In response to Re: Cultural Stereotypes: The Evil Arrogant Foreigner (juanisaac)

juanisaac has mentioned educational differences and they are a root to the problem with the chinese viewing westerners as some "evil arrogant" characters that should be avoided.

The methodologies we use in the West such as argumentation, asking question, debates, multi-sensual techniques leave the Chinese system of rote memorization in the dust. The teachers here and my students think I came from outerspace.

and, when they think you're from outerspace, they find their labels for you as well. if the "evil arrogant" suits them, you get it. following on that quote of juanisaac, i dare to say that the "rote memorization" in this country's education is to keep all the youth on one RIGHT TRACK and with ONE VIEW on the world, and if any changes in the chinese education were to happen that'd be the end of the red party rule on mainland. can you just imagine if the local education encouraged the independant thinking, debates on controvesial issues etc? can you imagine if they opened these kids minds rather than coded them?

however, and sadly enough, i am not even allowed to use mr. hu jin tao's name or discussions about him in my classrooms. some chinese kids amazingly don't even know where he really comes from, where he has worked before or what his major is. on the other hand, they know more about mr obama and his whole family. how could i possibly believe this 5,000 years old culture?

quite agreeably, we are the evil arrogant foreigners as we are open to discussions on much larger varieties of topics and objectively and then we are prepared to deal with varieties of views on these topics as well.

cheers and beers to the evil arrogant foreigners that are much better educated even with just a middle school "degrees" :)