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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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 Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:54 pm Post subject: Chinese 'Political' Attitudes Abroad |
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I've heard a lot of complaining about how the chinese in particular act when they are in Canada or America or England. Teachers complain that they have to re-educate some of the new students on how to behave with other races. many immigrants keep to themselves and settle by themselves, without intergrating with the common community. But there may be an explaination for this.
A chinese girlfriend of mine once said that she didn't believe in multiculturalism and she didn't think this idea would go well for most immigrant chinese in Canada. But why ?
In China, speaking about Human Rights and acting out any ideas will land you in prison or worse. It's not taught and there is no recent history of liberal ideas. Nationalism has replaced Liberalism and Human Rights.
Other races inside China (Uighurs/Tibetans/etc), when they rebel, are viewed as 'dangerous' and a threat to 'us'. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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Basically the Chinese when they hear a Western talk of multiculturalism rejoice because it proves beyond doubt that the Chinese are intellectually superior. they have never had liberal thought,, no enlightenment happened in the land of the Han. Being chinese is not just genetic it is a whole slew of behaviors, thought .
You are born Chinese and then you are taught to BE Chinese. Everyone else is a barbarian. They have developed this attitude over the course of 5 thousand years. They fell that it protects their culture and heritage.
People and cultures are different, what a wonderful thing. It really saddens me that there are those who want everyone to be the same. |
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Panda
Joined: 25 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| rollo wrote: |
Basically the Chinese when they hear a Western talk of multiculturalism rejoice because it proves beyond doubt that the Chinese are intellectually superior. they have never had liberal thought,, no enlightenment happened in the land of the Han. Being chinese is not just genetic it is a whole slew of behaviors, thought .
You are born Chinese and then you are taught to BE Chinese. Everyone else is a barbarian. They have developed this attitude over the course of 5 thousand years. They fell that it protects their culture and heritage.
People and cultures are different, what a wonderful thing. It really saddens me that there are those who want everyone to be the same. |
There is a fine line between feeling superior to others and being proud of themselves...Chinese culture has long been regarded as a humble but strong culture, if you have noticed we have always had the biggest population in the world but mainly been residing in mainland China... we didn't take over south east Asia or other parts of the world with lower civilization and claimed them parts of China like the European did to other parts of the world. Han Chinese has been ruled by Mongolian and other nationalities, it strived and survived and prospered... There are great reasons for Han Chinese to feel proud.
One job of each government is to make their citizens love and stay loyal to their country, for whatever reason you name.( I always regard it as the ultimate joke when someone says one government never lies to thus brainwash their citizens.) Chinese would always be taught as Chinese, should they be taught as Americans?
China doesn't advocate religions among its people, to me that's the biggest human liberalization ever. Most Chinese are more ready to accept other cultures than most foreigners I know in Korea...given mature hardware and software.
One of the biggest differences between Asians and other westerners is how we accept critisicm, if you made an Asian lose their face, no matter how constructive your criticism is, it will piss them off and you will then mistake all Asian(chinese) are blinded....
Last edited by Panda on Mon Nov 01, 2010 10:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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They're all right in my books. For my uni classes I always get in the group with the Chinese/Korean students. Ensures that at the very least I don't have to single-handedly pull up the grades of others. I hate it when that happens. I don't care what they say about me behind my back as long as I don't have to pull their weight. They can be ethno-nationalist fascists as long as they show up on time.
Which society you want to go long? California or China? Assume you have a million dollars to invest in one society and you can't touch it for 100 years. Cali or China? The liberal oasis or the nationalist oasis? A strong national identity with aggressively perused national interests or the society that gave up on everything worth valuing for nothing?
And what's with this talk about how 1) "It really saddens me that there are those who want everyone to be the same." and 2) your whining that they don't think like you. What? Don't you value their diversity? Why must they value what you value and think what you think? That seems pretty darn imperialist to me.
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| Basically the Chinese when they hear a Western talk of multiculturalism rejoice because it proves beyond doubt that the Chinese are intellectually superior |
They're probably right. They do have higher IQ's then Europeans. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| Basically the Chinese when they hear a Western talk of multiculturalism rejoice because it proves beyond doubt that the Chinese are intellectually superior |
They're probably right. They do have higher IQ's then Europeans. |
This I don't believe. The Chinese are just following the West's lead. We'll see how superior they are if they ever overtake us (they won't). Chinese growth is impressive (it doesn't hurt that we've handed our technology etc. over to them on a silver platter) and I'm glad they're improving their lot, but China is a captive market, they don't innovate anything. Their government is also rotten beyond measure. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:17 am Post subject: |
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| Yet another 'Us vs Them' debate. Can't we all just get along. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 9:27 am Post subject: Re: Can't we all just get along? |
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| mises wrote: |
Which society you want to go long? California or China? Assume you have a million dollars to invest in one society and you can't touch it for 100 years. Cali or China? The liberal oasis or the nationalist oasis? A strong national identity with aggressively perused national interests or the society that gave up on everything worth valuing for nothing? |
$500,000 on each. I think California is far from giving up on everything, they just have a broken political system, even by American standards.
