Last month, I happened upon a video by a so-called comedy troupe based in Shanghai named Mamahuhu. Intrigued, I clicked on the link, hopeful to see some professional expat comedians. While Mamahuhu does produce mildly amusing content, this one - about reverse culture shock - not only fell flat, it ticked me off.
It would be too easy to nail it as racist for suggesting that the foreigners portrayed in the video left China with nothing but uncouth behavior learned from the locals. The problem is, it also suggests that they became idiotic and incubated.
The short video is set primarily on a therapist's couch, where a newly returned foreigner shares his aggrieved experiences of his old life in China: from drinking in public to restaurant ordering etiquette to squatting to shouting for "the friend price."
Reverse culture shock is very real; they just could have done a much better job of portraying it. For example, after dining on Guangzhou-style cooked pigeon here in China, I've never looked at these rats with wings the same. While visiting home recently, I noticed how plump and succulent all the pigeons at Disneyland looked; it got my mouth watering.
Speaking of plump, during that same trip I was aghast at the collective waistline of the American people. They were constantly shoving cotton candy, foot-long churros, corn dogs and giant sodas down their gullets.
After years of living among a lither population (and where many rural grandparents regularly regurgitate food into the mouths of their Little Emperors) nothing sickened me more than the ever-rising obesity of my own countrymen
Also at Disneyland, I couldn't help but wonder why nobody was holding their child over the bushes to let it all out; they could save so much time instead of standing in line at the toilet. While buying a soda, I asked the server to make sure it had ice. She looked at me like a freak and retorted icily, "Who would serve a warm Coke?"
In Las Vegas earlier this year, I thought all would be fine when I withdrew 100 bucks from the ATM to buy myself a 2 Live Crew concert ticket, forgetting that my account is linked directly to my Chinese wife's mobile. Not a minute later, she suddenly rang asking where I was and what I was doing with that money.
前几个月在拉斯维加斯，我去取款机取了100美元现金放身上，打算去买两张2 Live Crew的演唱会门票。然而我忘了……我的银行账号是和我中国太太的手机相绑定的！于是很快咯，她打电话来问我在哪，拿这些钱要干啥去啊？
She was livid and, no, she did not give me permission to watch Luke Skywalker and his posse perform. Which is a shame, because attending a concert of foul-mouthed, horny rappers is indeed one of the true joys of reverse culture shock. Don't get me wrong, I had fun watching Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber sing their family-friendly anthems in Shanghai, but it's refreshing to listen to something a lot, how shall we say, harder.
I get that 2 Live Crew will never be booked in Beijing. That's fine by me, as I did not move to China to wallow in Western ways. Nor to whine and complain constantly about a language I didn't bother to learn.
在北京，我肯定看不到类似于2 Live Crew这类的“低俗”演出。这我倒无所谓啦，我并没有在中国了还对西方的那些生活方式念念不忘。我也不介意学中文，这没什么好抱怨的。
We all know that, since the global financial crisis in 2008, an entire wave of economic refugees have poured into China. Many are millennials with few job prospects in their own home countries, so they have pervaded China's educational sector as faux-teachers by day, and at night hop on to YouTube to mouth off about what they don't like about China.
It is getting tiresome, but also well-deserving of some ridicule. I hope someone with some proper comedic training makes a short, funny video about it, because I have yet to watch one.
