ASTF
- 2013-02-19
I guess foreigners in any culture are always likely to bear the brunt of some locals who have an axe to grind. It doesn't excuse it and its worth knowing that it can happen as you might find a lot FTs haven't been outside of Europe or North America before they arrive in culture in which they will stand out to a greater extent.
I think most of the attention you'll receive can be classified under the annoying category as opposed to the threatening one. Like I said in another thread where a girl was complaining about her shoddy school provided apartment. You need to have someway of escaping or even the most laid back foreigner will go crazy here.
Dragonized
- 2013-02-20
Be careful with the baiting tactics of the poster whom you're responding to. He is oh so lonely for attention and when people get nasty at him for being who he is he will immediately try and act reasonable. We do see though that in a more globalized world how like will still attract like even if it's across countries and cultures. Those fenqing and the folks surrounding the carrefour are cut from the same ilk as this poster.
San Migs
- 2013-02-19
The thing is they take out their perceived inferiorities against westerners, and it can be harmful. Like when an American got mobbed during the carrefour anti french protests. Or when some fenqing youth stormed up to me and my then chinese gf, demanding I sign a petition against Jusco and the evil japanese, and then slagged me off and said I should respect Chinese women, because I refused to sign his nationalist petition.
China is now either a modern, prosperous country read to take it's place among the greatest of nations, or it is the little poor man of asia of a 100 years ago, it needs to decide and decide fast, because the rest of the civilized world is getting tired of hearing "deeply hurts the feelings of the chinese people!"
Good luck on your return to the UK.
Dragonized
- 2013-02-19
Good for you to make a stand for yourself. Only going to see more of those.
ASTF
- 2013-02-19
I didn't suggest there has been social harmony in china and there may never be. I stated that the goal was social harmony. It's an ideal and a noble one in much the same way that we hold concepts such as equality, liberty and justice for all as an ideal and continue to work as hard as we can to ensure that it happens. Yet when we open the newspaper or we talk to people on the street in a western country we will find things that do not correspond with these ideals. Therefore, Should we say that these ideals and our culture have failed and throw in the towel?
I think what would be good is to put those facts and figures you've quoted (some referencing would be nice) into a global perspective. How many nations with the size and population of china haven't been at war for a significant part of their history? Perhaps if you were to go and examine American history you would find that there haven't been many years when the US wasn't embroiled in an international war, a civil war, the planned extermination of native Americans (does the fact that the native Americans didn't band together somehow excuse them being thrown off their ancestral lands?), taking of land from neighboring countries such as Mexico, 'exploration' of the pacific rim by military forces, etc., etc., etc. I draw this point not to be anti-western or anti-American (you could equally choose a nation from outside the west if you like) but to show that if you are intent to rank cultures then it's only fair that you use the same criteria to do so.
On the same basis the US government is also responsible for cover-ups. To use an example on the same kind of scale as the Xi'an incident you mentioned I could use the example of the USS Liberty. You see there are unethical and immoral people operating in governments of every country in the world.
These are facts and regardless of what you believe they do show a pattern of flaws that occurs across all human societies.
I don't believe that concepts of 'face' and I'll throw in 'guanxi' for good measure need only be about materialistic gains. In my time in china I have seen them used in a positive manner as well as being used for selfish gains. I think most westerners can relate to the positive aspects of those systems within their own cultures as well. Western individuals still care how they are perceived by their peers and for some this might be a question of having the latest iPhone or designer clothing for others it might be via a more meaningful contribution to life. You've suggested yourself that I should spend time cultivating relationships on this board and in real life so you clearly understand the importance of guanxi. Doing things for others with the understanding that they will reciprocated seems a fairly pragmatic view of human relations. The dark side of guanxi and the one that is often talked about is undoubtedly cronyism, nepotism and corruption but then again corruption seems to be a feature of virtually every system. Take for example the powerful and well funded lobby groups who represent the interests of big business in western democracies.
Similarly with fairness and justice, can you say that the current financial crisis in the west which cost millions of people their jobs, houses, savings and pensions was fair? Has anything been done to bring those greedy few who are responsible to justice? No, we westerns will just sit back and wait for the next crash to come. The same patterns of self destruction seem to appear in all human societies. Of course we could say that a financial crisis is not on the same level as a famine. We are lucky to come from countries that are economically developed enough to avoid (fingers crossed) that kind of catastrophe. the Chinese of the 20th century weren't but then they weren't the only ones. Should we also label parts of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and other areas of Asia as inferior because the people there had the misfortune to experience such terrible events. The way you put is as if we should just tell them that they only have themselves to blame for getting into the situation in the first place because they themselves are lacking something as individuals and a culture as a whole. If I were to say the same thing to a poster on here about their negative experiences of working in china ie. you should have known better, you'd accuse me (and have done) of lacking compassion and understanding. Where is your compassion and understanding for the everyday, normal Chinese individual? Like us westerners I believe that most of them are honest folk just trying to get by in life. They are not perfect but they don't deserve to be sneered at because they have endured hard times in the recent past.
