What do you think Chinese people make fun of Americans for?
While back home in America on vacation, I asked my family and friends this question. Being fat and stupid top the list, but the biggest trope was something that nobody thought to mention: Chinese people make fun of America’s obsession with guns.
As someone who has sat in far too many small bars listening to Chinese comedians, gun jokes have come up again and again, and I have come to realize that there are few areas where there is such a stark cultural difference between Chinese and American culture than on guns.
My first interaction with Chinese thoughts on guns came during study abroad in 2010. when I visited the rural Hebei countryside. The farmer who was hosting us woke us at six in the morning to feed us breakfast. We squatted outside in his dirt yard, eating mantou bread balls and chatting between the dog kennel where his one-eyed golden retriever lived and a garage stuffed with a ten-foot high pile of dried corn cobs.
“Americans have guns,” he said in a thick countryside accent. A true statement, though not quite a question.
I tried to explain the American gun rights debate as evenly as I could. “Some people see the freedom to have guns as more important than the safety society might gain by banning them.”
