Chinese Halfpat Culture Shock

Today's weather: High = 19 Low = 10
Sunny and couldn't be better

An expat, or expatriate, is a person who is living as a resident in a country other than one's nationality. By definition, an expat is not a registered resident of his home country, even though he is a citizen of that country.

A halfpat is basically a modified version of an expat who has taken on some of the identities of the adopted foreign country. I think I qualify for this, since I hold a Chinese drivers license and other Chinese documentation, even though I am obviously not local. Having been in China for over 9 years now, yeah, I'd qualify for halfpat status. The Chinese nickname for a person like this is called 'zhong guo tong' which I've heard fairly often these days.

A repat is someone who used to be an expat but moved back to the home country.

A nopat is someone who never left his home country.

Generally speaking, expats earn much higher salaries and they enjoy benefits packages like health insurance, free schooling for kids, subsidized housing, and so forth. The standard of living is much better than found back home, but the flipside is that expats don't really enjoy much local contact with the adopted foreign country. In other words, they surround themselves mostly with other expats and live the expat life.

Halfpats earn less than expats do, and less than they'd earn back in their home countries. Because of this, they learn to do as the locals do, and save money on things like food, rent, and so forth. They speak the local language. They generally have more local friends, and considerably more local contact with the culture than expats do. They also meet with expats regularly, and so the halfpats (as the name suggests) are halfway between the expats and the locals and are really bi-cultural in this sense.

Fittingly enough, there are two websites that match each type of group. The first is Shanghai Expat (shanghaiexpat.com) and the other is Shanghai Halfpat (shanghaihalfpat.com)

I started off in Shanghai as an ESL teacher and was a tried and true halfpat from the beginning. Actually, my initial salary would put me below the poverty line if translated into back-home terms. Those first three years were seriously intense Chinese language and culture learning, and I learned more in those years than any others. Having moved up the career ladder to a math teacher in a semi-international school, it has gotten me a higher salary, but I will forever be rooted in my halfpat identity. That means doing the same things at the beginning to optimize the use of Chinese language, make local friends, get local prices, and do as much as possible to fit in.

Expats often complain of the culture shock of trying to fit into China, and understand why the Chinese do things as they do. Halfpats also experience the same shock, yet they don't complain as much. This is because halfpats may not agree with how the Chinese locals do something, but they still want to understand the reasons why they do it, and to strike a compromise as much as possible. For instance, the latest posts on why it is so difficult to get a drivers license processed, and the details with police registration, etc. The bureaucracy really sucks, but I also enjoy the challenge, adventure, and accomplishment of what I have been able to do in China.

Another type of halfpat culture shock is trying to explain to expats, repats, or nopats about how the Chinese do things and how the way the Chinese do things affects my life in absolute realities. One of the overarching themes of this blog is to do exactly that. Since I have many non-Chinese readers here, the idea is to present as much information as possible about how things really work in China, to the best of my ability to do this.
Unfortunately, there are times when this whole thing breaks down and the consequences can be less than pleasant.

A perfect example of this is with Chinese holidays. It is a well known fact for expats and halfpats alike that the Chinese schedule their holidays a week or two in advance. There are general dates for stat holidays, but the Chinese government drafts up a specific schedule for companies to follow and then releases it a week or two beforehand. For a stat holiday that falls midweek, they give a Monday off to make a longer weekend, but they also require a "make up work day" such as a Saturday or Sunday before or after.

For example, with the upcoming May holiday, you ask any of the local colleagues in our office about what days we have and they would say, "I don't know" or "Maybe we work Saturday". By next week, the information will be clearer.

Halfpats and expats find this frustrating, but since we live in China there isn't much that can be done about it. That's how the Chinese do things, we need to follow along. Fair enough.

But the conflict arises when trying to plan holidays with others (i.e. nopats and repats) who don't live in China, don't have a clue about this type of scheduling, and frankly, they don't care since they don't live in China. These people are used to scheduling holidays months in advance, taking for granted that the holiday will be guaranteed on that specific day. When I try to explain how the Chinese do it and how it affects my life, I often hear, "That is so strange" or "How can anyone plan ahead", etc. even though the Chinese have demonstrated for years they can function in this reality.

So I usually wait until I know the holidays, then start booking flights.

Another example is with visas and bureaucracy. Love it or hate it, the Chinese are the most thorough people on the planet. They will take their time, they will check, they will double check, and the process will not be efficient. They must sacrifice speed for accuracy, because they have huge volumes of visas to process. Any mistake with the visas would cause a police officer to get fired on the spot, so they'd rather be over-careful.

When starting a new school term, it is not guaranteed that the school can issue the proper work visas and paperwork before the first holiday, that is the October holiday or National Day. It would nice if they could, and sometimes they can do it on time. Combined with the last-minute scheduling, it's usually best for teachers not to plan trips on National Day and make it a staycation instead.

But try explaining all that to people who don't live in China. Unfortunately, I got seriously hosed last year due to this, and am still suffering the consequences. Love it or leave it, that's the way it goes.

There are untold many other examples like this, but any seasoned expat or halfpat would get the idea of what I'm going on about here.