I’ve recently realized that you can judge how many laowai are at an event here in Shanghai by the number of those Vespa-style electric bikes you see parked outside the venue. They’re everywhere, those bikes. Silver for the “creative” entrepreneurs (to match their MacBook Pro), pink for the American gal who stayed on after her internship, orange for the “zany” DJ, and black for the British HR guy who wants to express his charismatic side. Top places to spot them include any branch of Wagas, Baker & Spice, and URBN hotel at brunch time. What’s most annoying about these bikes is that the owners think they’re being so damn original. Surely they must realize that they’re as ubiquitous as call girls at Zapata’s. (Something else that I could do without seeing is Feiyue, unless it’s on genuine, bona fide martial artists. There’s something vaguely perplexing about the sight of these humble pumps on a 1,8 m.-tall Dutch guy.)

What really gets my goat is that overweening egotism among laowai about learning Chinese. Sure, it’s a tricky tongue to master. All those tones. Those crazy characters. But come on. Over a billion people managed to nail it aged around 3.5, so the idea of a passably intelligent 25-year-old English guy reaching HSK 7 doesn’t impress me much. When you hear a laowai speaking good Chinese, they never seem happy just to speak it and enjoy speaking it; they have to let everyone within a three-kilometer radius know that they speak it. So annoying. If you’re an expat and you’ve mastered Chinese, well done. It’s a million times better than not bothering, but you don’t need to boast about it.

When the China rage flares, take a deep breath!

Most of the expat clichés are harmless enough, but when it comes to talking down to people, being rude, and channeling a particularly insidious brand of cultural imperialism, some laowai have a special talent. Walking down Anfu Lu one day (a street where you can’t take more than two steps  without seeing a foreigner), I bore witness to what can only be described as a coup de grace of my faith in my fellow laowai. A guy – could have been Italian, could have been French – was powering over the Wulumuqi/Anfu crossroads on his Forever city bike. Suddenly, a local chap on a scooter pulled out, causing the laowai to swerve. Instead of a tut, or a muttered curse in his own language, the expat began an excruciating tirade of Mandarin’s worst insults, berating the local chap for his peccadillo by inviting every imaginable curse upon his mother. Onlookers gathered and gazed, horrified at this outburst.

China can be annoying, there’s no denying it. Everyone has “bad China days” where everything is a problem and you just can’t make yourself understood. You get cheated by a taxi driver, you get shoddy service in a bar, you get cut up by a bike on Anfu Lu. But however insufferable it becomes, there’s just no excuse for being rude. There are few things more genuinely unpalatable than a jumped-up, puffed-out Westerner convinced of his or her own importance. Take a deep breath and rise above it, for everyone’s sake.

Equally insidious is complaining about stuff that really isn’t your business. Yes, it’s gross to spit on the streets, but it’s here to stay until China is ready to give it up, and that won’t be at the behest of an English teacher from Missouri. Sure, the concept of face is annoying in business situations, but it’s as old as Confucius, and has worked for millennia. Just because Jean-Pierre from Bordeaux doesn’t like it, it’s not going to disappear.

Being a laowai can be heaven and hell and everything in between, but I think the main thing we have to remember is not to be jerks about it. It’s easy to see yourself as a big fish in a small pond as an expat in Shanghai, and your ego can grow unchecked if you don’t keep a handle on it. The fact that you’re earning ten times the local rate doesn’t give you the right to bluster at
fuwuyuan (waitress)or shout at cashiers. Be cool, be calm, avoid the clichés, and you’ll be fine.

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Keywords: Foreigners in Shanghai Shanghai laowai laowai clichés Shanghai foreigner clichés Shanghai