Why "the West" gets China wrong

Here is a post by a blogger from that same website whose name is N.M CHEUNG:

"I suggest you came off your Confucian high chair as you seem to be as obsequious to American values as you seem to condemn Chinese ones. It is easy to condemn the vulgarity, lack of culture of newly urbanized peasants and migrant workers. It’s much harder to empathize and understand them as that takes real work to read and understand history. If you have visited India and other developing countries you would not be so quick to condemn China. Consider if you lived in New York with 5 times the present population density, with half recent immigrants from Mexico, none have studied in High School not to mention Analect you would not be civilized waiting in line. Consider China has lifted over 300 million people (the total population of U.S.) out of poverty, they may not yet studied Confucian classics, but time is precious to them when they have any leisure time to enjoy after working 60 hours week, you would not have condemn them out of hand. I suggest you read “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” by Christ Hedges and Joe Sacco to find out how the underclass in U.S. really live. It described the lives of people in Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Camden, New Jersey; Welch, West Virginia; and Immokalee, Florida. I consider it’s a must read for those praising U.S., especially for those who questioned the Chinese minority policy."


I believe the writer of that article expects too much from China and the Chinese people. The Pop art world made everybody to believe that it's values are the only way to go, everything else be damn, even history and tradition. Modernity for modernity sake is overrated to me. Modernity only looks good, but doesn't do any good for society in the long term.

AssassinsMace said:

Well I'm not arguing with what was written. I'm just surprised that he's shocked by it. Which begs the question why would he need to advertise it since he's proven himself ignorant? A lot of bad behavior is because of circumstances. The behavior isn't going to change until those circumstances change. I live in the US and plenty of Asians will backstab other Asians just to get ahead. Why does backstabbing other Asians get you ahead? Gordan Chang backstabs the Chinese because the US media rewards Asians who say the ugly things they want to be said but can't say it themselves because they would be called a racist. So how do you bypass being called a racist? You let a self-hating Asian do it for you. A culture of self-hatred has been created because you can gain personally from it. It's ugly but I bet someone like Gordan Chang gets more from hating than not. And that's why someone like him and the other self-haters don't see what's wrong with it and that's why they have that behavior.

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Kinda of like the Amy Tan and Amy Chua books who bashes their own culture just so the western readers can enjoy and feel smug about their own lack of culture and history.

Don't forget that "the West" gets itself wrong too. It won a great advantage over other parts of the world by developing armed sailing ships and organisations, navies as well as, perhaps even more importantly, trading companies as the Eat and West Indian companies in several Western countries, that made use of these ships and helped accumulate the capital that made possible the industrial revolution and so created a further advantage over other countries. Now that the industrial advantage is disappearing only the military superiority remains and even that is evaporating. See this article in the Telegraph about the economic prospects of the UK and other Western countries: .
Still with an immense pretense of moral superiority Western countries destroyed Libya and are now trying to destroy Syria.
Perhaps with their financial problems they will learn they have less to defend and less money to spend on defense. Perhaps UK will soon spend less than Brazil on their navies.

AssassinsMace said:

The people of Hong Kong have complained about the behavior of Mainland Chinese mentioning things like how they talk loud or eat on the subway when they're not suppose to. That apparently crosses the line. I warn the people of Hong Kong to never go on the BART MTR system in the San Francisco Bay Area. People on BART trains have sex, oral and intercourse, they urinate and defecate on the seats and floors of the trains, and talk loud and eat.. all when the trains are full of people.

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Next time something like this happens just record it with your phone and put it on youtube (after censoring the naughty bits, of course). If they don't have a problem sharing it with the passengers, they shouldn't have a problem sharing it with the rest of the world.

There's an interesting story coming out the Cannes Film Festival. There are reports of burglaries on the international guests where millions of dollars in jewelry have been stolen. The latest victim is a film producer from China. When he reported it to the hotel that someone broke in his room and stolen all his luggage, they didn't seem to care and told him he would have to call the police himself. Interesting reading the comments where people are saying it's okay to rob from Chinese because they're rich. Is this the same attitude from the French hotel staff. Whatever it is the Chinese film executive was so incensed by the attitude of the French that he left immediately without attending an important debut for his co-produced movie with Keanu Reeves and posted what happened on Chinese social media and it went viral. Only then is when the hotel and Cannes festival committee issued an apology to him.