But China is overvalued at this point, and I think California is undervalued.
My sense of Californians, and I know parts of China better than California (I've never been to California, actually!), is that they are optimistic, generous, and a little fake. This is true even of some of the Chinese-American Californians.
China has a successful assimilation model, although I'd hesitate to call it multicultural, given the baggage and implications of that word. Oh, Kuros, but haven't you heard about Tibet and the Uyghers, you poor sot? Yes, but I'm also familiar with the travails of the African-Americans and the Native Americans in my country, and just as in China (a) the history makes all the difference, and (b) its not always as bad as the news hypes it out. That's not to say the other 50-odd minorities are without complaint against the Han (My Mongolian friend after I told her a bunch of Han and a Hui said Genghis Khan was Chinese: 汉族太过分了!). But they are Chinese, and feel Chinese, and are wounded by nationalist barbs as a Chinese would be.
The Chinese will last. They're a solid long-term bet. Now, the current state of China is not its most comparatively glorious. See the T'ang Dynasty. But China is fairly accepting of foreigners and while there is a distinct inferiority complex carried over from the treaty period, China is less xenophobic than some of its smallest neighbors (even you, Mongolia). So the Chinese are like Americans (and the French), proud, occasionally arrogant, but ultimately prone to doubt about themselves. IOW, they have a healthy mentality about their place in the world. I would say the same admittedly broad diagnosis applies to Californians.
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Nevertheless, I get where travel zen is coming from.
The Chinese say they are a face-culture. Same as Korea. What that means is that they are not Western. The first Westerners were Greeks (but they were also arguably the second, see the Jews). The Greeks valued the truth itself very highly. Inquiry into the truth was the highest good, it was the central tenet that Aristotle and Plato could agree wholeheartedly on. The Chinese don't dislike the truth, far from it. But for Chinese, the truths are harmony and in-group loyalty. This is probably the central philosophical divide between Western and Asian truths (although right now I'm bracing myself for a Western Asian philosophy scholar to rip my analysis apart), which are otherwise amazingly compatible.
But the Greek influence is far less alien to Chinese sentiment than the Christian influence. Oh my God, that odd Egyptian Osiris and Judean Yahweh hybrid of a death-cult really has contorted Western philosophy on a cross between Athens and Jerusalem. But hopefully, we Westerners can come to realize that we can draw a straight line from Christianity to multiculturalism. Christianity focused on the death of the individual, and the inevitable death of the state, and the transcendence of Christian salvation. Only through Christ could man be redeemed and achieve life everlasting (the concept of an afterlife comes later, but the raw idea is a community in Christ). It only bolstered Christianity that Greek city states faded away into obscurity, and individuals found themselves lost and stateless, but also materially satisfied, under the Roman Empire's security. Plato and Aristotle's love of truth was weak against mortality, and with death all about Western man, he chose Christianity.
The decline of Christianity, and the rise of philosophies more shallow than Plato or Aristotle, such as Marx's socialism, has hurtled a large portion of the West inexorably to the multiculturalist ideal. A philosophy so threadbare that it can be summed up by this man (thanks also to jvalmer). But multiculturalism has its roots in the universalism of Christianity. Every man is equal before God, just take God, or master, out of the equation. Every man is equal before the state. Nevermind that the state will die out, modern man can just find salvation in movies like Eat Pray Love.
But Confucianism saved China, because China could really offer a state-solution to death. The Chinese civilization is over 5000 years old, the Chinese intone, sometimes obnoxiously and condescendingly. But just like the Jews in the West, the Chinese simply maintain in-group mentality. And don't think the Chinese (or the Jews) are less adaptable or worldly for it. Chinese (and Jews!) survive anywhere and everywhere. Yeah, but sometimes they don't find their new residence's identities as compelling as their original destiny and connection into the past and the future. Can we blame them?
As an American, I believe there's an alternative to all this. Christianity is still very strong here, although sometimes its particularly American character here makes me ashamed. But America, and I suppose the other immigrant nations, offer a kind of third way. I shouldn't have to explore this, but don't be surprised if Chinese mock our countries for their youth and unproven longevity. Many certainly don't get the Christian thing, much less the post-Christian thing.
But there's a lot more at stake in cultural cohesion than the multiculturalist understands. Our very immortality is at stake. So, no, we can't always just get along, as some Europeans proved when they struck out jealously and wrathfully at another 5000-year-old culture. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:01 pm Post subject: Chinese-language newspaper attacked |
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STAFF at a Chinese language newspaper in Brisbane, where a shot was fired through a window, believe its coverage of controversial issues in China may have motivated the attack.
Police told AAP that a ball bearing was fired through a window of the Epoch Times office in southeast Brisbane on Thursday at 3pm (AEST).
Epoch Times Queensland spokeswoman Margaret Ramsey said six staff members were in meeting in the office when a shot pierced a hole through the front window.
"It was big enough to make a hole in the window but because the glass was tinted, the window was shattered but did not crumble," she said in a statement.
Ms Ramsey said she believed that an airgun had been used in the attack.
She said no one was injured and two staff members chased the offenders' car, a black Toyota, up the street.
