How did China change in Culture, from Imperial era to today.
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It also bears some resemblance to the Manchurian imperial guard uniforms in some ways as well, so it's a mix of several influences.
Vini_Vidi_Vici
Junior Member
Those are copied from Japanese as well, which itself is from European influences.
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Agree. World's cultures are constantly exchanging with each other. It's not just clothing, such as Chinese and Indian influences in modern Haute couture styling. Foods are also exchanged throughout the world. Almost in every country, you can find ethnic restaurants from around the world, such as Indian restaurants in China and UK, Japanese restaurants in Belgium, or vice versa.
Even languages are exchanged as well. By the way, I just found out that Shanghai is actually integrated into the English language as a verb, the definition is rather funny.
Here it is.
shang·hai/ˈSHaNGˌhī/
Verb:
Force (someone) to join a ship by drugging them.
Coerce or trick (someone) into a position or into doing something.
Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence.
Sorry, took me so long to respond, I had a lot to think over the past week, and didn't want to post before I gather my thoughts together.
Reason I am curious is because I see China's economy has developed in 30 years of time, which it took the western world 100 years to reach the similar level. That means the economic influenced has far suppress their cultural and military influence. So the problem is that we now have a vacuum the perception of Chinese culture world wide, I think most of the Western people have a very distorted view of China, this mostly have to do the the report in the media, the bad news out weights the good ones tenfold, and I don't blame the media to have some kind of conspiracy, because all media is not really so call "free", I think all media's goal is making a profit. In order to get profit, you need audience, and only negative news come out of China will receive coverage, because it gives the people what they want to hear, to reinforce their already existing negative view about China, that view that has been set by the government/lobbyist group in the first place, whom have agenda on their own.
I also don't think this process is unique of Western media, the same thing happens to the coverage of Western nations all over the world as well. However the big difference is, the West can push back on this, because they already have a very well established culture that have positive influence for it is society worldwide, that means the world will not only be interest in negative news about Western world, but often positive news as well, and this can maintain the perception of balance (not always equal balance, but better than pure attraction of negative news), because Western wold have done a very good job on their PR, they have associated themselves as promoter of democracy and freedom, free market, human right etc... but if you look deeper, you can also see the Western world is not that innocent, for example, supporting bad dictatorships, force regime change, invasion and wars base on false evidence etc... but now those things are not dominate perception when one think of the West, but this is very different for China. The differences for China is that, their economy has grow to the point where, culture influenced is lagging far behind, so most of China's reputation is based on the perception of the Western media, basically another culture have a monopoly on your nation's reputation world wide, for example, I know most Americans see China as a nation full of currency manipulator which is one of the major reason for the economic recession, a nation full of slave laborers, computer hackers, cheap crap producers etc... and since the "free media" and the politician do nothing but endless repeat them those claims, the perception has became reality for most people here, but I know this is far from reality, because all of those accusation are one side story, and this view is not only dominate in US, but it has spread to all over the world as well, but China really can do very little to counter this thing. So as long as China let the western nation dictate it is reputation, that means China's own culture influence is very weak. Hope I made the point.
I think when it come to economy and military, yes a nation can indeed work hard and show result in relatively short period of time. But definitely NOT culture, this is not something that can be rushed and engineered overnight. I dare to say, many of the western culture that we associate today was not designed by the government, they came from society interactions.
I think it is true that yes, under a good economic environment it will help with culture development, but it will not rush it. That means China's culture influence will eventually have it is own identity world wide, but it will take a long time for them to form.
So reading about the current Chinese culture, and their past history and culture here is what I think how will Chinese culture might be influencing the future and how it will contribute to the world.
