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rosross 21/11/08 7:22PM

Surely it reflects a lack of maturity in the society. One of the problems with dictatorships is that they prevent people from individualising and gaining maturity; i.e. the ability to think for one’s self and to hold independent views. Any government which controls people’s freedom and thoughts will also inhibit the capacity of individuals to mature. That is why nations which are held together by dictators or tyrants tend to fall apart when the strong hand is removed. They are, in many ways, artificial constructs.
Just as in patriarchy of old, and in patriarchal and tribal societies today, where power is vested in the father or senior male figure, the ability of other members of the family to mature and think for themselves is limited. This applies to countries and cultures as it does to individuals.
I think there are also comparisons with other cultures which believe in their historical ‘greatness’ and chafe at the reality of how they are today …. India for example … and the same kinds of sensitivities. The Chinese, like the Indians, have a strong belief in their own superiority and are hyper sensitive because clearly, in the world as it exists today, that superiority is questioned by reality.
So it is more likely to be a combination of the two factors: the inherited belief which Chinese have about themselves, their country, and their culture and the impact of a controlling government.

Rocky 24/11/08 1:38PM

rosross,

Well said,very thin skins indeed, apparently the Middle Kingdom mentality is still very strong. Perhaps we foreigners don’t understand Chinese culture, they certainly don’t understand democracy.

rowena 25/11/08 2:48PM

Given the state of the West at the moment I’m not sure we have too much to crow about.

Stephen Pickells 25/11/08 6:42PM

There’s a lot to be said for collective memory. Even though the cultural revolution attempted to whitewash it, it survived.

dereklane 25/11/08 8:31PM

"Surely it reflects a lack of maturity in the society. "

Quite a few of the comments in the article could equally be applied to Australia. In my experience, Australians are quite thin-skinned when it comes to real criticism too; one major difference between China and Australia in that respect is that Australia has far more superior international PR. With good PR, it lessens the need to deal with criticism, but as Rowena suggests, there isn’t much to crow about in the west either.

As far as I’m concerned, while Australians are still dying from third world diseases in remote communities (and having the gall to blame the victims rather than to provide the necessary medical help), Australians should be ashamed, and motivated through compassion (not old-school pseudo-religious intervention) to do everything in their power to change that.

However, mentioning this tends to get admonishment, anger and various degrees of disbelief from many Australians. That could mean two things:

1) My method of conveying this information, and my concern regarding it, is poor, and doesn’t properly take into account the social complexities of the people I am talking to (fellow Australians, so we’re clear) or respect them as individuals dealing with issues they feel are out of their control, and not representative of them as a ‘people’

2) They are angry because I am pointing out the truth to them, and truth sometimes hurts

Either case could equally apply to Chinese people facing similiar criticism.

cheers,

Derek

normanspecter 26/11/08 2:34AM

As a Brit, it pains to me say one of the things I love about the Ozzies is their sense of humour — the self-deprecating stuff, not the obvious pleasure and joy they derive from regularly tonking England at cricket. As a Brit who has lived in China for a couple of years, it pains me to say one of things I have a real problem with is the Chinese people’s complete lack of a sense of humour about themselves, their country and their history: it pains me, because the Brits’ are one of several nations around the world, including Japan, to have inflicted some serious scars on the Chinese psyche over the centuries, which of course, is no laughing matter.

Maybe it’s too soon in China’s modern history to level this criticism, but: the Party has made victimhood and the "hurt feelings" of the Chinese people a national sport to the extent that it that the Chinese gut reaction appears to be to trumpet its scars, pain and turmoil EVEN WHILE it is trumpeting, for example, the success of the Olympics.

The "joke" here is that the Party/Mao were more destructive in China than, arguably, the Nazis in Europe: 30 million dead during the Great Mao Famine; millions upon millions more lives destroyed by the 100 Flowers, the Cultural Revolution, etc; the utter and almost complete and deliberate decimation of China’s own culture, not to mention that of Tibet and numerous other peoples around the PRC.

