> hey don't like to be treated as second class citizens, especially in their own country
Which form did that take? Were there westerners living in China treating locals like second-class citizens?
Some foreigners might have a little bit of superiority complex, but it's mostly coming from other Chinese treating foreigners better, due to foreign worship and in some cases institutional rules favoring foreigners, although the later is becoming rare.
Just to give a few examples:
- up until late 2000s, border customs dedicated extra manpower to make entering China easier for foreigners, while Chinese citizens returning home are stuck in long lines.
- not sure about now, but for a period of time, foreigners get preferential treatment in the police system, as in, crimes against foreigners gets more attention, and foreigner committing crimes gets more lenient treatment.
- foreigners sometimes get paid significantly more than locals, especially in the education system, this is still true today.
Re:Huawei Could Divide the World
by ssnistfajen on Friday December 21, 2018 @02:13PM
(#18735716)
I remember my Chinese english teachers in middle school (in early/mid 2000's) complained to us students how they had to regularly stay up until midnight to grade assignments/exams and prepare teaching materials, while foreign teachers get paid double the salary to only teach < 10 hours a week. Older foreign teachers made more of an effort at actually teaching us how to converse like native speakers, while some younger ones were just young adults on gap years and did nothing but teach us how to play hangman/bingo. Chinese schools would hire any native English speaker with a pulse and schools in less-metropolitan cities still do this today.
China evolved from generally pro-west in the 1990s to mixed pro/anti western camps of today.
The early pro-west stance were mostly driven by intellectuals who have seen the stark contrast between capitalist America and communist China. They worshiped everything American, both good and bad. You can still see the lingering effect of western worship in many aspects of Chinese society today.
The pro-west stance is losing ground because people are no longer starving, and realized that they don't like to be treated as second class citizens, especially in their own country. Sometimes the backlash has swung the pendulum too far and caused some resentment towards foreigners.
To end it in a brighter note, I think the populace of China is becoming more aware of nuances of things outside of China, thanks to large amount of Chinese people returning to the homeland after living abroad. This will help prevent the pendulum from swinging too far into nationalism/anti-foreigner nazi state.