Perhaps this is a question for the Learning Chinese forum.
In Paul Theroux’s Riding the Iron Rooster - By Train through China, he sets out ostensibly to take up the challenge that you cannot “always fool a foreigner,” as the Chinese like to say. In the book, he brings up this expression when chatting with locals and I have also seen it in Peter Hessler’s River Town. He was watching some mindless show on CCTV that included the line, “You can always fool a foreigner.”
My question is: how do you say that in Chinese? I’ve asked a couple of Taiwanese people about it, but they had no idea what I was talking about. I also asked a Chinese friend of mine and she had no idea either. I’m guessing it’s a phrase that got left behind and is only used on the mainland.
[quote]“Foreigners are just not as smart as we Chinese people.”
Yen Ta-jen
Kinmen (Jinmen) deputy county commissioner
Quoted in the Taipei Times, June 27, 2001[/quote]
[quote=“Ed Lakewood”]In Paul Theroux’s Riding the Iron Rooster - By Train through China, he sets out ostensibly to take up the challenge that you cannot “always fool a foreigner,” as the Chinese like to say.
…
My question is: how do you say that in Chinese?[/quote]
It’s been often quoted as a “proverb”, but it really isn’t. It’s just a pithy observation:
老外好騙
[Lǎowài hǎo piàn].
It’s also a mistranslation because the observation really says, “Foreigners are easy to fool.”
However, some the more observant Chinese would also add the following:
I don’t know how to say it in Chinese, but there’s an old saying in Taipei. I know it’s in Kaohsiung, probably in Tainan, that says: “Fool me once… shame on…um, shame…shame on me… . fool me, um…again. . . . if fooled, you can’t get fooled again.”
What’s going on culturally here is that for most Chinese and Taiwanese people, lying is not really lying. That is, what we in the West would consider to be a bald-faced lie, a person here might think of as a courtesy, a convenience, or a smart tactic, none of which are immoral. In fact, lying to achieve some business or social aim, and getting away with it, is considered to be a sign of intelligence and social skill among many Chinese and Taiwanese. It is all rooted in concepts of duty to oneself, one’s family, one’s company, one’s friends and associates, but not to anyone else. There is no “Good Samaritan” ethic going on; kids are not really taught from a young age that they have a duty to help strangers. The teaching is more along the lines of “don’t make trouble.”
Also, many more things are covered up over here than they would be back home. People don’t tell each other about things that would make someone lose face or cause social embarrassment, and once the “deception” is discovered, all is generally forgiven after a brief explanation along the lines of “it wasn’t convenient for me to tell you the truth.”
For the unprepared laowai, these ethics can be quite unnerving. I’ve personally seen many a business deal, and many a friendship, fall apart because of these radically different values.
Here’s something in a similar vein, although I seriously doubt anyone will have the answer. I read a quote once (I thought it was in a Rough Guide - Beijing, but I am apparently mistaken) that had to do with dishonesty or at least a certain lack of truth in Chinese society. It was penned by an early China observer - a European way back in the seventeeth century, I believe, and it went like this:
“The Chinese seem revere many things, but truth is not one of them…” It then went on to talk about how the emperor was being carried around in a sedan chair, which had to be done in such a way as to prevent - if I remember correctly - execution.
Yup. Pretty sketchy, I know. But does this ring any sort of bell?
Can’t recall the source, but the Boxers around the time of the rebellion were told that foreigners couldn’t bend at the knees, so all you had to do was whack their legs with a stick and they’d fall over.
Thanks, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the Boxers. It was before that. I really can’t remember when, though, and my question is so vague I don’t think anyone will pin it.