AssassinsMace said:

There's an interesting story coming out the Cannes Film Festival. There are reports of burglaries on the international guests where millions of dollars in jewelry have been stolen. The latest victim is a film producer from China. When he reported it to the hotel that someone broke in his room and stolen all his luggage, they didn't seem to care and told him he would have to call the police himself. Interesting reading the comments where people are saying it's okay to rob from Chinese because they're rich. Is this the same attitude from the French hotel staff. Whatever it is the Chinese film executive was so incensed by the attitude of the French that he left immediately without attending an important debut for his co-produced movie with Keanu Reeves and posted what happened on Chinese social media and it went viral. Only then is when the hotel and Cannes festival committee issued an apology to him.

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I heard this happens before to other Americans and Non-Chinese regarding about French services over there. One has to be really careful with your luggage's and values.

Equation said:

I heard this happens before to other Americans and Non-Chinese regarding about French services over there. One has to be really careful with your luggage's and values.

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For the French who are suppose to have this image of luxurious living that everyone else is suppose to envy, they're certainly dropping the ball on security for such a high profile event. There was an incident where a guy with a starter's pistol and a fake grenade ran up on stage with Oscar winners attending.

Are they hurting more economically than they're saying to be so lazy?

AssassinsMace said:

I'm not really surprised by that article. I'm more surprised (not really) if anyone else thinks their ethnicity or their citizens act appropriately enough to make a blanket judgment and then judge others.

The people of Hong Kong have complained about the behavior of Mainland Chinese mentioning things like how they talk loud or eat on the subway when they're not suppose to. That apparently crosses the line. I warn the people of Hong Kong to never go on the BART MTR system in the San Francisco Bay Area. People on BART trains have sex, oral and intercourse, they urinate and defecate on the seats and floors of the trains, and talk loud and eat.. all when the trains are full of people.

Do you think someone from Hong Kong will use this fact to be vocal and spread prejudice towards Americans like they do with Mainland Chinese? I bet they won't even bother to think about it because the reason for complaining is not at all about appropriate behavior in general.

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No offense but that's terribly flawed logic. Just because some breaks the rules doesn't mean we have the right to break the rules. Excusing bad behaviors with attitude like this is what spurs the reinforcements of negative behaviors, and inducing anarchy.

And as for Americans, I can honestly say I have yet to see any Caucasians violating the rules at the MTR. There are probably cases, but not significant, and particularly because there are much fewer white nationalities and also harder to identify. An American could be passed off as Canadian unless he/she carries a stereotypical southern accent. Furthermore, it's easier to "identify" and "target" mainland Chinese because there are a significant population in HK and their mandarin accent is often identifiable. There aren't really another group who speaks Mandarin other than Taiwanese and Singaporeans, and even then their accents are much different from mainland China. I say there are significant stereotypes involved, but it's not constructed from wishful thinking or fantasies. It's constantly reinforced by events and incidents over and over again, so while HKers are not right to stereotype, mainland Chinese and those who commits these acts are responsible for getting their act together.

Whichever it is, I strongly disagree with your viewpoints because I think it's very biased, and it excuses bad behaviors.

Finally, please don't think that HK allows the US to get away with things. There are many HKers who traveled, and most are pretty aware of how the US is. I've spoken to a taxi driver lately and he complained how dirty NY subways are. I talked to some others and they would say the same. I don't think HK is as delusional as you think. Instead, I do question why you shift the blame towards HK when those mainland Chinese violators are clearly the one in the wrong by committing rule-violating acts in a place with a given clear set of rules. If a group shows up in Singapore and chew gum and then Singaporeans shunned that group, would it be right to tell the Singaporeans to get a grip because people chew gum everywhere else?

