Questions Chinese people ask me every day

I feel like no matter who I’m talking to, I have the same conversation on repeat. Here’s the things people ask foreigners (“waiguoren” aka “outside country people”):

“What country are you from?”

My obviously western facial features invite this question before all others. Anyone from motorbike-taxi drivers to my apartment manager to the street-meat vendor will ask me this. This is such an unfamiliar question to me an American, where asking someone where they are from is practically rude. Almost everyone in China is Chinese. Being a foreigner here you definitely stand out, and people want to know where you’re from.

“Are you here for work? Or…?”

They also want to know why you’re here. This is a polite way of asking what I’m doing in China, and it’s always the second question. Sometimes people will straight up ask me if I’m an English teacher, because it’s probably the most common job for foreigners. People don’t seem to care that I am also an interpreter in the US. When I offer this information I’m met with a very mild “oh”. This is a wild flip for me. In the states, saying I’m an interpreter elicits a lot of “wow, cool!” responses, while being an English teacher is a respectable but pretty run-of-the-mill job.

“How old are you?”

People will straight up ask this with zero American cultural shame around asking an adult, especially an adult woman, their age. Also, every time I’ve asked someone to guess, without exception, they’ve said they think I’m 25.

“Are you married?”

Everyone will ask this. The twenty-something Chinese teachers at my school, the bao’an (security guards) at my school, my doctor, my apartment manager, everyone. They won’t ask “are you single?”, “are you seeing someone?”, they will straight up ask “are you married?”, despite my clear lack of wedding band. Lots to unpack here.

“How much money do you make?”

So, I haven’t actually been asked this, but my Chinese tutor says this is the next question to expect. And in the show I’m watching, Nothing But Thirty (highly recommend, search MCTV’s English subtitled playlist on YouTube), this question does get asked. My tutor says I can reply with a vague answer like “an average amount”. Phew, good to know.

If I don’t ask these questions, am I being rude? Do I seem uncaring? I ran this past my tutor and she said no, which is a relief. It seems these are the standard run of the mill questions people will ask to get to know you. After this, comes level two:

“How many hours do you work a day?”

“When do you get off work every day?”

“Do you go out on weekends?”

Or do you stay home? If you go out, alone or with friends? How many friends? Details. Details. Details. It feels like being on a first date with everyone I talk to.

“Do you cook?”

Most people in China apparently do not cook. During COVID lockdowns this became a real struggle as people with only a kettle and instant noodles at home quickly ran out of food. Takeout is cheap and plenty, though everyone agrees that home cooking is healthier.

“Where in [your country] did you live?”

Even if people don’t know anything about the geography of your country, they will still ask. I actually find this quite sweet.

After one such conversation with my new apartment manager on WeChat (after I asked him a question about sending packages), I asked him why so many questions. He said, simply, it’s his first time meeting a foreigner and he’s genuinely curious. I found this honesty endearing.

“Welcome to China, foreign friend”, he said, with a handshake emoji. “Do you have many friends in China?” he asked. “Not yet”, I said, “I just got here a few weeks ago”. “I’m your friend”, he said. I honestly didn’t expect Chinese people to be so friendly, amid COVID fears and how America is viewed all over the world, especially. In America people are known say “go back to [a country they think the person is from based on an often racist assumption]!”. That has not once happened to me here. For someone who I can’t even talk in person to offer to a friend, well, no matter how much substance those words carry, they mean something, and right now they mean a lot.

❤