Dias Amreé
Lives in Almaty, KazakhstanUpdated 2y
What do the Kazakhs think of the Chinese and vice versa?
I did my master's degree in Economics in the U.S. in 2014, and half of my class was from China (I'm from Kazakhstan btw). They only hung out with each other speaking only Chinese, so it was almost impossible to befriend with them unless you're Chinese too. But at some rare occasions it was possible to chat with them briefly.

During those brief conversations, what struck me the most was that they never heard of such country of Kazakhstan. Whaaat? To say that I was surprised is understatement. I couldn't believe it. Because: A.) the Chinese students were supposedly the “smart” ones and considering that we were studying at one of the top ten U.S. universities in Economics programs, it was just unfathomable for me that the Chinese econ students did not know about Kazakhstan; B.) China and Kazakhstan share the border (!).

You know, Americans often get ridiculed for not being able to locate a country on the world map because they don't have to take geography classes in school (and I'm totally cool with that), but I had higher expectations for my peer Chinese classmates.

Later I realized that most of the Chinese being from the eastern China don't really know about the western part of their country, let alone the neighboring countries from the west. Probably they think that the area between Europe and Russia and China is some kind of black hole where nothing exists and there are no countries there. I might be wrong. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

All in all, it was an eye-opening experience.

On Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 10:19:26 AM UTC-8, Rusty Wyse wrote:
> Dias Amreé
> Lives in Almaty, KazakhstanUpdated 2y
> What do the Kazakhs think of the Chinese and vice versa?
> I did my master's degree in Economics in the U.S. in 2014, and half of my class was from China (I'm from Kazakhstan btw). They only hung out with each other speaking only Chinese, so it was almost impossible to befriend with them unless you're Chinese too. But at some rare occasions it was possible to chat with them briefly.
>
> During those brief conversations, what struck me the most was that they never heard of such country of Kazakhstan. Whaaat? To say that I was surprised is understatement. I couldn't believe it. Because: A.) the Chinese students were supposedly the “smart” ones and considering that we were studying at one of the top ten U.S. universities in Economics programs, it was just unfathomable for me that the Chinese econ students did not know about Kazakhstan; B.) China and Kazakhstan share the border (!).
>
> You know, Americans often get ridiculed for not being able to locate a country on the world map because they don't have to take geography classes in school (and I'm totally cool with that), but I had higher expectations for my peer Chinese classmates.
>
> Later I realized that most of the Chinese being from the eastern China don't really know about the western part of their country, let alone the neighboring countries from the west. Probably they think that the area between Europe and Russia and China is some kind of black hole where nothing exists and there are no countries there. I might be wrong. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> All in all, it was an eye-opening experience.

I grew up and educated in the U.S. and I never heard of such country as Kazakhstan. Until recently, you should consider it "lucky". Only "bad" news travels fast...