扒车喵最近，美国知乎Quora网站贴出一个问题：在中国生活后，你的看法发生了什么改变？（How did your opinions change after living in China?），引起国外网友热议。
【下面是quora网站网友的评论】
Arman Siani, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Traveler
Answered Jan 22
I changed my stances from being neutral about China to completely pro-China during the time I lived there.
Growing up as an Aussie (yes my name is Arman but I am a white dude with a Turkish mother and an Italian-American dad who immigrated to Australia), my experience with Chinese people was mostly positive.
In my university, most of the Chinese students I came across were extremely intelligent and hard working, and these are characteristics that makes me like a person almost instantly, either because I myself am intelligent or hard-working or because I am lazy and dull and I like people with characteristics I desire for myself.
在中国期间，我对中国从中立立场完全变成了亲中立场
我是澳大利人（我有个土耳其老妈、意美混血移民澳大利亚的老爹），我与中国人的经历大多数是正面的。
大学期间，我的大多数中国学生都很聪明，很勤劳。相处后我也受其感染。
Without going into much details, I moved to China as an Engineer (the company that employed me in Australia shifted me to China) and then shifted careers and started working in quantitative finance, before coming back to the US.
Here are some points to note (which addresses my preconceptions before coming to the country and also some other issues):
没怎么深入了解，作为工程师的我搬到了中国（澳大利亚的公司雇佣了我，派遣我到中国）
以下是一些观点（消除了我来这个国家之前的偏见和其他问题）：
The education system: While I had this opinion that Chinese education, especially in math and science would be tougher and superior to Australia, I didn’t realize the magnitude of the difficulty. The Chinese entrance exam, Gaokao was a tough nut to crack, and I witnessed first hand, the amount of effort that students put into cracking it in order to get into Tier 1 university. One of my colleagues’ younger cousin studied 8 hours a day and I was told that some Chinese students studied much more than that. The Gaokaos were orders of magnitudes more difficult than the ATARs or UAI (Australia) or the SATs. The physics question sets on the Gaokao were incredibly challenging, especially considering that they were to be answered by high schoolers, And I say those physics questions were challenging as an Engineer who graduated at the top 5–10 percent of his class. Oh and the collegues’ cousin couldn’t get into the university of his choice and had to settle for a Tier 2 University.
教育系统：
尽管我曾认为中国教育，特别是数学教育会比澳大利亚严格，我还是没意识到困难的程度。中国高考太难了。我亲眼看到很多学生为了进入一流大学而发奋读书。我同事的表弟每天学习八小时，甚至还有一些中国学生学习更长时间。
高考难度系数比ATARs或UAI、SATs更高。高考的物理问题很具挑战性，特别是考虑到答题的是高中生。那些物理问题具有挑战性，是作为毕业成绩处于班上前5~10%的工程师说的。哦，同事表弟没能进入理想大学，只好进入二流大学。
Infrastructure: I arrived during the early-mid 2000s and while I had preconceptions about China’s “third world” infrastructure, most of those pre-conceptions didn’t turn out to be true. Yes, things weren’t as good back at home, even though I was living in one of the prominent cities in China. But the roads and streets were clean (doesn’t apply to public toilets, which were exceptionally dirty) and construction of new buildings were taking place at a rapid rate. An “expat’s salary” did afford me very good facilities, including good housing. In any case, there was a huge difference in terms of infrastructure between the time I came to China and the time I left China.
基础设施：
00年代中期，我来到中国，对中国“第三世界”的基础设施没什么概念，大多数先入为主的看法并未被证实。道路干净（除了公厕很脏），房子建得很快。一名“外籍人士”的工资让我能过上不错的生活，能住上高档公寓。无论如何，在我来中国到离开中国这段时间，基础设施出现了翻天覆地的变化。
Poverty and wealth: Before coming to China, I thought of China to be an incredibly poor, but rapidly rising nation. When I went there, I did feel that people in general were poorer than the West. A car was considered a luxury. American fast-food joints like McDonalds and Pizza Hut were considered “fine dining” (and yes, that would be the only time I would ever use McDonalds and “fine dining” in the same sentence). Owning a car (even tiny hatchbacks) was considered to be a status symbol. But there were also incredibly rich people and people working for certain private firms and owning businesses were extremely wealthy. However, the affluence of people increased exponentially in the years I stayed there.
贫富：
在来中国之前，我认为中国非常穷，然而中国正迅速崛起。来这儿时，我确实感觉当地人普遍比西方人穷。汽车是奢侈品，像麦当劳和必胜客这样的美国快餐店被当成“高级餐厅”（我第一次将麦当劳称为“高级餐厅”）。拥有一辆车（即使是小型两厢车）被当成身份的象征。但也有非常富裕的人，他们为某些私企工作，自己开公司，非常富裕。然而，我呆在那里的这些年里，人们的财富呈指数级增长。
Expats in China: Western expats in China came in two varieties. The first type were the incompetent, unqualified Westies who came to China to gain some “international exposure”, and usually they dropped into this country to teach English (although it doens’t apply to all English teachers in China). These folks would usually whine about the “oppressive” Chinese gove* and say how much they hated this place. The random Western woman who was here would complain about “misogyny”. But curiously, they would never leave the country. On the other hand, there were competent expats who came to this country as skilled workers who wanted to develop their careers and try their hands in China. These were the small to medium scale business owners who would often travel between China and the US, or international executives working for multinationals, or translators and business consultants and journalists.