1. I think the traditional culture such as Confucianism, Taoism etc... will be part of it, yes it is very boring for young people. But there is a reason they had been so successful in the ancient times, where it has spread to Vietnam, Korea and Japan (without military conquest). And able to displace the local culture there. That is because I think they offer a world view that helps to maintain order in the society and maintain cohesion, promote hard work, respect for elders etc.. basically a healthy traditional value that foster human development. And yes I am well aware of it's drawback as well, for example, lack of respect for woman, this maybe important in the past, but I don't think it will be a factor anymore. Another drawback is maybe acceptable of corruption, but if you look at all other cultures, corruption is just as bad. And also they are not really a religion, but rather a guideline for society, they will not be directly competing with pure religions.
2. Modified Western cultures to Chinese versions, by this I mean, adopting to the existing western culture such as movie, music etc.. and using the same media and means to produce the Chinese language movie and music, and maybe even traditional folk story etc... I think this is actually what China is trying to do right now, and this is something that might be attracted to young people as you have said. But I don't think this will be long lasting as #1, because I really don't think 1000 years from now on, people will still remember the next summer's Hollywood blockbuster.
3. Science. Ok hear me out.... during about 99% of the time in any given year, when you Google the world "China" into google news, 99% them will be negative. But I find out something odd, during this week of the shenzhou program, most of the news are actually NOT negative, they are more neutral in tone. Of course, you get plenty of "China's Military space program" headline etc... but most of the news and perception from the world are actually positive, they like that China is trying to develop manned space program, because I think everyone in the modern world understand that scientific advancement is the key to future development.
And I do see some evidence that China can possibly heavily invest into science, and produce innovations that advance the world, this is actually not that far fetched when you look at Japan, during the 80s, Made in Japan products are know for it quality and innovation (maybe not recent years). and still event to today, one of the main pillar that define's japan it is their high quality production of whatever cars, electronic etc...
I see there are factors that are both good and bad to china on this. First of all, the bad, China have a decent primary education system, but a very poor higher education institution when compare to the West, because I think it is safe to say that there are probably half dozen better research university in California alone than Tsinghua University. Also there for what its worth, the general political and media control of the Chinese society does foster in innovation. Another factor that harms is that China's higher technological underdevelopment is very much cut off from the western world, for example, the American and the Europeans often shares science results together, that means they can each focus on something and use their resource towards what they are good at. I don't think China is sharing science with any nation on a signific and secreative scale, that means they have no choice, but to invest in all aspect of research on thier own, which often will result in a lot of waste. Also, I don't know what is the technology level of private companies, for example SpaceX a private company is able to launch a capsule to the ISS on their own, I don't know if any private company in China have that kinda of know how, maybe you can say that stated owned company is their counter part, but I don't know just how much innovation can come from them.
Here is what I think it will benefit China: The centralized government intervention that receives no influence from external factors, which means despite outside lobbyist, the government can make independent assessment of what is needed and allocate resource for that project accordingly to the nation’s need. for example, let's talk about renewable energy, China has became the #1 producer of renewable energy in year 2010, and just 10 years before that, China's renewable energy production is not even top 10 in the world, but with government planned investment they are able to competely dominate the market in a very short period of time. I believe out of the top 10 solar panel producers in the world, over half of them are Chinese companies, even the American solar company can't compete with China anymore, which they have to resort to protectionist measures. And since year 2009, China has been consistently making the largest investment in renewable energy year by year, think about it, a nation only have 1/3 of US’s GDP, but they can spending more on dollar terms on renewable energy than US. I think in a democratic nation such as US, such a jump is not possible, because everyone gets a votes, votes come from campaigning, that means some votes are more important than others, for example the vote of corporations is far more important than the people, they can donate un-proportional amount of resource into campaign donation and lobbying power to get the government to do what is most beneficial to them, aka making profit, but what is good for the corporation is NOT often what is good for the people. That is why petro energy company like BP and Exxon still receive billions of subsidies each year, while at the same time they are make record amount of profit year on year, but many renewable energy company can’t receive friction of the benefit. Another thing that benefits China's technological development is their oversee students, there are millions of them studying US and Europe, most of them will want to stay oversees and most do, but there are still that will come back home, and even those that stays will still contributes indirectly. And I think the Chinese society values scientist more than Western societies; this is also correlated with their high value placed on education. Another thing that benefit them is also open source global research papers. And the fact is China has been buying bankrupted western company like crazy does not hurt. Another factor that benefit them is their ethical flexible vs the West, by that I mean there is really nothing that is taboo in science in China, in contrast you can't touch stem cell in the West, you can't do this or that on animals testing etc... I don't see this kind of restriction on China that much.
