IT'S hard to imagine at first the similarities between a group of anti-capitalists in provincial New Zealand and the largely privileged, professional expat community in Shanghai. But anthropologist David Foote is quick to point out how these different groups are in fact alike.

The Kiwi doctoral student, who is living in Shanghai for a year to study its expats, says his current research topic is not a great leap from his masters' thesis on anti-capitalist activists Down Under.

"If I had to boil the two ideas down to commonality, I would say that they are both (examples of) urban ethnography, and they both deal with marginal identities," Foote says. "Expats in China are a marginal identity. We're used to being in the mainstream and we're suddenly thrust into a marginal position in society. A privileged marginal position, but it's marginal nonetheless."

Foote's aim over the next year is to put expats under the microscope, and everything from the furniture bought by so-called trailing wives to many Western men's taste for Chinese women is fodder for his research.

But before we get to the fun stuff, it's back to the schoolroom briefly. Readers already confused by the word "ethnography" might appreciate a quick introduction to anthropology: It's the study of human culture, often carried out by researchers living in the communities they study.

Ethnography is the book or journal article resulting from an anthropologist's research, an analysis of a community's unwritten cultural laws. In a nutshell, anthropology asks: Why do these people do what they do? And why do they do it differently from those people over there?

Living among the "natives" of a community is what makes ethnographies stand out from your bog-standard academic research. Anyone who's ever lied on a survey knows what we say about ourselves can err toward wishful thinking. Anthropologists don't just ask us what we do, they observe us too, and see if the two match up.

Foote, who arrived in August, will spend the first six months of his research period simply living the life of an expat in Shanghai, informally observing expats, making friends, catching up on the gossip and sussing out how the community ticks. Then he will conduct a series of formal interviews with expats to answer his key questions about community and identity.

"I'm looking at how expats construct community, and why community is more important here than it would be at home," he says. "I'm also looking at the construction of a new identity in China - how being in China influences your construction of identity, and the role of community in that."

But back to taitai's interior decorations. Any expat tends to pick and choose the parts of Chinese culture that suit them, but this is especially the case with so-called trailing spouses, who might have been reluctant to move to China, and are less than comfortable living in the city.

So a taitai (housewife) might buy a Chinese-style porcelain bowl or a piece of dark-wood antique furniture, as a controlled way of letting China into her home and identity. Back home, we're more receptive to new ideas and experiences because we don't feel they will threaten our identities, Foote says.

"Whereas in this situation, the boundaries around our identity close down because they're constantly being contested. We're constantly having to face things that are outside of our comfort zone," Foote says. "And we still make choices about what we accept, but those are much more conscious choices, like 'okay, I like this piece of Chinese culture, so I'll let it through'."

The ironic part is that the taitai's bowl might not be authentically Chinese at all, but rather made in Singapore to a Japanese design, Foote says. The antique furniture, while genuine, is just as unrepresentative of current Chinese culture - it's rejected by modern Chinese people in favor of housewares from IKEA. "They love, they're absolutely entranced with IKEA."

These kind of quirks confuse Westerners who are looking to engage with Chinese culture, and many become cynical about what aspects of China are "real," or even whether Shanghai is "really" China at all.

"You often hear 'Shanghai is not the real China'," Foote says. "One of the things that interests me is what do people mean when they say 'the real China'."

Western men with Chinese wives or girlfriends, or more rarely Western women with Chinese partners, are clearly more willing than homesick taitais to engage with Chinese culture.

Foote even has an anthropological phrase for the East-West love phenomenon - "mutual exoticism" - and men who aren't hot with the ladies in their home countries are most susceptible to it.

"Even if you weren't a Sinophile before you came, if you don't have a very good success rate with the ladies where you come from, and you come here and the women are like, all over you, then it's not going to be long before you become a Sinophile," Foote says.

But a huge cultural gap exists between the lovers, and few of these relationships last the distance, he says. "It's very difficult to imagine a culture that could be more different from the West than China, Chinese culture. They're sort of opposite ends of the continent."

For example, Westerners are often alienated by Chinese people's behavior, Foote says. "Expats often, and I'm not excluding myself from this, find the manners of Chinese people hard to deal with. The shouting and the spitting, and things like that. It's not something we are used to. When someone yells at us, we interpret that as very, very aggressive behavior. But in Shanghai it's just 'I am mildly agitated at you'."

Foote is interested in the ways Westerners deal with unfamiliar cultural quirks like constant car honking, expectations of "bribes" or gifts, and colleagues openly napping at their desks. The response seems to be an alternation between moaning sessions with other expats, and bemused resignation, also known as "TIC", or "This is China," he says.

Foote says taking the TIC attitude may indicate that people are more inclined to make the best of China. "They're like, 'oh well, my phone was stolen. TIC'."

Another way expats deal with culture shock is by living at least part of the time in a "Western bubble" - eating Western food, retreating to Western-style homes and socializing with Westerners.

"We need co-conspirators in this environment, we need people who understand and are going through similar things. But also, we want to have a sense of place, we want to be somewhere where we feel like we understand what is going on, and that we belong," Foote says.

Having an expat community has meant that services have developed to allow expats to insulate themselves more easily. So they have Sherpa's food delivery service and phone translation service.

Chinese people, of course, are just as likely to misunderstand expats. To start with, Western guys poaching gorgeous Chinese girls makes them fairly unpopular with local men. Westerners also tend to break cultural conventions without realizing it.

Foote gives his own example - he visited the Shanghai Sevens rugby tournament but had forgotten his ticket. While he was wandering around the grounds wondering what to do, he realized he had walked straight past the security guards and into the stadium without being asked for his ticket. He later accidentally stumbled into a VIP zone, again without being stopped.

"Mostly, Westerners will not be questioned," he says. Because wealthy and powerful Chinese people also break these rules due to their sense of entitlement, Westerners get lumped in the same "spoiled fat cat" category.

"Chinese people assume that Westerners are wealthy, or put us into that category because that's the only category we fit into." Ordinary Chinese rarely break cultural rules without permission. "Chinese people wait to be told to push," Foote says, adding after a pause: "Unless they're queuing for something."

But despite the occasional frustrations and disappointments Westerners encounter living in China and engaging with Chinese people, many expats stick it out for the career opportunities and the lifestyle.

"Certainly, everyone has moments here where they're like 'fxxx this. This is ridiculous.' But people wouldn't stay here if there wasn't something in it for them, if we weren't either making money, or enjoying ourselves, or forming connections," Foote says.

Many Westerners go further and fall in love with Shanghai's nightlife, architecture, shopping and cultural scene. "The lifestyle is quite attractive. I think that's one of the big things people get addicted to," he says. "Shanghai's just a very, very easy city to be a Westerner in."

Some interesting views from David Foote about expat's life in Shanghai

Why taitais like to buy Chinese-style interior decorations?

Any expat tends to pick and choose the parts of Chinese culture that suit them, but this is especially the case with so-called trailing spouses, who might have been reluctant to move to China, and are less than comfortable living in the city.

So a taitai (housewife) might buy a Chinese-style porcelain bowl or a piece of dark-wood antique furniture, as a controlled way of letting China into her home and identity. Back home, we're more receptive to new ideas and experiences because we don't feel they will threaten our identities.

What does a 'Western bubble' mean?

Another way expats deal with culture shock is by living at least part of the time in a "Western bubble" - eating Western food, retreating to Western-style homes and socializing with Westerners.

Having an expat community has meant that services have developed to allow expats to insulate themselves more easily. So they have Sherpa's food delivery service and phone translation service.