Chinese Culture: Tradition vs Law

vesicles said:

Again, any single aspect of a highly highly highly complex social environment doe snot justify categorization. I hope you understand my point. You might see your mom and dad as parents. But they certainly do not behave the same way when interacting with their colleagues as when they are interacting with you. Hence, it would be unfair to categorize them as "the parent type" simply based on how they interact with you. You can give me a thousand examples of how your mom and dad are perfect parents, but it is still unfair to categorize them as the "the parent type". Categorizing a culture is similarly unfair to everyone involved.



The fact that the article specifically mentions "particularly in mixed-race families like mine" suggests that it is less common for American parents to let the kids know about the adoption in same-race families. Then this statement alone defeats your hypothesis. If it is a "cultural thing", then all American parents, in mixed-race families or same-race families, should behave in a similar manner, as Americans share the American culture. Yet, they don't, as in the same-race families in the US behave in a similar manner as the same-race families in China (well, majority of Chinese families are same-race families) . So it is not a cultural thing.

Here you confuse specialized customs with cultural differences. In these mixed-race families, the parents typically have no choice but to let their adopted kids know the adoption because it would be completely illogical for a pair of Caucasian parents to have an Asian kid. No matter how you put it, there is no other option but to tell the kids the truth. I'm sure Chinese parents would have to tell their adopted kids about the adoption too if the kid is of different ethnicity.



the answer is in your own article. A behavior, which you are trying to use to emphasize cultural differences, has been defined by experts as "a universal desire". It just shows how focusing on individual testimonies (the conversation with the Chinese grandmother in your story) can skew your conclusion.

This is the last time that I will respond to this kind of testimonial stuff. Any single event means nothing. A culture is composed of so many different aspects. Any time when you want to categorize a nation or a culture, just think about how difficult it would be to categorize a single person. And you will have to multiply that by 10 to the gazillionth power in order to categorize a culture.

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solarz said:

We're not trying to claim that Person X will do Y based on Z. Instead, we are trying to understand why Person X would do Y.

The article is not saying that all Chinese parents would act the same way. In fact, the article highlights all the different reactions the author experienced. Instead, the article is explaining why some Chinese parents would think the way they do.

Again, this is not about categorizing people. It's about understanding where they are coming from.

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vesicles said:

You are still not getting what I'm saying.

In order to establish any kind of correlation between certain behavior and Chinese culture, you must first establish that this thing is unique in China. That must be your first criteria. In other words, you must demonstrate that the behavior in question exists only in China and nowhere else. Once that criteria is satisfied, then you can go on and make another hypothesis, which is that it is the Chinese culture that contribute/determine such behavior of Chinese people.

Using your example of adoptions, you must first establish that the behavior of not telling their kids about the adoption is uniquely Chinese. Then and only then, you can set out and analyze "why some Chinese parents would think the way they do".

And by pointing out that "American parents in the same-race families also tend not to tell their kids about the adoption, just like those Chinese parents", I'm showing you that "not telling their kids about the adoption" is not uniquely Chinese, hence invalidating your initial hypothesis. Then you cannot use such case to study something that should be uniquely Chinese... Otherwise, you are simply analyzing "why any parents would think the way they do."

Then your next example. Adopted kids looking for roots. You try to use the Chinese grandma's words as evidence that Chinese think/behave differently than Americans in terms of looking for biological parents. Yet, the experts in your own quoted article says that "looking for biological parents" is a universal desire, effectively invalidating your hypothesis that only Chinese prefer not to look for biological parents. Thus, the Chinese grandma in your story is simply an outlier, that 1% of population that does not act like the rest of the 99% of the whole human population. Then, how does understanding an outlier help you in understanding the whole Chinese culture?

You are trying to understand how the unique Chinese culture contributes to certain universal behavior. How do you do it? We are talking about behaviors used by people all over the world, who have absolutely nothing to do with Chinese culture. I hope you see the logic fallacy in it.

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solarz said:

Suppose I'm a foreign tourist visiting China on October 1st. I am astounded at the number of people at each and every tourist site. So I ask my Chinese guide: "Why are there so many people here?". The guide answers: "Because it's the national holiday, and everyone gets a week off, so many people use it to travel."

Now I know that I should avoid the first week of October if I want to visit China.

Then, out of curiosity, I ask, " Why do people in China want to choose the same holiday for travel? Isn't it extremely inconvenient?"

The guide answers me: "Because most people in China don't have vacation days from their work, so for most people this is the only time they have for travel."

Now I know why there are so many people traveling in October.

Do I now understand the "whole" Chinese culture? Not by a long shot, but I certainly knew more than before.

Is this phenomenon "unique" to China? For all I know, maybe the Indians have something similiar in September, or the French in December, but why would that matter? Is it not sufficient that I know that this happens in China?

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vesicles said:

You know what? I give up. You simply won't listen. Not even sure if you have actually read my posts...

One last attempt though. You've made a logical conclusion yourself: people all like to travel on vacation days!!! So it's not unique. It's a universal behavior!!! Can't you see it?? Having a different set of vacation days does not make China unique.

I'm thinking you might be intentionally messing up me now. So I'm done. Wash me hands and done!

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solarz said:

There exists a word in Chinese, Li, that encompasses western concepts of Etiquette, Tradition, and even Morality. It spells out how a person should behave toward their parents, spouse, sibling, children, superiors, underlings, and peers. In Chinese psychology, to act against Li is the equivalent of being immoral.

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stibyssip said:

礼 are simply a collection of deontological ethical prescriptions under Confucian moral philosophy. If we use the analogy of modern legal systems, 礼 are like legal statutes while concepts like 仁， 孝，义， etc; are like legal principles. In other words, the former category represents prescriptions while the latter category represents the virtues on which those prescriptions are based.

That being said, I don't think there is anything exceptional about Confucian ethics, per se, that would make modern Chinese society less permeable to the rule of law.

In fact, modern China is a society that has deliberately attempted to destroy its Confucian moral roots and customs during the political and social upheavals of the last century, beginning with the May Fourth Movement, peaking during Mao's mass iconoclastic violence, and continuing more organically during the Reform Era with mass urbanization, family nuclearization, and the adoption of individualistic values.

I don't believe there is anything special about the Chinese concept of guanxi (关系）. In the West we often talk about it like it's some super culturally-specific institution. Really it's just personal relationships. Connections. It's how it is anywhere else in the world. In places like China, the American South, and Southern Europe; the importance of relationships versus objective merit is higher because of a political culture of clientalism, of patron-client relationships. This type of thing only starts disappearing when there are accountability mechanisms and checks built into organizational design, when there is transparency in decisionmaking processes, and when decision-makers are prevented from building up regionalized personal power bases.

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solarz said:

One particularly notable example I can think of is deference to one's superior. In the Chinese workplace today, people show an inordinate (to me) amount of deference to one's superior, including the use of titles like -总.
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