I guess what I’m ineptly trying to say is that peoples like the Ozzies, the Brits, even the Japanese, are coming to grips with and even becoming comfortable with the darkest and most shameful periods of their own history, and the self-awareness and self-knowledge that engenders is vital to a society’s healthy development. In China, you go to prison for writing or reading the ‘wrong’ books. Gah. I’m waffling. There’s a serious point in there somewhere.

chinahandjob 26/11/08 9:02AM

There’s something pernicious about the idea that Chinese people are somehow immature because some will express distaste for certain representations of China.
The idea of immaturity has a long pedigree in the worst parts of colonial history and, frankly, should have been expunged by our long exposure to civil rights and post-colonial movements. But I guess not. People would still like to cling to the notion, however thinly supported, that their (heavily privileged) frame of reference is simply the way things ought to be and for those who aren’t quite "there yet", well, given time and sufficient prodding, they can grow into rational, democratic people — just like us!
You have to be extremely insensitive to race, culture, ethnicity, nationalism, and history to be, first, surprised by Chinese reactions expressed to a non-Chinese about Jia Zhangke movies and, second, to draw conclusions that are so self-serving.
I think it makes more sense to approach the issue of why Chinese publics don’t always appreciate the representations in, say, "Still Life" or "Lust Caution" without assuming that that dislike is pathological. It’s too easy to assume that people have a problem because they don’t act or react like us and then quibble over what precisely the problem is. Why not try to appreciate difference from a stance of empathy and curiosity instead? I’m sure if we listened in good faith then incomprehensible difference wouldn’t require recourse to stereotypes.

Rocky 26/11/08 11:31AM

Derek,

We have plenty to crow about in the West, the Enlightenment, democracy, science…your excursion into cultural relativism and tu quoque arguments is irrelevant. Would you rather be a member of a minority in China or the in West? Who’s perfect?

As a general comment, to blame the West as the cause of the Chinese feelings of superiority or resentment towards foreigners is nonsense, China has always been surrounded by inferior barbarians, and was prepared to civilise them by armed force, if necessary. Chinese civilisation is unusal in the fact that it was almost exclusively developed autonomously within the country, contrast this with ‘Western’ civilisation, from a hundred different sources, how does this affect the Chinese attitude to foreigners?

dereklane 26/11/08 10:14PM

Hi Rocky,

Its not a ‘tu quoque’ argument. Either case could be applied, because both are (in the sense I was using them) essentially true. But as ‘chinahandjob’ suggests, the position that bemoans the sensitivity of Chinese people on such issues is exceedingly colonialistic, and completely ignores the fact that Australians are also sensitive - if you point the finger on certain issues (like systemic racism and civil liberties). This *does* make it a hypocritical stance to take, from an Australian perspective.

"We have plenty to crow about in the West, the Enlightenment, democracy, science"

The Enlightenment (ie, Reason), science? Considering the Chinese are responsible for a huge number of inventions that still benefit the world today, I would say in the department of ‘things to crow about’ the Chinese can still do it. They’re also the centre of our world technologically (how many Australians know how to build microchips?), so our confidence is a little misplaced. We had ‘enlightenment’ a couple of hundred years ago, but a Chinese perspective framed in Chinese ideals might put it for them thousands of years before. In the west we herald the creation of the UN (just over 60 years old) as a pinnacle of cultural unity and the recognition of human rights, and yet, with a slightly different take, Canada’s 6 nations were well ahead of the west on that score. Dependent on your core thinking - your paradigm of colonial ideas - reason might suggest that China might lay claim to reason well before the west (since reason is typically associated as a prerequisite to science and against the importance of deities in that reckoning).

Democracy? If you say so, but again, it all depend on how you wish to define it.

"Chinese civilisation is unusal in the fact that it was almost exclusively developed autonomously within the country, contrast this with ‘Western’ civilisation, from a hundred different sources, how does this affect the Chinese attitude to foreigners?"

There is so much wrong with that statement it’s hard to know where to start… Western ‘civilisation’ makes use of the knowledge/customs etc of hundreds of different sources precisely because of its central imperialist history (inc against China - where opium was cynically used in a trade war with China). Its easy to adopt new cultural/physical elements if you travel a lot and colonise the world. China, on the other hand, has waged territorial war from time to time throughout its history, but never (I believe) sought to dominate the world. While it might make for more insular people, there is nothing grand about non-insularity if that simply means that western soldiers get to see the world as they destroy it.

Derek

dereklane 27/11/08 3:47AM

"Either case could be applied, because both are (in the sense I was using them) essentially true."

I should have added the following: What I was suggesting is needed, therefore, is not a sense of moral superiority (perhaps colonially derived, perhaps based on the understanding that *our* flaws are minor and not personally engineered but theirs are systemic and indicative of wider cultural flaws) but a little empathy and a deeper understanding that actually, between Australia and China, the people and how they deal with criticism (warranted or otherwise) are not so different.

