Becoming Chinese or What is a Chinese?

After a month in China I think I can write something about "What is a Chinese?". China, as a country, may be its history and the party. But a Chinese, as a human being, has nothing to do with that. There are two keywords to understand what is a Chinese: family and food.

Let's start with food. Rice (fan) is also the word for the verb "to eat". So, "let's eat" in mandarin is "let's rice" (in Portuguese, "vamos comer" em chines diz-se, "vamos arrozar"). A still rather common way of greeting someone is "chi fan le mei you?" that means "have you eaten?" (in portuguese, em vez de "tudo bem?" diz-se "ja comeste?"). All Chinese people I met are very focused on food. They are all food lovers. The meals are the most important moments of a day. To be a Chinese is to dream of food. This has obvious consequences on this country's reality: the cuisine is the most varied in the world and, well, it's delicious! And while they eat a lot, they all say the food is healthy and that is why they are not fat.
In the restaurant, they eat with chopsticks, someone said :"how can you eat salad with fork and knife!?". In China the food is prepared in the kitchen, not in the table. The waste, like bones, should be thrown directly on the table (which is usually glass), not in a dish. It is common to see people spitting the bones directly to the table. In the restaurant, people share tables, it is usual to see a stranger joining your table. When in a group, all ordered dishes are shared, there are no individual dishes. Everyone uses their chopsticks to take food, either directly to their mouths or to their individual small boll (more common). In Chinese restaurants, everyone orders too much food: food is happiness and you should have as much as you can!

Chinese people are extremely family oriented. To a Chinese, the family is much more important than the society in general. This also goes for friends. Friends are part of the family. This is why they are not so nice to strangers. But this has many variations: I have talked to strangers that just turned their backs and strangers who would take me anywhere I needed to go.
For western standards, Chinese are not very polite, they don't say thank you, hello or please. There is a very simple explanation for this: they live in family and politeness is not really necessary in family, politeness is something you need to live in society, not in family. When you say please, or thank you, there is a implied distance between you and the other person. In a Chinese family, love, respect, and all strong ties are not expressed in these vague and meaningless words as thank you or please, "the relationship itself is a big thank you" someone explained.
These details are very important for a traveller, as a permanent stranger, the traveller wandering in China has to constantly seek to become part of the family, a friend, to access all the good things, otherwise, the traveller will just feel the distance of being a foreigner in a country of families.
Moreover, in China, "a stranger is only contacted for business". Chinese are tough negotiators and wicked traders ("they say Yes but it is No"). Friends are the connection between family and business, they are either business friends or family friends and this is why the Chinese Muslim told me: "I don't need to do business with you to be your friend". Well, friendships are always very difficult to analyse, anywhere in the world.

To finish this tiny portrait of Chinese people I would have to add something about how do fundamentally incompatible Taoism and Confucianism coexist in such a irreligious country, how the slow and balanced art of Taichi survives in a modern metropolis, and how the timeless art of Chinese painting and calligraphy give it all a touching image.
Nevertheless, the cherry on top of this 1300 million crumbs cake is a joke! Every single Chinese person I met had a fantastic sense of humour. So, this is a Chinese: someone laughing over a good family meal.

(all these things were told by Chinese people when talking about their country and their people. Off course, this doesn't mean they all agree with each other and it is always difficult to agree on such a over simplified and positive perspective)