philippines or Singapore? There's people there called expats who live and even were born there (in which case it's an "expat family" and I do know one guy like that). i mean when I was in London no one called me an expat either, I was just American, who was hanging out with a French girl. Who cares if you're an expat or not. I can't get over how some people care so much about words like this. Seriously who gives a poo poo? Call yourself whatever you want to call yourself and justify it like an adult and then no one cares. I can't immigrate to China so I'm not an immigrant. The fact that my contract is up in six months and I am then done reinforces the idea that I'm not staying there, thus I'm not an immigrant. If some people feel better about calling me an immigrant, though, that's fine, i honestly do not care. Call me a racist goongrant if it makes you feel better about yourself. It is immaterial
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Dec 6, 2016 05:20
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Private Speech posted:I'm just saying that the word expat seems to apply mainly to white foreigners in Asia, and it doesn't even matter if you live there long term. Like fine you can't "immigrate" (by your definition) to China, but what about something like Philippines or Singapore? There's people there called expats who live and even were born there (in which case it's an "expat family" and I do know one guy like that). An expat is someone who lives at distance from his country, an immigrant is someone who is trying (and able) to become a legal, generally permanent resident of a nonnative country. There are other associations with both words. The reason they seem mutually exclusive is if you immigrate then your home country is the new one and you are no longer an expat there. You can be an expat while trying to immigrate if the process was up in the air, but once immigration is a real possibility and you're engaged in that path you're an immigrant. It's like the difference between living in a hotel and buying a house.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:23
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:expat = white No there are Arab billionaires living in Monaco or wherever that are called expats more than they're called immigrants.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:23
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I've known plenty of nonwhite expats. The only people who seem to care about this are the types always really looking for something to get offended about.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:25
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Grand Fromage posted:I've known plenty of nonwhite expats. The only people who seem to care about this are the types always really looking for something to get offended about. seems to happen a bit more often in the China thread, though. can't imagine why that is
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Dec 6, 2016 05:26
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I suppose that's the dictionary definition, and yeah I can see how in Asian context you'd have the word evolve from a foreign expert who gets sent to a local division of an international company (which is how my classmate comes from an expat family, his parents moved to Singapore in the 80s I.e. post-independence). What I'm saying is that the words aren't used like that very much nowadays outside Asia/third-world countries.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:27
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Seems like THE_PWNER has PWNED this thread yet again.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:29
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I don't remember the last time I heard the word expat IRL in Asia either, it's an internet thing to me. A lot of people adopt the term foreigner and start using it, which I don't like but whatever. That's by far the most common term used in actual conversation.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:30
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Yeah I dunno, I just found it bizarre that I got called an expat in Asia when I never did living abroad/visiting anywhere else. Took me a while to get used to it, I even thought about working in Singapore for a bit (I was dating a girl from there I met in the UK) and I had to get constantly corrected that I should talk about "the expat system" rather than the immigration system there (which is very open compared to most first-world countries, but that's a different topic).
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Dec 6, 2016 05:34
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't remember the last time I heard the word expat IRL in Asia either, it's an internet thing to me.  I've never heard anyone say it except for my aunt, who spends half the day on "expat" forums.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:34
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singapore always seems weird, from the stories also there's really nothing wrong with the word foreigner. i've caught myself accidentally using it for americans living in america a couple of times
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Dec 6, 2016 05:35
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Haier posted:
Buy her an account.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:37
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"That's my nephew Haier, always plunging women"
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Dec 6, 2016 05:38
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Haier posted:
For me it was seriously like "huh no I'm not an expat, expat is, uhhh, like a white manager immigrant or something?" when I would get called that. Also there's ludicrous levels of white privilege in Singapore and Malaysia, I've never experienced anything like that before. Kinda made me feel like one of the weird colonialist arsehole Brit adventurers or something.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:38
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THE PWNER posted:Yes and I actually interact with more Chinese people than many posters in this thread who live in China! These are rich kids who have lived a life so vastly different fromn 99.99% of their countrymen that they might as well be from another nation. Also you're talking to people who are no longer in China, no longer in their comfort zones, conversing in a foreign language, and are in a nation where they are outnumbered and can't rely on the mob to come to their rescue in debates or fights. Getting a typical Chinese reaction out of them would require some pretty amazing feat on your part. That's like saying you know what the average Liberian is like because you were hanging out with some warlord's son at a bar.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:38
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't remember the last time I heard the word expat IRL in Asia either, it's an internet thing to me. A lot of people adopt the term foreigner and start using it, which I don't like but whatever. That's by far the most common term used in actual conversation. I really only ever hear people using the word expat when they are talking about foreigners on SA. No one uses it in Tianjin unless they are calling something an expat bar, but even now most people call it a western bar. I don't really care what people call each other, but one of my bigger annoyances is when people start to complain about words and how they are offended by words. Hence all my posting about this If you guys want to be immigrants, congrats, I'm happy to tell my friends I chatted on the Internet with strangers that were immigrants
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Dec 6, 2016 05:40
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Blistex posted:These are rich kids who have lived a life so vastly different fromn 99.99% of their countrymen that they might as well be from another nation. Also you're talking to people who are no longer in China, no longer in their comfort zones, conversing in a foreign language, and are in a nation where they are outnumbered and can't rely on the mob to come to their rescue in debates or fights. Getting a typical Chinese reaction out of them would require some pretty amazing feat on your part. he also had a Chinese girlfriend for a few weeks, which was when he started posting in this thread.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:42
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The Great Autismo! posted:I really only ever hear people using the word expat when they are talking about foreigners on SA. No one uses it in Tianjin unless they are calling something an expat bar, but even now most people call it a western bar. I think it's neat to think about how weird the relationship between foreigners and locals can get, and words do play a part in that (otherwise you wouldn't say the last sentence). Honestly I was just going on about how the strict dictionary definition of "expat" and "immigrant" really isn't how it's used the world over. I don't particularly care about it much past that. Fake edit: That was THE_PWNER who was trolling who did.
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Dec 6, 2016 05:45
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