Also, any argument that deals with more than a fifth of the world’s population and begins with ‘Why do the Chinese?’… shows more about the writer than the subject, particularly given that when the criticism is reversed, the obvious (and true) argument is used to counter it, that you can’t tar the whole country with the same brush.

For example, many Australians are inclined to get touchy if their carefree, cool, easy going and fair international image is threatened by morsels of truth that get past the PR, but not all Australians do, and there are pockets of the country more inclined to self-criticism and serious activism to right the wrongs than others. Its a little like going to a wealthy suburb of Sydney and complaining about cholera and Australia’s reticence to do anything about it. Possibly, you’ll get a great deal more agreeance if you visit a rural Aboriginal community actually experiencing it.

""Foreigners just don’t understand Chinese culture" line, frequently deployed as an all-purpose retort to criticisms of the country"

Even on this website I have received that ‘all purpose’ comment with regard to criticisms of Australia several times. Pointing out that I am, in fact, Australian, means the argument takes a different approach, but the reality is, people don’t like having their own country criticised, particularly by foreigners. That sentiment is true anywhere. For Edwards to assume the right to take the moral highground in China with Chinese people, and then take umbrage at the insistence much of the criticism is unwarranted shows his own lack of critical (self critical) awareness.

cheers,

Derek

Rocky 27/11/08 12:17PM

Derek,

"The Chinese are responsible for a huge number of inventions that still benefit the world today", so what, so were the Babylonians, Egyptians and innumerable other civilisations, I didn’t attempt to deny that. As to microchips, in what cultural context were these conceived and created initially, not China. You are drawing a longbow in your attempts to equate developments in China with Western science, contrast Europe in the last 500 years with a conservative China. Your insinuation that I am influenced by colonial ideas is unacceptable and cannot pass without comment, I have read history and archaeology since I was a teenager and knew of Islamic, East Asian and pre Colombian civilisations before most of my peers.

We all live in glass houses of course, but imagine a public discussion in China in regard to the treatment of Tibetans, not likely is it?

The Chinese, indeed imagined that they dominated the World and had no concept of diplomacy amongst equals, tribute from the outer barbarians was all they expected. Contrast the Japanese reaction to Western imperialist pressure. Your assessment of Chinese civilisation is naive, if they had developed superior technology they would have empoyed it to their advantage.

And finally, I’ll add that the assumption that the West is largely responsible for the dysfunctions of China, or of the rest of the world could also be regarded as a colonial attitude, we’re not omnipotent.

lisathurston 27/11/08 2:48PM

Normanspecter, I think you got it right and Rosross to some extent too.

It’s a difficult thing to describe in words but I’ve experienced the same thing.

dereklane 27/11/08 10:03PM

"We all live in glass houses of course, but imagine a public discussion in China in regard to the treatment of Tibetans, not likely is it?"

The public discussion (as passes for it) within China is (based on Xinhua) at about the same level on Tibet as it is in Australia regarding Aborigines. We’ll let it go so far but would never consider, for example, the concept of returning the land to the nations we have stolen it from (remember the public indignation when land rights had people thinking that might be the goal? See the effect of that - Mabo and Wik agreements essentially down the toilet after scarcely 10 years), and oppressed for 200+ years. We also continue to maintain (like China) that our ‘help’ is making improvements rather than naming such things as the ‘intervention’ for what they are (cynical manouveres to ensure that mining leases and govt interests are met via punitive measures for breaches of conduct in Aboriginal communities).

Earlier this year there *were* protests across China, even in Beijing. Only the protests in Tibetan provinces received mass media attention, because they were the ones where the Chinese govt responded violently. Assuming that protest is some measure of public discussion and dissent (outside the realm of the media, which is little difference in the west - the boundaries are always there and never exceeded), we have a similiar situation in Oz. Back in 2004 (I think) there were (limited) protests outside of Palm Island over the death of Mulrunji . Most were Aborigines, of course (as in China, most protestors had some link to Tibet). Only on Palm itself were the heavy handed tactics uses by the govt to subdue the anger (riot police, people being hauled out of their own houses and weapons held to the heads of kids as young as nine).