中国的外籍人士：
在中国的西方外国人有两种。第一种是没能力的西方人，他们到中国为了增加一些“国际视野”，通常是在这个国家教英语（并非指所有英语老师）。这些人通常会抱怨中国的“压迫”，说他们多讨厌这个地方。
另一方面，一些有能力的外国人，作为技术工人来到这个国家，希望在这里发展事业、一展拳脚。这些人是中小型企业老板，经常往返中美，或者是跨国公司国际高管，或翻译和商务顾问和记者。
The workplace: This is where I received quite a shock. I expected an easy-going work-life without strict hierarchies but I was as wrong as a person can ever be regarding both these assumptions. The work environment was stressful and hyper competitive, and surprisingly that was part of the reason I thrived there, because I liked to exert myself to the fullest extent possible. Also a lot of my colleagues were Chinese professionals who were educated in the UK or the US and they came back because they rightly felt that China with its dynamic economy had more opportunities. One of my subordinates got his degree in Math at the University of Michigan and was one of my favorite people to hang around. The people I worked with in general were extremely competitive, dedicated and competent. However, what I didn’t like about the workplace was limited individual autonomy, and a strangling bureaucracy when dealing with regulatory authorities.
职场：
这是我震惊的地方。我期盼一种没有严格等级制度、轻松的工作生活。但我错了，人不能同时两手抓。工作环境充满压力，竞争激烈，惊讶的是，这也是我在那里成长的理由，我喜欢尽我所能竭尽全力。我不少同事是英美毕业的中国专业人士，他们回国是因为他们认为经济繁荣的中国有更多机遇。
我的一个下属获得密歇根大学的数学学位，他是我最喜欢的人。和我一起工作的人都极富竞争力、专注肯干。然而我不喜欢职场被个人自主权限制，以及与监管机构打交道时压抑的官僚作风，
Media vs reality: Living in Australia or the US, the media coverage of China was negative, to say the least, although in my opinion, George Bush’s tenure saw some positive Chinese opinions within the US administration (which was sort of counter-intuitive). In any case, the media portrayed the Chinese as mindless, brainwashed peasants who wanted their “white saviors” to rescue them from “oppression”. But the truth was completely different. Those guys are just like us, wanting better careers and futures for their children, and they didn’t really care too much about “democracy” and “human rights”. They were aware of how they came across to the West, but during my stay, I saw a gradual shift in attitude where they started to no longer care about what the West said about them. I have written about the media issue in quite a few of my China answers on Quora.
媒体VS现实
在澳大利亚或美国住，媒体对中国的报道很消极，尽管我认为，至少乔治布执政期间能看到对中国的积极观点。无论如何，媒体把中国描绘成无脑的、被洗脑的乡巴佬，希望“白人救星”把他们从“压迫”中拯救出来。
但事实截然不同。这些人就像我们，为了孩子想要更好的工作和未来。他们对“民主”和“人权”不是很关心。他们知道如何与西方人打交道，我在这里时，我看到了一些转变，即他们不再关心西方人对他们的看法。
“Copycat” stereotype: I did have this impression that China stole a lot of designs from other nations, and while that’s not entirely false, its greatly exaggerated. This idea that the Chinese lack innovation is baseless. Yes, in the beginning they did utilize a lot of foreign designs for their models, but then again, that’s not unique to nations that only started to industrialize after the 50s. During the initial period of industrial revolution, French and German industries often enlisted the help of British engineers for their work, and Japan was no exception either. China’s recent developments in automation, quantum computing etc are original and innovative. And anyone who doubts the Chinese capability to innovate should go take a trip to a Chinese gadget market in one of the tier 2 cities.
“模仿者”的刻板印象：
我有这样的印象，中国从其他国家窃取设计，这不假，但被夸大了。认为中国人缺乏创造力，这点毫无根据。对，他们开始为了自己的模型，的确利用很多国外设计。但，对于50年代工业化的国家来说，这点不稀奇。
工业革命初期，法国和德国工厂经常得到英国工程师的帮助，日本也不例外。中国最近在自动化、量子计算机方面的发展都是独创、创新的。任何怀疑中国创新能力的人，都该来一次中国二线城市。
In general however, what I liked about China was its people. They were intelligent, friendly and dynamic folks who genuinely loved their country and wanted to do good for themselves and their nation, and that’s something I cannot help but admire, especially considering that these people raised their nation form an sleepy backwater to the largest economy on the planet.
I left China because one of the curses of my personality is that I don’t stay still in one relationship or one job or one career. I need to move around.
However, I would gladly go back to China if and when I decide to take such a step.
总而言之，我喜欢中国人民。他们聪明、友好、活力十足，真心热爱国家，希望为祖国和自己做有益的事情，这是我不得不佩服的事情，特别是这些人将他们的国家从一潭死水变成了全球经济最大经济体。
我离开中国的原因之一是，我不会在一段感情、一份工作或职业中驻足，我需要到处走。
然而，一旦我想，我很乐意回到中国。
你身边有外国朋友吗？他们是如何评价中国的呢？欢迎下方留言分享你的观点。
