->''By the time you finish reading this sentence, three million more Chinese people will have been born.''
-->--''Literature/AmericaTheBook''

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not a literal Land of Dragons]], mind you. The more modern version of the China half of the FarEast with the [[ThirtySecondsOverTokyo Japanese]] parts sifted out. A country of overpopulated communists.

In Hollywood, there are three types of people who come from China:

* Chinese cooks.
* Martial Artists.
* Rickshaw men.

China itself is portrayed as a mountainous region full of bamboo[[note]]In RealLife, China is a very diverse country with plains, forests, prairies, lakes and deserts, but in fiction it's almost invariably subtropical karstic mountains, which are more typically found in the South. Which is a bit as if Monument Valley was taken as representative of all of North America.[[/note]], a dwindling panda population, rice fields, and elaborate architecture. Being [[HollywoodHistory communist]], the people are also ridiculously hard workers who move about like ants, scurrying to get projects done via a HiveMind. The country is obsessed with New Year's and [[{{Dragons Up The Yin Yang}} dragons]] -- and there are paintings and statues of dragons everywhere. If you are in a fictional setting with any fantasy aspects, you are certain to run into at least one.

The country is also home to rickshaws, terracotta warriors, and the Great Wall. Any urban area will look like an American "Chinatown". The only important modern people to come out of China are Creator/BruceLee and Creator/JackieChan. The greatest historical event in China was that thing that happened in Tiananmen Square. It took until around the late 2000s for Western film-makers to realise that Mao's Cultural Revolution had been over for more than ''thirty years'', and you don't see millions of people all cycling to work in identical grey suits and caps any more.

In {{anime}}, people who come from China are less intelligent, but [[IKnowKarate they know a great]] [[EverybodyWasKungFuFighting deal of Kung Fu]], so you'd better not upset them. If you set foot in the countryside, you're also likely to run into [[ChineseVampire Jiang Shi]] who will start hopping around and trying to feast on your blood.

Aspects of Vietnam and Korea are usually still lumped in with China.

For the more modern Western depiction, see ChinaTakesOverTheWorld.