Basically China is kind like the Soviet Union, except better. Soviet union invest a huge amount of resource on their science, they had produce one of the most literate society and had some very important achievement, but however, they were a closed society, they had almost 0 exchange of knowledge with outside and no students studying elsewhere. Also the fact that they were a pure command economy means less innovation from competition, also I think they might have invested too much in science and military to the point it unbalance their society's very basic consumer need. But in contrast, China enjoyed Soviet Union’s huge relocation of resources into science, while at the same time, they are also a open society with exchange students and ideas, and a open market where competition make it more efficient.
Just from that, I think in the short term, China’s entertainment media is trying produce media productions that try to grab people’s short term attention. But as China’s scientific and economic advancement making progress, people will take interest on what made them successful, especially from those dozens of fail democracies worldwide. And in the end, I think they will be just like ancient Japan, Korea, maybe adopt some of the very traditional culture of China, maybe not to the point where they will became a Confucius society, but they will recognize it and associate it with China.
Yes, long post, so what do you think? Anything else you want to add or disagree with me?
Very long post,
and I am only going to comment on specifics. I don't think you can compare universities in the US to China directly, they primarily function differently. The Chinese space program is based on a lot of space cities, commissions and institutes. While NASA, mainly works with universities.
I also don't think that it is fair just to say that China does not share it's advances in technology with the rest of the world. Every advanced nations does it to a certain extent to keep a technological buffer, while on the other hand, you have Western experts speculate on Chinese military development by the the papers being published in China (like quantum teleportation) URL="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html"]http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html[/URL]-> so I don't think that China is not sharing.
Also, why do you think that the Chinese leadership is without external influence? Each leader have been abroad, China have sent a multitude of commissions through out the years to learn things from news reporting, to agriculture, to advanced science, even to learn business models. I honestly believe the current Chinese leadership to be well informed of the outside world to say at the least.
Very long post,
I don't think you can compare universities in the US to China directly, they primarily function differently. The Chinese space program is based on a lot of space cities, commissions and institutes. While NASA, mainly works with universities.
I also don't think that it is fair just to say that China does not share it's advances in technology with the rest of the world. Every advanced nations does it to a certain extent to keep a technological buffer, while on the other hand, you have Western experts speculate on Chinese military development by the the papers being published in China (like quantum teleportation) URL="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html"]http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html[/URL]-> so I don't think that China is not sharing.
Also, why do you think that the Chinese leadership is without external influence? Each leader have been abroad, China have sent a multitude of commissions through out the years to learn things from news reporting, to agriculture, to advanced science, even to learn business models. I honestly believe the current Chinese leadership to be well informed of the outside world to say at the least.
By university I mean research universities, this is from personal experience and talking with friends. Also if you go ahead google top 400 school ranking in the world, China is not anywhere near the top.
When I say China don't share with the world I mean the very cutting advance technology, things that are not open source. The western nations tend to share with each other more than they share with China, if any. And I won't call them "experts" because experts don't really put this stuff on times.com
By no external influence I mean as a good thing, you should go ahead read the rest of what I am trying to say. I mean free of business lobbyist and special interests. It has nothing to do with Chinese leadership out of loop with the world.
I don't think the school ranking means much. Lets put it into perspective, how many Soviet school made the list and how many men have the soviet union put into space vs a high ranking nation like... Germany or the UK? A better matrix will be patent count or journal paper published.
The USA had 50% of the patents of 2011 at around 120K patents, Japan accounts for around 48K, China 4K, UK 5K, Germany 13K... Russia... less than 1K. Journals... I can't find the info right now.