Change is possible but democracy and law didn't just appear overnight. In the west they were developed over time and will continue to be developed, changed or possibly rejected in the future. For more recent examples of transition we could look at the likes of Germany or multiple countries in Eastern Europe. Many People in these nations lived for years under despotic and tyrannical rule. In certain of those cases the transition towards a freer society where individual rights are guaranteed has been very difficult precisely because these people where used to being told what to do (in the same way you criticize the Chinese) and yet the changes ARE happening. If history teaches us anything it's that nothing is set in stone. The acid test for the Chinese I believe will come over the next couple of generations. Perhaps that Pandora's box full of oppression and anger that you are fond of speaking about will be opened and result in a change for the positive. Of course the Chinese are generally aware of their own history which has seen many dynasties over the millennia overthrown for reasons of corruption and incompetence. The ensuing conflicts that the power vacuum always creates should and does serve as a constant reminder to the Chinese of what can happen when you simply remove a centralized regime. So Perhaps we should applaud their caution rather than criticize their lack of action by saying conceited things like
China as well as the Chinese have a bad habit of not learning from their own mistakes
I feel they are painfully aware of their past. It would appear that you perhaps are not so aware!
I will state again. I am not trying to argue that one system is better than the other. I am not operating on an anti-western or pro-Chinese agenda as you are keen on stating. I simply disagree with your rational that the Chinese are morally inferior. Your ideas and opinions are centred only on china. You are unable to take a world view that encompasses the west as well as other cultures into consideration. I would suggest (as I have before) that this comes from an emotional reaction to your experiences in china and the experiences you had with Chinese people. This may explain your opinion but it doesn't excuse it.
Dragonized
- 2013-02-19
Well, your last post demonstrated that you can type more, but you still are who you are. Here is something you wrote that I would like to analyze and give back to you:
Yes the Chinese as with much of the Far East have built their society around the group as opposed to the individual but in reality they are just seeking to attain the ultimate goals of social harmony and balance between individuals in the same way that we westerns are.
There has never been social harmony in China. Chinese historians from books I have read written by Chinese scholars estimate that as many as 1/3 of the world's droughts have happened in China due to a combination of poor farming methods and man made reasons such as over collection of taxes. Throughout the history of China there has always been one ongoing war or another whether it was with the neighboring countries or with rebellions from within. I read from the same book that the grand total number of emperors who managed to make complete peace totaled no more than 5, out of several hundreds. Having 200 combined years of social harmony out of a possible 3000 - 5000 is NOT a good track record. Would you hire someone with only a 5% - 8% success rate with doing the job that you required them to do? The massive amounts of deaths caused by the "great" emperor rule is merely cited as statistics by chinese historians. We see this type of cover up even in modern times. Late in 2011 there was a major explosion on a street in Xi'An at a restaurant which killed by some local accounts as many as a few dozen people maybe more, but for politicians if the death number from unforeseen catastrophes exceeds a certain amount they risk being reprimanded which takes away their chances of promotion (a Chinese University Teacher told me this) so the reported number was I think 9.
If anything, the Ru School of Philosophy was more successfully implemented in Korea and Japan as there actually existed dynasties that lasted longer than 300 years, which would be considered long and stable by Chinese standards. Otherwise this was merely used as instruments of politics and deception.
No, they are not two sides of the same coin. Face is a problem because it does not actually teach people to be good, It defines good as being set only in certain situations and strictly limited by exactly how a person talks, act, and what they may give materialistically. This opens the floodgates for corruption and it has never changed for thousands of years, corruption isn't good and I'm sure even you can believe that.
I'm not really sure karma is the best term to discuss aspects of Chinese culture as it is more associated with Indian branches of Buddhism and Jainism. The concept in my opinion that would best suit what you describe is the Confucian concept of 'shu' which in western terms is I guess the equivalent of doing to others as one would have done to themselves.
If you read the history of Chinese Buddhism you would have seen that concepts of Taoism, Buddhism, and Ru were all implemented together by the ruling class and re-interpreted to the masses so as to create an image of harmony. But nobody actually resolved the issue of allowing open criticism to those who hold power and status, prevention of abuse towards ordinary people is a concept that was never really thought about. Basically if you were not a sanctioned scholar or government official or soldier of sorts you were at the mercy of whomever ruled where you lived and you could only cross your fingers that they would be less evil and exploiting than the guy who came before. No rule by law in other words.
As for "shu" it is usually interpreted as forgiveness in the Mandarin language. Of course this was useful because people were not only expected to take orders from the people at top, they were expected to forgive and tolerate as much as they can. Again this goes back to what I was saying about how the concepts of Confucianism and Ru in general does not create a system of fairness and therefore no justice. It's rule by man all the way until everyone can't take it any more and Pandora's Box is opened. You do not seem familiar with the cruelty of individual Chinese both from history books and from real life. For a country to consistently lose on average 60% of its population every few hundred years is abnormal from a modern ethics point of view. We take it for granted that we grew up in mostly peaceful times, but things such as eating your own son or daughter because there was nothing else to eat still happened in places like China as recently as last century.
