Chinese StereoType Poll

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Through the interviewing of a small group of people 

certain rather unsure conclusions can be drawn as 

relating to the knowledge of both Asians and Americans 

concerning China’s culture and it’s people’s life style.  

It seems that Americans go the full range in knowledge, 

anywhere from downright stupid answers to admitting that 

they don’t know anything about the subject to being 

decently well informed, but the most noticeable factor 

is that most of the information is taken from the 

portrayal that the mass media offers us of China.  The 

Asians we interviewed can be split up in two categories: 

the ones who spent a considerable amount of time in 

China and who are well aware of the culture and 

lifestyle and those who are almost second generation and 

who have a very limited knowledge. We have posed ten 

Americans and five Asians eleven questions in order to 

examine their knowledge of China.  

	The Americans although mainly lacking specific 

knowledge of the Chinese legal system thought of it as 

being complicated and usually harsh.  This image is 

mainly derived from mass media since most of the Asians 

think that the legal system is reasonable because it 

allows for reform rather than retribution and because a 

lot of the basic rights do apply.  Besides the Americans 

who think China is a monarchist state and thus cannot 

have government oppression, most said that the Chinese 

government is oppressive and mean. The Asians, however, 

said that the Chinese government is overly vilified and 

that in fact oppression is only half as bad as it is 

said to be. The Americans knew very little about the 

Chinese military, if anything at all, and mainly 

described it as big and powerful; this may be a result 

of the recent wave of Sino-phobia in politics.  The 

Asians simply said that it is unpleasant and most people 

don’t want to be in it. Basically in education most 

everybody agrees that it is more efficient than the 

American system. However there are those that say that 

because of the high dropout rate it is actually worse.  

	As for general knowledge of Chinese traditions and 

holidays the most common one named was the Chinese New 

Year, but also the Asians also seemed to think that the 

Chinese family structure was tighter than the American 

version.  This also reflects the media influence, as the 

first thing that comes to the Western mind is the New 

Year not the family structure.  Most Americans 

interviewed thought of the Chinese as being dressed in 

traditional Post-Revolutionary wear, respectively a 

simple shirt and plain black pants, but the Asians said 

that contemporary Chinese wear westernized clothes such 

as Nike.  Most interviewees interpreted the question 

"what do Chinese people do for a hobby?" as mainly 

referring to children, although the details differed the 

general conclusion is that Chinese people do the same 

things as everybody else during their free time.  It is 

also possible that the interviewee projected their own 

image or ways due to absence of knowledge.  Most people 

said that the Chinese listen to most kinds of music that 

Westerners listen to but also traditional.  The majority 

of the people interviewed said that Buddhism was the 

main religion Atheism showed up several times as well.

	As shown above most stereotypes of Chinese people 

may have been true at some point but have long been 

outdated.