If you're looking for the ''other'' Land of Dragons, the one with a red dragon on its national flag, it's ''[[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} here]]''.
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' uses this version of China, and uses Chinese people a lot; in fact, China is basically the origin of all curses or anything mystical or magical. If there's any kind of cursed artifact, magic potion, or anything of that nature, it will usually always involve a Chinese person. Most the martial arts in the series is also from China. Ranma himself seems to be quite Chinese-influenced. Not only does he use Kenpo, the Japanese adaption of general Chinese martial arts, but he also dresses more like a Chinese. While Akane wears a Karate gi while fighting, Ranma usually wears a Chinese-style outfit.
* In ''Manga/EdensZero'', Mildian (a [[MythologyGag recurring element]] in Hiro Mashima's works) is depicted as a BabyPlanet whose surface and architecture are a mish-mash of Chinese iconography, such as a dragon-adorned temple, a miniature Great Wall, a Buddhist statue, and tall mountains in the distance, just to name a few. Its sole known inhabitant who isn't an adorable CartoonCreature is also an AnimeChineseGirl.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* Averted somewhat in ''Franchise/KungFuPanda'', which seems to be less a walking stereotype and more a distillation of ancient China and its legends and myths. While it does focus on kung fu and cooking/food, the depiction of the Valley of Peace is an encapsulation of the best of China's long history, art, culture, and beauty (particularly the natural sort). Jackie Chan's presence as a voice is simply due to his humor and martial arts skills, not because he's seen as representative of China. And as for all the dragon motifs...that's not only TruthInTelevision, it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the fact dragons are seen as powerful ''protectors'' in Chinese culture, so would naturally be used to adorn the architecture and be embodied as a warrior who would defend the valley.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Creator/BruceLee, of course, almost singlehandedly created the "kick-ass martial artist" component of this trope for the non-Chinese-speaking world. YMMV on whether or not that was a good thing, as it displaced the prior trope that Chinese people were timid, kowtowing, culturally-stagnant menial laborers (if not opium addicts). Bruce was often thematically linked to dragons, with such star vehicles as ''Film/WayOfTheDragon'' and his final completed film, ''Film/EnterTheDragon''.
* Most of the Creator/ShawBrothers' {{wuxia}} films are set in a historical China (usually the 1600s, during the rise of the Qing Dynasty) that leans heavily into this, with the Shaolin Temple and its kung fu monks a favourite subject. Some of their more fantastical films - such as the aptly-named ''Film/DragonSwamp'' - feature literal dragons, while their more historically-grounded films might use dragons as a motif - ''Film/InvincibleShaolin'', for example, was released as ''Unbeatable Dragon'' [[MarketBasedTitle in some markets]].
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[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/BridgeOfBirds'' is "a novel of an ancient China that never was," to which the book blurb adds, "But oh, it should have been!" Gets credit for having a more developed world that the description would imply. And only one dragon, on a little necklace.
* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has '''Agatea''', which in ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' follows Pratchett's Law of National Stereotyping by taking what everybody ''thinks'' they know about China and turning all the knobs up. While Agatea in its widest concept is also used for Discworld references to Japan, Thailand and latterly Korea, the Chinese stereotype dominates and involves a national fetish for building walls, senile emperors manipulated by Grand Viziers, scheming mandarins, flowing and very expressive calligraphics, Misfortune Cookies, inscrutable philosophies, lots of rice, revolting-sounding foodstuffs using the less desirable parts of the animal, and a Red Army, of sorts.
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Drew Carey was knocked out by Mimi and left in the Great Wall in this version of China on ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow''... even though said episode actually was filmed in China. To be fair, the show did manage to take in a trip to a Chinese [=McDonald=]'s though.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* 1701 A.D.: The Sunken Dragon is centered around a Sacred Dragon Statue.
* Somehow, despite only having a single background to do it in, ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' manages to utilize this trope with AnimeChineseGirl Jam's stage.
* Chun-Li's stages in the various ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' games are like this, with her first one featuring lots of people on bicycles and street peddlers, her ''Alpha'' stage on the Great Wall, her ''EX'' stage in the Tiananmen Square, her ''Alpha 3'' stage in a martial arts school, and her ''3rd Strike'' stage in a slum. This is also replicated with Fei Long and the Lee brothers, despite them being from Hong Kong.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire,'' where the whole game takes place in a fantasy setting derived from Chinese myth and legend and is in general pretty non-stereotypical and accurate. Except for the golems. And they're just giant, mobile versions of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army Terracotta Army]] from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.
* Averted in ''Fearless'', which portrays China very realistically. As for the life of the main character, Hwo Yuan Jia however...
* The country of Chun-nan in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' is the Sonic world's equivalent. Sonic runs across parts of its equivalent of the Great Wall, meets a kung fu master who's afraid of pandas, visits a restaurant with world-famous ''baozi'', scurries across bamboo forests between steep mountains by a calm lake, passes by pagodas and dragon statues dotted across the landscape, and encounters a phoenix as the area's boss.
* Gigan Rocks and Gigan Device in ''VideoGame/SonicRidersZeroGravity'' has similarly steep mountains and bamboo nearby with shaolin temples in the background (and as part of the finish line). The backdrop is merely cosmetic though--it's actually where a gravity-manipulation device was placed that Jet wants to find.
* The ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' expansion ''Mists of Pandaria'' is this to a tee. With panda people to boot.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', the world based on ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' is literally called the Land of Dragons.
* In both ''VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusRaccoonus'' and ''VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves'', China is a playable location.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Downplayed in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', where the Earth Kingdom is mostly Chinese, the Fire Nation slightly Japanese, the Water Tribes are somewhat Inuit (and the extinct Air Nomads were vaguely Shaolin-like monks). They have huge walls, but being earthbenders it's justified.
[[/folder]]

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