China-man (or: it's a wonderful China - part 3 and last)

你是哪国人？(direct translation: “you are which country man?”).

No matter how heavy the accent or weird the dialect, foreigners in China always understand this question, simply as it is usually the first one thrown at them.

(actually, it is almost always on top of the list at any international encounter. This leads many to believe that nationality is an obvious matter. Yet if I let people guess mine, even westerners rarely say “Israel” within the first 10 guesses)

Anyway, as someone sick of consistently answering 以色列 (Israel) to this question, I occasionally answer 中国人! (China-man!). That’s a old and lame joke, which is used by western travelers all over the “south of the world”, usually (well, in India at least) rewarded with a gust of healthy laughter. However, simple Chinese don’t react so straightaway. Maybe it's because they are not into jokes on first acquaintance, but also because their definition of China-man might be pretty loose, they don't know how to face my answer.

不可能! (this can’t be!) exclaims the old lady running the restaurant I came into, and adds something about my face not looking Chinese.
可以吧,新疆人 （oh, it can be. he’s Xinjiang man）, tells her one of her waiters. She was appeased.

I don’t exactly know why, but this makes me feel good. These people for example originally come from Sichuan, also a relatively far and different province. Yet their life is so simple and their country so vast, that they can still believe that the green-eyed light-haired person in front of them is a Chinese.

It is no coincidence that Chinese are the biggest people in the world. In stark contrast from their neighbors to the east (or from their "neighbors" in the Middle-East), they are very inclusive in their national perspectives. Even their foreign rulers – the Jurchens (Jin Dynasty), the Mongolians (Yuan Dynasty) the Manchurians (Qing Dynasty) – eventually got considerably assimilated, and defined themselves as Chinese. This is also reflected in today’s attitude, for better and for worse: for most Chinese, if you’re from Chinese descent, then you’re Chinese. If you are Uighur, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchurian or any other minority on the premises – you’re not Han, but you’re Chinese.

And if you speak some Chinese, you are well on your way (no, that was just my heart wish speaking).