Another weekend escape to Beijing, this time for a whole two days. Me and Griselle spent a great couple of days shopping, partying, eating out... A perfect breather, will definitely do it again. And good Chinese practise, finding our way around the big city of Beijing. One lesson learned: one hour is *not* enough to take a bus to the train station from downtown. The last time we were there we just made it to the train a whole minute before it left, and for some reason will still didn't give it any more time, and this time missed it for real. We managed to change our tickets to the next train an hour and 40 minutes later, only to find out later that it was late or cancelled, might arrive later..or not. So we had to get new tickets for a yet another train (as the tickets can only be changed once for free). But made it back in one piece, quite a few hundred yuan poorer and dead tired but happy as ever :)

Last week in class I did a stereotypes/word association exercise with my PhD students. I gave them a few nationalities and told them to come up with words or descriptions that they associated with each group. I thought it might me interesting to see how the results would be different from what they might be in Finland or Europe. I'm writing the list down here, as some of you might find it interesting too, especially the ICC people ;) And it's interesting to see how clearly it can be seen where these associations come from. For example, the image of the French is just based on these romantic French films you can get over here, whereas the negative image of the Japanese is obviously due to the history between China and Japan (most Chinese hate the Japanese with a passion). I'm leaving out the list on what they thought of the Finnish, as it was solely based on me and they just did the whole Chinese flattery thing all over again...;)

Here are their answers:

The Americans
- indifferent to others
- creative
- open-minded
- talk too much
- free
- rich
- arrogant
- self-confident
- proud
- shrewd
- self-reliant
- show off
- self-important
- individualistic

The French
- romantic
- beautiful
- fashionable
- humorous
- polite

The Japanese
- industrious
- cunning
- difference between male/female (men being more cruel and rude)
- malicious
- polite on the surface
- aggressive
- can bargain
- patriotic
- stubborn
- greedy

The Chinese
- patient
- brave
- kind
- spoil their children
- honest
- friendly
- enthusiastic
- hospitable
- conservative
- shy
- don't want to lose face
- love life
- like good results and happy endings
- talkative
- family-oriented
- wise
- diligent

The Russians
- very tall (except for Putin, who however is cool, clever and handsome)
- beautiful girls
- good drinkers
- patriotic
- good at gymnastics, figure swimming and sports in general
- mentally strong
- strong-willed
- big-nosed
- wear uniforms
- can bear cold
- brave soldiers
- short of food

The Germans
- strong-willed (especially when it comes to football)
- chauvinistic
- do not like immigrants
- produce cars and electronics
- punctual
- warlike
- conceited
- arrogant
- pitiless
- intelligent
- creative

The South-Koreans
- industrious
- clever
- calm
- young people dye their hair
- have a lot of good popular music, movies, TV shows, clothes
- produce electronics
- have face lifts
- family-oriented (like the Chinese)
- produce a lot of soap operas, especially complicated love dramas
- strong-willed (especially when it comes to sports)