Job Discussion Forums

[jevon]

Hello forum. I'm a Uni grad with some teaching experience that intended to make my way to China for a year or two, starting this August. Before my Chinese professor hopped a jet back to Beijing, though, he left me the following advice: "Don't come. Stay away. Give us some time and hopefully we can contain or eradicate SARS."

While realizing the old saying that "if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans for the future", I am in a bit of a pickle. I still intend to head back to school after a while for an MA/JD in Chinese/E. Asian Law. With that in mind, getting some quality experience in China is imperative, yet with my professor's advice and the concerns of my friends and family, it seems sensible to re-evaluate my plans. So, I humbly turn to you for advice.

With some of you obviously choosing to stay in China, how grounded are my concerns? Even in a country of more than a billion, 6,000 cases of SARS is disconcerting.

Alternative locations to China in mind, the WHO seems a lot more optimistic about the situation in Singapore. Also considering Thailand and Japan, how rewarding would you consider these places as far absorbing "Asian values" or cross-cultural skills for China?

Any other comments or advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

All the best,
jevon

[Roger]

It is not foreseeable, to be sure, but if you have a job offer I can't see why you should not accept it!
If it is a SARS-free school you have little to fear. Travelling is another matter, of course, and we do not know how long the current status is going to be maintained (roadblocks, quarantining of travellers, often arbitrarily so).

I live in Guangdong, twenty kms from where the SARS struck first. Guangdong has been taken off the WHO list of dangerous areas. So has Hong Kong although they had to doctor their statistics (long-term SARS patients were discounted as having SARS as they clearly seem to be on the mend; the figure suddenly and magically dropped to 59, just one shy of the 60 threshold).

However, we are still faced with another major health hazard - and that is DENGUE FEVER. It has been around here since last autumn, and the authorities have not been quick enough to tackle this problem! Avoid Hong Kong and Macau - because in these parts dengue fever is most prevalent!

[Redfivestandingby]

Don't know what you mean by "Asian values". I hope you're not thinking of coming to China to get some type of philosophical "a-ha phenomenon" enlightnement from an old wise man with a long beard. Not in China!!!

Wait about mid-summer to see how the SARS situation is coming along. The chances of getting sick are low but many foreign teachers are confined to campus and required to do all kinds of useless things (daily thermometer readings for one).

It's just not a good time to get your first glimpse of this country.

I hope this has helped.

[jevon]

By "asian values" I mean cordial consensus-building, amongst other things. Not so much thought of as having a purely Confucian background, but very much along those lines. In short, nearly the opposite of us Westerners - therein lies the reason I'd like to see it in action.

Thanks for the advice. No, I hadn't given any firm commitment yet. I'm a bit concerned as far as time lines go, though. I need to have something starting in the earlier part of August so that I can complete an annual contract in time to get back to the States for grad school. That limitation is what pushes me to consider alternatives. Speaking of which, does anybody know of short-term opportunities? (Besides breaking contract) How rewarding of an option would you consider the other countries? (Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore)

[arioch36]

I don't think you will find much cordial consensus building China, though i wish you luck. if so inclined, you will have chances do drink the Chinese paint thinner known as Bai jiu, and get drunk with them, and tell each other that you are there best friend.

I would have no worries about actually getting SARS 10 times as many people died in the earthquake. But travel right now can be difficult, and not the best time to live here illegally.

[dractalks]

Lots of new in the past 2000 years!!!!

[dractalks]

Ecclesiastes..right 'Arioch'?
Lots of new in the past 2000 years!!!!

[chi-chi]

Try Taiwan.
Yup, there's SARS, but there's still a few hours here and there, around...for now.
Plus you'll get a mopeds-eye view of the things you are seeking.

[Count_Fathom]

I see SARS as particularly irrelevant in your situation. Your term and focus of study "cordial consensus-building" as a breed of Confucianism is best observed at the rural strata of Chinese society. The upper-echelons of the Chinese hierarchy are absorbed in the country's industrial, infra-structural, and technological game of catch-up with the west. This struggle has transformed the positive values of Confucianism into a monetary and economy obssesed ultra-capitalism. China lacks the western moral barriers of guilt, as her ingrained ethics are essentially shame-based, which therefore opens the doors of corruption for all-comers so long as they stay unseen in the shadows. Look not towards the cities and business structures for the fading embers of an once-upon-a-time universal standard of internal harmony.

