fineillsignup (yunyu)

One very interesting thing to me about Chinese culture is the way Chinese speak about "foreigners" ie 外国人 compared to English speaking culture.

In English, one only uses "foreigner" to describe someone who is not native to the country they reside in. As an example, I live in Canada but I am not a Canadian citizen, so I am a foreigner. When I lived in Taiwan and when I lived in China, I was also a foreigner there. When I am in the US, I am not a foreigner, because I was born there.

But Chinese people speaking Chinese outside of China will speak of non-Chinese as 外国人 in those people's own native countries. This is very interesting to me. I have heard it countless times. Chinese people speaking Chinese outside of China will call non-Chinese Canadians born in Canada 外国人 and non-Chinese Americans born in America 外国人 and so on.

So in Chinese culture it seems that the chief, primary, central, or even unconscious underlying meaning of 国 is always 中国 and that being 华人 is the opposite of 外国人, even outside of China.

I don't have any conclusions to make from this, I just thought it was an interesting cultural difference in language use.