I mean, look at the top 50 engineering/science schools ranking, the UK have Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, Manchester; when China have BJ and tsinghua. China have around the same number of patents to the UK. Japan have Tokyo and Kyoto - and they have accounted for ~20% of the world's patents While the USA had 23 such top schools but only account for 50% of the world's patent.
All I am saying is, take it at a grain of salt, rankings means very little.
My experience with my peers from Tsinghua, Fudan, MIT, Caltech, Michgan, Imperial, Kyoto, Waterloo, TUM, BTH, Berkley, Cambride, Oxford, Texas A&M, Cornell - I find to be on relatively the same footing. TUM and MIT... did pull ahead.
What cutting edge technology did the West willingly share? This is such a perceptive statement. The west clearly did not share F22 stealth technology, nor latest medical advances in medication. There is simply no way to gauge and quantify that; like supposedly my colleagues in Japan told me that they were keeping a 30 year technology buffer against the rest of the world; it is all perceptive and rather meaningless.
Maybe I read you wrong, on the external influence. But I disagree with the lack of lobbying by vested interest groups. All I can tell you is that there are some local Chinese laws which came into effect which promote the use of certain building technologies - which ultimately will benefit certain interest groups. I don't think I need to infer how those laws came to be.
vesicles
Colonel
The old Soviet schools did not rank well internationally because they were not included in the competition. No one doubts the quality of Soviet scholars. However, Chinese schools are included in the competition and are not ranked as high as people in China would have hoped. This is a fact. I remember one of my colleagues used to show me the website of Beijing University years ago, which proudly flashed the # of papers published in Science/Nature. And it was 3 or 4/year. In the US, that's the amount of high-impact publications out of a single lab, not the entire university. And I'm not even talking about a top-notch university, simply a decent one. I have been doing biology-related research since 2000 and have come across less than 10 papers from Chinese universities, not even one from Tsinghua/Beijing. Almost all of them from the South, Wuhan University/Tongji Univ. etc. A whopping 10! I do literature search daily and scan through at least 50-100 publication daily. We also have post-docs coming from China all the time. Most of them list many publications on their CV. And almost exclusively, these publications are in Chinese journals. To this day, I have not seen one publication in internationally recognized journals. In comparison, I regularly see studies published by groups from Taiwanese and Hong Kong universities. How many universities are there in Taiwan and Hong Kong combined? Comparing that to the amount of universities in China, I would say research done in Taiwan and Hong Kong is much better than China.
Since patent application depends on the policy in that country. There is no uniform rules for patent application internationally. So the fact that China has many patents does not mean much since no one knows the quality of the patents compared to elsewhere in the world.
You say ranking matters little. Yet, most of the Western universities you mentioned are top-notch research universities. Some of them might not rank highly in the undergraduate program because of their size, like A&M and Michigan. However, nearly all of them have excellent research programs and rank highly in the graduate programs. So ranking does mean something... In my opinion, Tsinghua and Beijing do not even stand a chance against any of the Western universities you mentioned. If you think about it, almost all the good students from these universities go abroad. How can any university perform well when the best of its students go elsewhere?
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Look, it seems like we have fallen into a classic internet argument trap, where we will just argue for the sake of arguing. Yes, you can find any exception to what I am saying, the school standards, and government lobbyist etc.. but what I am saying is, the overall trend is there, overall Western university do have a lot better research staff and infrastructure, and this is expected because they had this from beginning and China is playing catch up, and due to the structure of democracy it is very susceptible to interest group influence. And go ahead look what ICBM UK use? and where it is made from? Do you think there is any other nation willing to share that kind of technology?
You can go ahead and find exception to everything I have just posted, but... remember, overall trends, not just one or two examples. I am not going to reply to you anymore, this is not going anywhere. If you have anything new to add to this discussion I would love to hear it, for example if you can think what will be China's cultural future influence like.