"It had to stop at the traffic lights so they got close enough to get the registration," Ms Ramsey said.
"Inside the car were two people who appeared to be of Chinese origin," she said.
The newspaper publishes a weekly Chinese language edition.
Ms Ramsay said the incident could be an act of intimidation because the paper is hosting Canadian human rights lawyer, David Matas.
Mr Matas will speak about illegal organ harvesting from practitioners of Falun Gong in mainland China, at forums next week.
"Whether we are more vulnerable because of that we don't know ... we are only guessing that that is what it could be, but we don't have any proof," she said.
Police say the investigation is ongoing.
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Not concerned about China being a threat to the west. A little concerned about Chinese nationalists in the west being a threat to other Chinese. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah during the olympic torch shenanigans Chinese students threatened other Chinese students because they did not participate in trying to stop people from protesting the occupation of Tibet. a group of people at my Uni who had a free Tibet table set up on campus were harassed threatened by a gang of Chinese students. |
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misher
Joined: 14 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Not concerned about China being a threat to the west. A little concerned about Chinese nationalists in the west being a threat to other Chinese. |
This.
My former student in Canada did a presentation on the ridiculous amount of corruption his parents had t go through as factory owners and how he was basically disgusted with it. I told him to be careful, but he wanted to go through with it anyway. Eventually word got out and his facebook page and email account were bombarded with hate emails from Chinese acquaintances and friends.
For me it has always been one extreme or the other. Either Chinese students in Canada have been anti government or staunch nationalists lambasting anything said against China as outright blasphemy. |
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Panda
Joined: 25 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 10:58 am Post subject: |
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The philosophical belief "do not wash your dirty linen in public" has been adopted by almost all Chinese in the past thousands of years.
Not only "washing a dirty linen in public" is a taboo, people would stay quiet even if they saw their neighbors "washing it" .
This is what Kuros mentioned the " staying in harmony" philosophy. This is the basis of the different attitudes toward criticism between the east and the west.
Living abroad simply makes all Chinese feel reluctant to show their dirty linen in public. If someone did, the others would feel insulted and betrayed. No matter how you try to make them believe you really just want to make things change better.
I broke up with my Canadian ex-bf 4 years ago because he tried so hard to criticize my country without considering my feeling. later I accepted almost all his criticism, but that doesn't mean if he said things like that today, I would accept it happily. |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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There have been a few serial rapists in Toronto alone who stalk girls of Asian decent, especially on university campuses. When asked why, they admit that these girls never (he was worng, and so caught) go the the police and that they are afraid to lose face in public.
As regards to China, many people believe that 'all chinese' speak with one voice and are in agreement with whatever the government says they are in agreement with. This is also not true to a large extent.
The type of government now in power doesn't court public opinion, but uses the stick on the population. Its only a matter of time before 'something' happens. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Panda wrote: |
The philosophical belief "do not wash your dirty linen in public" has been adopted by almost all Chinese in the past thousands of years.
Not only "washing a dirty linen in public" is a taboo, people would stay quiet even if they saw their neighbors "washing it" .
This is what Kuros mentioned the " staying in harmony" philosophy. This is the basis of the different attitudes toward criticism between the east and the west.
Living abroad simply makes all Chinese feel reluctant to show their dirty linen in public. If someone did, the others would feel insulted and betrayed. No matter how you try to make them believe you really just want to make things change better.
I broke up with my Canadian ex-bf 4 years ago because he tried so hard to criticize my country without considering my feeling. later I accepted almost all his criticism, but that doesn't mean if he said things like that today, I would accept it happily. |
Very insightful post. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 8:02 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| They're probably right. They do have higher IQ's then Europeans |
My anecdotal evidence powerfully suggests that Asians, on average, tend to be a great deal more intelligent. To anyone who thinks otherwise, I suggest you do three things: firstly, work in a poor state school in northern England (and teach poor whites). Then, after that, work in a poor state school in South Los Angeles (and teach poor blacks). Finally, teach in a poor state school in China (and teach poor Chinese). In fact, I am convinced that even an illiterate Chinese peasant will show more intelligence than many in the West who possess degrees. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| They're probably right. They do have higher IQ's then Europeans |
My anecdotal evidence powerfully suggests that Asians, on average, tend to be a great deal more intelligent. To anyone who thinks otherwise, I suggest you do three things: firstly, work in a poor state school in northern England (and teach poor whites). Then, after that, work in a poor state school in South Los Angeles (and teach poor blacks). Finally, teach in a poor state school in China (and teach poor Chinese). In fact, I am convinced that even an illiterate Chinese peasant will show more intelligence than many in the West who possess degrees. |
This is so bogus. What is the relationship of intelligence to creativity, innovation, success, morality, etc. Sergio, it only corrupts your argument that you offer anecdotal evidence. (Perhaps you've been spending too much time in off-topic, which has grown far too accustomed to argument-by-reference-to-my-boyfriend)
Measuring IQ is such a sham, it produces a legitimate result, but the score only narrowly reflects a sliver of the full spectrum of the human endeavor. |
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