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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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Funny, almost everything you mentioned here was common in North American until the late 80's/early 90's.
I remember just jumping around in the back seat of the car, sticking my head out of the window, and nobody cared. |
Yeah, there was a veritable "safety revolution" in North America, starting in the 80s, and for someone too young to remember that, it can be difficult to comprehend just how different things were before.
My mom used to give us lectures AGAINST seat-belt use, and when laws pertaining to seat-belts and motorcycle helmets came into effect, there were actually people who argued against them. Nowadays, of course, these things have become so internalized that, even if the laws were repealed, most people(my mother included) would probably keep up the practices.
Another thing I suspect has changed a lot is drinking culture. I remember going to parties in high-school where underaged teens would get stinking drunk, and their parents would walk in and just laugh and wave hi to everyone. Then, some time late 80s/90s, parents started getting sued for allowing underaged drinking in their homes, if that resulted in an accident. Nowadays, I suspect the party has pretty much wound down, as far as open tolerance of teenaged drinking goes. (Not that it doesn't happen, just that parents probably aren't giving it the high-five like they used to.) |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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Another thing I recall, since I'm skipping down memory lane, is my first summer job, at a restaurant, 1987. On my last day, they wanted to take this wheeled plastic garbage bin to the car wash for cleaning. So they had me sit in the open trunk of a car and pull the thing as they drove to the car wash. I remember seeing people I knew on the street, and waving to them.
My parents were midly chagrined to hear about this. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Another thing I suspect has changed a lot is drinking culture. I remember going to parties in high-school where underaged teens would get stinking drunk, and their parents would walk in and just laugh and wave hi to everyone. Then, some time late 80s/90s, parents started getting sued for allowing underaged drinking in their homes, if that resulted in an accident. Nowadays, I suspect the party has pretty much wound down, as far as open tolerance of teenaged drinking goes. (Not that it doesn't happen, just that parents probably aren't giving it the high-five like they used to.) |
I was still in elementary in the 80's, but I remember my older brother coming home stinking drunk sometime in the late 80's. He just got his license, 16 years old, and the police pulled him over. The cop took him home and told my father where the car was and told him don't do it again. These days he would have lost his license until he was 18 or so. Also, my father beat my brother like a SOB the next morning, then my mother took my dad and brother to pick up the car on the side of the highway. There he made my brother push the car in neutral for about 2 km. These days my father would have been charged for child abuse or something. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 5:10 am Post subject: Re: The Model Minority Myth |
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| earthquakez wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
The Koreans work hard. It helps that they're a very bright people. |
How many different people in different countries do you know? How many other countries have you lived in? Koreans don't strike me as being "a very bright people". Hard working, yes.
Creators, innovators, LATERAL THINKERS - No. All the shiny technology was borrowed courtesy of Japan (which was mostly given that technology by America post WW2). All the developments that propelled Korea into the 19th century onwards came about through foreign powers and other sources - and it's telling that many of the developments were initially viewed with hostility by the Korean masses including bicycles and the postal service.
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All of the things that propelled Europe out of barbarism came from the Middle East and China. These things go in cycles. And what you don't think Americans ever opposed railroads or telegraphs?
Heck look at the American Birther-Right-Wing for that same mentality, and they're 30% of the vote.
As opposed to the creative, well-reasoned, independent, genius such as yourself or our general crowd? Sorry, but I'll wager that some Korean author, musician, engineer, designer, business owner, might know a thing or two more than me. Really why should I listen to you and not them? Where's your proven track record of success? Your PhD? Your product that you've helped design? Your album? Your published novel?
Korean film seems quite creative. I talk to Koreans and they regard American mainstream films as predictable and cliched.
And what are you trying to get all boastful and derogatory over. You didn't invent anything, you deserve zero credit for any of it. You want to talk about how "wonderful" your people are, then prepare to take blame for 500 years of colonization, war, and genocide. I don't think you should be blamed. I think that's all silliness. As is this whole "hey your way of thinking is dumb and we're so advanced"
Lastly, creativity isn't everything. Korea is now in a position where it can be creative, and I bet you will see an uptick in it.
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| The over-conformity in Korea (which is more conformist than Japan by the way) stifles the qualities I mentioned. Throw in the lack of reasoning ability in terms of not being able to look at opposing points of view and synthesise them |
Yeah, no opposing points of view in NORTH and SOUTH Korea.
South Korea boast 4 significant religious groups- Protestants, Catholics, Atheists, and Buddhists. That's one more than the States. Just like the States it has its bonkers cult followers.
Heck, Korea has 5 parties represented in its National Assembly. How many does the States have? If a government represents a people, what does that say about Conformity, Opposing Points of View, and Independent thinking?
They even have a political party dedicated to creative and independent thinking, granted it has only 1 seat in the Assembly, but that is one more seat than the Green Party in the States.
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| As a foreigner I have to say I have never seen people in daily life engage in such unthinking behaviour as the Koreans watching while toddlers and children run out into busy streets full of cars, recklessly passing buses in front of them in narrow streets where they can't see what's coming, not following normal occupational health and safety procedures (incidents at school too numerous to name, on busy streets men welding with no protective gear in their workshops but worse, doing this activity right up in the face of passers by) and other potentially dangerous behaviours. The normality of it in Korea is striking. |
As opposed to the wonderful behavior of back home with our "no-go zone" neighborhoods, swarms of violent and uneducated young men, a disdain towards math and science, gun crime, lack of mandated recycling, health care system, and military mentality?
The point of all of this is we can all find things wrong. You see whats bad about Korea. Guess what? They see what's bad about you. I don't think the tone you choose is a good way to go about things.
And let's say you are better than all of Korea put together, or that some other culture is "superior". What then? Should the rulers of Korea resign and accept an "enlightened" foreign government? Should their culture change wholesale? Can we even agree on how they should change? Can we even suggest practical ways to make people change? |
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Menino80
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Location: Hodor?
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| What is Chua's advice for producing creativity? Practice the violin or the piano. She's not trying to raise creative kids, she's trying to improve their extracurriculars to get into Yale. |
That's basically all it is. Nouveau riche conspicuous consumption. Do it, and let the English see you do it. Why violin or piano? Who cares? It's what the elite do.
Doctor lawyer or engineer. Why? Who knows? Those are the highest paying jobs we can think of when we're 15, why waste time with other professions? Mom has it planned for us from some article she read in Parade.
Chua is not even really Chinese American, she's Overseas Chinese American. Her family are Huaqiao from the Phillipines, and most Huaqiao come from mercantile Guangdong province, an area that was Yue during the Han Dynasty and only Sinified during the T'ang. Even after this, the Yue/粵 were not considered Han blood at all, all the way until the end of the Qing. The Taiping rebellion started here, and it has always been viewed with suspicion by Changan and later Beijing. Furthermore, Fillipino Chinese are one of the most intermarried and integrated OSC communities in SE Asia, further removing her thesis from the Confucian/Han argument.
That's a lot of steps removed from the rarified halls of Tang-era Changan. Guandong has always been the least Chinese of Chinese provinces, and the Overseas Chinese are a further step removed.
If anything, her experience mirrors Cahill's Gift of the Jews thesis, that "nomadic" cultures are more successful b/c of their emphasis on human capital and ingenuity.
http://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Jews-Changed-Everyone-History/dp/0385482493 |
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