Furthermore, HKers are not blaming all of their problems towards the mainland. Hkers are shunning the poor behaviors the mainlanders have brought with them into the city and refusing to respect the systems established in HK.

solarz said:

Great point! It's obvious that the writer of that article is suffering from culture shock in China.

Still, that does not change the fact that the article had some pretty insightful points. I really hadn't thought about it until I read it, but Chinese society does have a tendency to blame the government for their own problems. Take corruption for example. *Everyone* in China complains about corrupt officials, but guess what they do in their everyday life? Bribe teachers to pay more attention to their own kid. Give "red pockets" to doctors before a surgery. Give "gifts" to their boss. Expect gifts from their underlings.

The writer makes a great point. Taken individually, these actions seem like victimless crimes. However, when everyone does it, the society ends up with a big problem. The most common refrain we hear is "we have to do it". We have to bribe the teacher or our kid won't get good grades. We have to bribe the doctor or he won't pay attention to the surgery. We have to give gifts to the boss or we won't get promoted.

When *everybody* thinks this way, what are the chances of a politician thinking differently?

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Culture is built by members, and members are socialized by its cultures. Both are equally as responsible for their own parts.

Equation said:

Kinda of like the Amy Tan and Amy Chua books who bashes their own culture just so the western readers can enjoy and feel smug about their own lack of culture and history.

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I don't know about Amy Tan, but I don't think Amy Chua wrote to bash their own culture. I think some of guys are reading too much into simple things. Amy Chua was only writing about how her preferences of parenting are and arguing why she thinks it's better.

Equation said:

Here is a post by a blogger from that same website whose name is N.M CHEUNG:

"I suggest you came off your Confucian high chair as you seem to be as obsequious to American values as you seem to condemn Chinese ones. It is easy to condemn the vulgarity, lack of culture of newly urbanized peasants and migrant workers. It’s much harder to empathize and understand them as that takes real work to read and understand history. If you have visited India and other developing countries you would not be so quick to condemn China. Consider if you lived in New York with 5 times the present population density, with half recent immigrants from Mexico, none have studied in High School not to mention Analect you would not be civilized waiting in line. Consider China has lifted over 300 million people (the total population of U.S.) out of poverty, they may not yet studied Confucian classics, but time is precious to them when they have any leisure time to enjoy after working 60 hours week, you would not have condemn them out of hand. I suggest you read “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” by Christ Hedges and Joe Sacco to find out how the underclass in U.S. really live. It described the lives of people in Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Camden, New Jersey; Welch, West Virginia; and Immokalee, Florida. I consider it’s a must read for those praising U.S., especially for those who questioned the Chinese minority policy."


I believe the writer of that article expects too much from China and the Chinese people. The Pop art world made everybody to believe that it's values are the only way to go, everything else be damn, even history and tradition. Modernity for modernity sake is overrated to me. Modernity only looks good, but doesn't do any good for society in the long term.

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Do you guys have issues with people making constructive criticisms, or overly eager to defend China whenever someone says something pointing out not praising China?

I don't care how many valid reasons contribute to what's happening in China. They may all be valid and reasonable, but it doesn't legitimize the result or the conclusion. Too many reasons led Jeffrey Dunham and Ed Gein to perform terrible things, but their actions are still wrong. A drunken man raped a girl because he was too intoxicated to make sound judgement, but that doesn't mean his action is excusable. It's important for people to investigate the background and understand why actions occur, but by no means it make the action right if it is wrong to start with. Have our forum members forgotten that?

There are many reasons why China is in its current situation. Many rights and wrongs, and many situations all put together, and many thinkings from past to present. All add together, but just because all these explains why China is like that today doesn't mean we can accept and turn blind eye to issues it needs to work on, or bash whoever criticizes China, objective or not. And the reason for knowing why China is like this today is so we can help China improve for tomorrow. I have patience to see China improve and would want to see China to improve, but I have no patience to see people defend China and excuse China's mistakes by bashing those who make sound and valid criticisms of China