At the rural level, you will find unparalelled communal co-operation. The ideal of conduct once held across the country, the appropriate ordering of human relationships serving to create the ideal social structure reamins in a slightly bastardized version, due to inequality of wealth, at the outskirts of smaller, less significant cities and beyond. The filial responsiblities are real and tangible, the neighborly concern and assistance are recognizable. (Whereas in wealthier families this is a vague concept of "I'm acheiving for the good of my family", the right idea, but wealth being the focus, the spirit is tarnished from beneath by the fires of greed with the ultimate goal of social ladder climbing)

So... For your purposes, I recommend: Damn the money, respond to emails of job offers from cities that you can't find on any map or in any atlas and catch a glimpse of what this country used to be. It will be of no use to you in a professional law career, as all those rules of conduct have been long forgotten in the emerging imperial China, but will perhaps convince you that your Uni courses on Chinese civilization were not a pack of lies.

As for Japan, Thailand, VietNam, and Singapore.... Those coutries have evolved along distinctly different paths. You will not find the ties for which you are searching. Many reasons for this, everything from size of the country to tourism to diet (stop laughing, it's true but I won't get into this here) being factors, and of course a heightened western influence compared to rural China.

Good Luck!

Oh yeah.. you won't find SARS out in the bounies, where nobody every comes and nobody ever leaves. That was the point....

[Count_Fathom]

(boonies? boonys? boon-docks?)

[Count_Fathom]

Point of note.

If you go any where near a city:

Monks (and they don't distinguish between Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian...) are the butt of every joke, the fool on most TV programs, laughed at and mocked in their temples by casual passer-bys looking for a laugh.

If you see someone praying at a temple, 90% want:

a winning mahjongg streak
their wife not to find out that they lost alot at mahjongg
a new mahjongg set for their birthday
lots of money to fall from the sky
a quiet place to pick their nose

[Count_Fathom]

(the pick-their-nose guys are the good guys, the ones you like. They avoid digging and staring at you for 30min as you eat your peas for lunch)

[arioch36]

Count you are so right. Directly on target. I don't know how the rural people do it. But they have to. Neccessity is the mother invention (of)

Couldn't agree with you more. thank you

Of course, Confucianism is pretty much directly opposite to the idea of consensus building. Kongzi looked for a leader, who through his excellent "virtue" (following the way of HEaven) would be an example and cause the more ignorant to follow his example. No consensus, but leading by example

Purely Confucian? Neo Confucian? The Confucianism of the Song that had little to do with Kongzi's Confucianism.

True COnfucianism ended with the Qin, where it was follow me not because I am a moral example, but follow me because otherwise I will chop off your head if you don't. The root of modern Chinese government (Which I do respect though)

[jevon]

So the base of Confucianism has been subsumed/consumed by the introduction of capitalist modernization?

As long as you're here, I have a few followup questions to that. What role does the concept of "face" play in this new system you speak of? I admit the possible fallacy in attaching face directly to Confucian social structure, but it seems like a coexisting phenomenom at least. I realize that getting any cultural background from Alan Greenspan is pushing things, but he links the troubled Japanese banking sector and crippled economy to a certain degree of the importance of face in Japanese culture, which I'd consider Confucian the same way the States is Protestant. (I also set aside other factors such as lack of inflation, market expansion, etc.) The respect for face, for consensus (as many Asian IGOs have adopted consensus rather than the majority-rules democratic method, ex: ASEAN), and for subtle indirections in the spirit of diplomatic cordiality rather than directly approaching an issue (Kissinger) has been one of the concepts I've struggled to grasp.

Thus, all that crap builds up to: So are you saying they've completely tossed out Confucianism, or spirituality, or have simply replaced the ends while maintaining norms that govern the means? Or do things like face have nothing to do with Confucianist social structure, but with a completely different category that remains more or less unscathed? (At which point you know I'd want some brief explanation given to that category)

BTW, Thanks for the advice and insights.

[Count_Fathom]

Here's my take...

Confucianism structures the human interaction hierarchy, rather militantly defining a chain of command for respect and devotion. This mode of thought is tangible, measurable, result driven. One can see a falacy and criticize. It is a surface level doctrine. Less emphasis is placed on the conscience, opposite to the internal conflict of sin, for which our ancestors repented. In a culture of guilt, one can sin without action, a thought-sin. These internal moral trangressions are alien to Chinese philosophy.

Face has everything to do with Confucianism. Industrialization and development have tacked on a few more levels to the hierarchy. The creation of middle, upper-middle classes, and the idea of climbing between them, complicates the structure. Previously, one may have desired to be the emperor, while realizing the impossibility. Now, one can improve their status in society rapidly, and the ambition to do so, to be treated so, is apaprent in a superficial show of wealth. This is what I imlpied in "a slightly bastardized" version of Confucianism.

Again, the more benevolent facets of the philosophy are deeply ingrained, just less observable. Bubbling deep in the core of small communities. They need another wise-(wo)man, though s/he'd be laughed out of popularity for his/her funny hair.