Public discussion on any issue of HR exists in most countries (even China), but what you see from the outside (and even visitors see things from the outside) is the gloss put on by govt PR (Brits think Australia is great, and have no idea about its shocking environmental record, or its treatment of Aborigines, or the hellish conditions in which refugees are kept, because the international PR is good, because Australia is a ‘friend’ of Britain. China is not.). In the case of China, westerners don’t see Xihua gloss, they see beeb and abc et al condemnation, and it seeps in to their reckoning of the Chinese in the same way an ignorant Brit sees all Aussies as fun-loving, hard-working good people (right or wrong). Its the image were taught to accept. So such clashes of culture come down (in a great part) to two PR campaigns clashing, rather than culture or experience.

We (many Australians) get *very* shirty when it is suggested that silence and indifference to the suffering and persecution of many Aboriginal Australians is indicative of responsibility in the continuation of that. Many even suggest that the fault of that oppression is not white Australians, but of black people and their culture (an argument that can be applied to Chinese opinions on Tibet also).

If you accept the ‘acceptable’ parameters then, ‘public’ (ie, not between ordinary people but involving those with some real and handy power to change things) discussion may be similiar in the two countries to their areas of greatest shame (human rights, imperialism and environment).

"As to microchips, in what cultural context were these conceived and created initially, not China. "

Technology is not a static thing, but a process. So while a westerner might lay claim to the invention of the microchip (probably Noyce and Kilby from the US), that technology has been constantly refined over the years to the point where the changes are about as significant as the difference between the horse-drawn cart and a modern car. But my point was that, without countries like China and Japan, and Taiwan (depending on if you view it as separate to China), the transition back to western dominance in this field (and so many others regarding technology) would be slow and painful. We simply don’t have the knowledge or training in abundance enough in the west to follow our own ‘dreams’ regarding technology.

"Your insinuation that I am influenced by colonial ideas is unacceptable and cannot pass without comment, I have read history and archaeology since I was a teenager and knew of Islamic, East Asian and pre Colombian civilisations before most of my peers."

What has knowledge to do with how you choose to interpret it? Colonial thinking tends to lead inexorably to the position that my culture is the most intelligent, the most enlightened, the most able (and even at its most self-depracating, the least offensive). It would be hard not to read your comments to interpret your thinking otherwise. You may have decided that the basis of such thinking was from a position proved and developed by your reading and learning, but I would suggest its more likely to have come from a position of belief earlier than that (and the reading merely a means of gathering facts to proof a - perhaps subconsciously - pre-determined position), and which afflicts possibly all white Australians in some measure. This colonial thinking is, I believe, intrinsically woven into the fabric of Australian culture, which is perhaps the only conceivable reason why we could possibly come to a position of belief that those Chinese need to be taught a thing or two about openness and honesty of history, and of taking well-deserved criticism on the chin, when we continue so resolutely to ignore our own.

This colonial thinking, incidentally, is not unique to Australia - I see it as much here as I did in Oz, but then, Britain has always been the great teacher of such ways.

cheers,
Derek

Rocky 28/11/08 9:49AM

Derek,

1. I’m really impressed by your ability to make sweeping generalisations about the psychological motivations of Western critics, I’d rather stick to the facts.

2. Perhaps East Asia will return to its prior dominant economic position in the future, however you have not refuted my argument as to the historical creative power of Western Civilisation, mere refinements of technology are not in the same league.

3. Where is the origin of the concept of human rights and the rule of law?

4. You should entertain the notion that perhaps, just perhaps some cultures cannot adjust easily to modern Western values, problems are not always the fault of Westerners. I assume you have had experience, first hand, of life in Indigenous communities in Australia or lived in country towns. Travel to Brazil and examine the "lives" of the indigenous people there who are systematically murdered for their land by ranchers and miners, since you’re a cultural relativist that would be enlightening.

5.And now a little amateur analysis of my own, your attitude seems to be a mirror image of those you criticise, some of us think that the Western guilt industry is bankrupt.
Some Asians in my experience, are prepared to (rightly) point out Anglo Australian racist or "colonial" attitudes but are completely unconscious of their own prejudices against minorities or Westerners. Who’s the hypocrite here? Perhaps we need a worldwide values questionnaire to really nail the problem.

dereklane 28/11/08 7:29PM

"I assume you have had experience, first hand, of life in Indigenous communities in Australia or lived in country towns."

…or, in other words …

"Foreigners just don’t understand Chinese culture" line, frequently deployed as an all-purpose retort to criticisms of the country"

Thanks for making the point for me. But yes, I have.

"Some Asians in my experience, are prepared to (rightly) point out Anglo Australian racist or "colonial" attitudes but are completely unconscious of their own prejudices against minorities or Westerners."