Interestingly, the Baidu definition of "shu" also gave the extra secondary definition of empathy and direct talk (honesty?). Seems like a subconscious admittance of what takes priority first, therefore showing the unethical thinking.
As Confucius said
己所不欲，勿施于人
This was translated by me a while back as "Do not shoulder upon others that which you yourself cannot burden". The board admins were gracious enough to put that translation under their inspirational quotes section. But in modern Chinese times the stubborn view of collectivism coupled with a complete lack of interpretation on what is individualism as only defined by a Chinese (the universal traits of looking at individualism is interpreted as "foreign", "western", etc.) made a majority of chinese imho lose their own values, most notably this one. Chinese WILL in fact heap moral obligations on you that they themselves could not do, and they take an extreme view of things, a childish view rather due to their own authoritative methods of blocking information.
Being unable to serve your lord
Yet expecting obedience from a servant is failure to liken-to-oneself. '
Being unable to give parents their due Yet expecting sons to be filial
is failure to liken-to-oneself.
Being unable to be respectful to an elder brother Yet expecting a younger to take orders from you is failure to liken-to-oneself.
This quote by xunzi can be interpreted as heretical, and it goes back to what I was saying about the aspects of chinese culture that demonizes individualism and takes away the life force of a person. The chinese like to say how many thousands of years of culture they've had, but what they really miss out on is that their ways of thinking is merely a collection of a few hundred years of philosophy repeated by the same behaviors of the few collective ruling class for thousands of years. Confucious and xunzi were not even the most revered thinkers of their time, they were merely one or two out of hundreds.
From what Xunzi writes we can see that this is another mechanism for upholding the moral codes of the culture. Do as you should do or there will be consequences. In western/individualist thinking we like the idea of being able to do whatever we like so long as what we do does not limit the right of other individuals to as they like. If we step over the boundary we expect there to be consequences. Same coin, different sides.
Xunzi and Confucious and the thinkers who actually saw their work passed down all placed status and power over individual rights. This is WRONG, purely wrong. The basic unit of any society is the individual, and if there is no guarantee of individual rights (such as the Bill of Rights in the USA) how could the society follow ANY consistent set of rules? Again, we are looking at REMNANTS of chinese culture, NOT at what most Chinese people may or may not have wanted. I think it would be universal in any society for a group of people to want a fair system of justice, and China simply has not had that for any consistent amount of time. From this modern government we can see that it is still struggling to deliver its own promise on having a proper system of law, free elections, and a fair democracy (yes this was promised by the founders of communist china, the anti-Kuomintang propaganda basically promised this to the people if they welcomed the Communists to rule). The term ZhuZiBaiJia is used to describe the times that these thinkers lived in, and BaiJia means "Hundreds of Famlies" in this case hundreds of schools of thinking.
Of course neither system is perfect and neither the individualist approach or collective cultures have been able to prevent the kind of atrocities that you described at the end of that paragraph.
You're still operating under the flawed logic of believing both systems are equal in flaws, this is simply NOT TRUE. When you say atrocities what kinds of atrocities? Modern left wing liberals and of course anti-western folks like to point out the extermination of Native Americans in the American continents and the conspiracy theorists whom you so loathe as shown by your previous post with the link to the BBC article will talk about how much the wars in the middle east show how menacing and murdering the west is. Well one should remember that the native tribes failed to ban together and still fought amongst each other as the new settlers came, and the culturally Islamic countries in the middle east haven't exactly banded together, in fact there is just as much hatred for each other as there is for the west. The system of the west is still evolving, and throughout the few hundred years of this ongoing experiment there has been a willingness to change for the better because there were plenty of folks who believed in altruism and fighting for the rights of people who had nothing to do with them. Even if the west fell tomorrow, many things that came and were produced from them would trump what china has done. China as well as the Chinese have a bad habit of not learning from their own mistakes, the saving face culture has produced too many people unwilling to take responsibility. Certainly, you haven't demonstrated what you know about atrocities that were committed in China, you only bring it up when you're able to mention the west in the "same" manner.
To summarize, you are still caught up in the romanticized idea of what constitutes China and her morals. I will tell you this: If you didn't need to justify why China had equal or better than the West, you wouldn't need to constantly trudge out your side of the argument of how the West is equal in atrocity or negativity or flawed. You would take what the Chinese have said and use that as justification in itself that it is better than what modern Western values preach such as respect for individual rights, etc. You expose your own lack of confidence and knowledge in the very thing you defend and you do not sound like you even know too much about western history or culture either. If one listened to you for advice it would be like the blind leading the blind with both of you going nowhere.