What Common Chinese Know About US Cities

Just find out an interesting fact that Chinese generally know far more about US than Americans know about China. I've talked to a lot of middle-class Americans, like Uber drivers. Most of them never heard of Shenzhen, and most likely the number of Chinese cities they know is below three (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong). But for average Chinese, the number of US cities they know is around 10, because of school education and movies.

Here is what common Chinese know about US cities:

  • Washington DC - the capital (yet most of them don't know the difference between Washington state and DC)
  • New York - 911 & Statue of Liberty & the biggest city in US (many Chinese think NY city as the capital of the US and cannot distinguish between NY state and NY city)
  • Boston - Harvard & MIT
  • Los Angeles - Hollywood & Laker & movie scenes
  • San Francisco - Jackie Chan's Red Bronx & Silicon Valley (most Chinese have never heard of San Jose. SF has an alias in Chinese, Old Gold Mountain (旧金山), and many Chinese think San Francisco (三番市) and Old Gold Mountain (旧金山) are two different cities)
  • Hawaii - beach & Pearl Harbor
  • Seattle - don't know the reason but most Chinese do know Seattle.
  • Houston - The Rockets & Yao Ming
  • Philadelphia - first constitution & The Declaration of Independence (in Chinese middle school history class)
  • Miami - sunny beach (only few Chinese heard of San Diego though)
  • Las Vegas - gambling
  • Chicago - a big city & finance center
  • Alaska - geography class in middle school
  • Atlanta - Olympics Games (yet most Chinese know nothing else about Atlanta except the name.)
  • California - movies & the song Hotel California (most Chinese know California as the wealthiest state in US but not sure that SF, LA and SD are in California)