As are (many) Australians, the above article a case in point. The hypocrite is, of course, the one ignoring their own reflected prejudices in favour of pointing out someone else’s. So they exist on both sides. The colonial aspect is the perceived moral and intellectual authority that we in the west all seem almost born with (except we’re not - its simply taught and reinforced from a very young age) - our right to lecture and *change* other cultures on the understanding that they need - in your words - to ‘adjust to modern Western values’ - those values being the pinnacle (naturally) of human existence.

"Where is the origin of the concept of human rights"

Are you asking me, or is the question rhetorical? In terms of anthropological/historical ideas - who thought of it first - it’s likely that it was some indigenous group. As I mentioned earlier, the 6 nations have embodied much of such ideals for over a thousand years through the haudonesee constitution. Aboriginal groups in Australia have been practising certain ideals of modern human rights for perhaps millenia (in particular, the right to life for all, no matter age, health, and their importance in the social hierarchy outside of their disability, ie, equal rights). If you look at the west, the first notions are probably in the magna carta. As for China, the best evidence (of something tangible, or outside confucianism) it was with political reformer Kang Youwei (1858-1927).

"some of us think that the Western guilt industry is bankrupt"

That’s just a fancy way of saying ‘I refuse to listen to criticism of my own culture anymore (and I think its all baseless sniping)’ - which was a big part of my original point of how, in fact, Australians *and* Chinese people are inclined to react to criticism from outside. And yet, the attitude from Australians (and Britain) is very much one of ‘we are *so* much better than they are, they deserve our pity’.

I’m sorry, I can’t abide such backward attitudes. We *can* admit, and argue for human rights, and tibetan rights, and rights for Chinese peasant farmers and miners without taking the ‘Chinese’ (as a collective - the very same thing we accuse them of doing for themselves) as a general pejorative, and treating them like slow learners.

Chinese government and the Chinese people are no more the same beast than Rudd (or Brown) being representative of me, or my values (in my ‘representative democracy’). Taking issue with the actions, therefore, of the Chinese govt is worlds away from taking issue with the Chinese (all billion plus) - unless of course, you’re operating from a completely objective position of long experience with both (and who, after all, has objectivity? I know this laptop does, but surely no human…). That many may have fragile egos is not indicative of Chinese-ness, but humanity. It may show the immaturity of Australians that this reality goes unrecognised except when looking *outwards*.

cheers,

Derek

Bob Karmin 03/12/08 10:40AM

Dereklane / Rocky,

If I may weigh in with another angle on the attempt to delineate the border between "us" and "them".

One thing that has puzzled me when being bomdarded by Chinese cultural forms and (the various interpretations of these forms) is the near absolute absence of irony. This is significant because western culture and the idea of the western subject (as a self determining individual etc) is founded on the almost automatic acceptance of irony.

Irony is a way of dealing with what Sartre et al. have referred to as existential anxiety. Irony is essentially a coping mechanism that allows the individual to express both the socially accepted ‘performance’ of what it means to be an individual whilst at the same time expressing their reservations as to the completeness (or adequacy) of this performance. Think of irony as the embodiment of Godel’s incompletness theorem.

Now, given that irony is so intimately tied to expression in western culture, we could expect it to be closely linked with language. And this IS the rub. All western languages are based on a differentiation and STRICT ordering of the subject/predicate relation. Put simply, ‘we’ not only differentiate between the properties ‘we’ assign to the object and the object itself, but western languages nearly always express the predicate as belonging to the subject.

For example ‘we’ say: Jack saw the horse.

Whilst in Chinese it is completely acceptable (and quite common) to ALSO say: The horse. Jack saw it.

I would like to make the point that the absence of a STRICT ordering of subject/predicate relations in the Chinese language reinforces what can be observed at times as a naive realism. A realism that is exemplified by the absence of irony in Chinese culture. A realism that is often referred to in the west as ‘childishness’ by those either overtly or inadvertently mounting a case for western cultural dominance. It is also a realism that allows the Chinese government to maintain one of the largest ‘homogeneous’ societies the world has ever seen. And a realism that allows the government to recycle the organs of executed prisoners (some of whom are political prisoners).

As a product of the west, I believe in existential anxiety and the society I live in reinforces this belief on daily basis. This leads me to be skeptical about the sustainability of what can be termed recent ‘Chinese achievements’ in the same way that I would be skeptical about taking ‘achievements’ of a 21-year old grad student.

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