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A Walk in Hong Kong

idlewords.com

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Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#211

Post by skrebbel »

theklub wrote: post #184
spectramax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s replace China with X so there is no xenophobic rebuttals. X is an authoritarian regime that has no rule of law, president has self declared perpetual status in the office, piracy is rampant, no respect for privacy of others, there is an app called ourchat that is effectively owned by the government and is increasing becoming a necessity, no media let alone any kind of investigative journalism especially against…

Norway just happens to have a ton of oil money and a tiny population, whenever they get mentioned as an example for the rest of the world I can't help but laugh.

You're responding to the words "Norway or Sweden". Sweden doesn't have a ton of oil money.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#212

Post by roboys »

azernik wrote: post #52
lawrenceyan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in the suburbs of California, I never really understood just how central the concept of face was in Asian society until visiting China and seeing it for myself. Over time I’ve come to realize that many of these social concepts exists in some form or another across all cultures, likely implicit in some part to the human condition, but it still surprises me to this day just how entrenched it still is in cert…

This has also been observed about Southern (i.e. Southeastern US) culture - it has an emphasis on "honor" and "face" that is much-reduced in other American regional cultures. These probably generally go back to historical social structures where reputation was important on a day-to-day level. (e.g. where personal relations took over some economic or legal functions that would be handled through more distant instituti…

If you lose a major war, all you have is your pride. That's probably at the core of this observation.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#213

Post by brendanw »

A few years ago a Chinese man on the BART tried asking me for directions. His english was poor. With the aid of google translate we were able to do some basic communication. Over the course of 10 minutes I learned he was trying to visit the Wikipedia headquarters. I mentioned I was surprised he could access Wikipedia in the mainland. He told me that many know how to access Wikipedia.

Let's be clear. Authoritarianism is not culture; it is an evil political ideology that the people of China are subjected to.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#214

Post by concert-gilled »

idlewords wrote: post #114
smallnamespace wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a silly analysis because the conflict is fundamental. China wants to integrate Hong Kong. The protestors want independence. Neither side really wants an indefinite half-hearted autonomy, although the protestors are pushing to preserve it for as long as possible. Your very reaction shows where your sympathies lie, which is very laudable, but are you willing to engage in 'conflict resolution' over your own core…

The protesters are not calling for independence. They have five specific demands, which boil down to "uphold the law as written", including the right (guaranteed in the Basic Law) to elect their government.

Specific demands which amount to independence rather than integration.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#215

Post by abdullahkhalids »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #9
mskvsk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telling those people how to improve their privacy before Beijing did this.

Slightly tangential since you're specifically discussing communication but I've noticed that the term "privacy" is often getting incorrectly used when discussing surveillance tech (e.g. face recognition). There is no expectation of privacy in a public place. But an important right in a free society is the right to anonymity. A street is not a private place and, as said, there is no expectation of privacy there: Anyon…

> A street is not a private place

There are still degrees of this across the world. In certain places, wearing face covering is banned. In others its literally forced on 50% of the population to obscure their head and/or face. Some places don't care at all.

Same goes for tinted glass on vehicles.

Not saying any of these position is ethical or not.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#216

Post by addicted »

bart_spoon wrote: post #186
rhinovshippo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"face" is the word one uses when one wants to put a negative spin on it. It, along with "kowtow", are very much dog-whistles for a certain crowd. Have you ever laughed at a joke even though you don't find it funny, because the teller made a great effort telling it and you shudders to think how you would feel if your interlocutor exhibited completely no reaction? If the answer is yes, the concept is as much operative…

You are correct that "face" isn't an idea that is unique to Asia. But on the other hand, if you don't think there is an extra emphasis on it in certain Asian cultures (can't speak for China, but I have lots of experience with Japan), you are simply wrong. The lengths Japanese people go to avoid bucking a trend, or staying within the cultural boundaries is, on average, much further than most Western cultures would. Fo…

Saving your own face is as common in Asian culture as in western. I mean, just look at Boeing doing everything to avoid taking responsibility (you still cannot name an individual in Boeing who has taken responsibility). How is that any different than Japanese “face saving”.

Being conservative about your culture, or not wanting to buck the trend probably has a lot more to do with appetite for risk (which in turn likely has more to do with poverty, and the lack of immigrants) than it has to do with a notion of “face saving”.

Let me clarify. I’m not saying additional “face saving” isn’t a thing in Asian cultures. My point is that it’s a lazy and easy fallback in Western discourse to explain a variety of differences.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#217

Post by jnbiche »

rhinovshippo wrote: post #193
alexmlamb2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may not realize this, but you've been brainwashed by western propaganda (I grew up in the west, but I've been exposed to many different countries, so I understand this better now). The idea that "freedom" is the freedom for society to be controlled by large corporations and the wealthy is not the only notion of freedom, and many prefer a technocratic / meritocratic society over a plutocratic one. I think…

True freedom exists at the personal, inner level, each individual must earn it for themselves. How little Americans personally value the kind of external (political) freedom which they talk up as the absolute good and sacred can be observed in the 10% ish turn out rates in cities like NY and SF, as well as in how everyone tries to get out of jury duty as much as they can.

> everyone tries to get out of jury duty as much as they can.

Perhaps it's the fact that I live in a smaller city, but literally no one I know had tried to get out off jury duty, except one friends in the last months of her pregnancy when she had preeclampsia and was ordered by the doctor to rest (so a legitimate reason).

One advantage of this is I get to hear all kinds of great stories about various cases (including a murder, in one case).

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#218

Post by SECProto »

tombh wrote: post #195
bouncycastle wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong and the greater area around it has its own identify as well. That is, they are mainly Cantonese Chinese, a sub-culture, complete with their own dialect and variation of the writing system, plus their own takes on Chinese culture. Especially in Hong Kong where it's been better preserved because they skipped the Cultural Revolution and other influences from the CCP, taking the good parts from the British inst…

I'm troubled to disagree with your comment, because I usually get so little feedback to such opinions and also it makes it look like I'm CCP stooge. So I should add that I'm British, I just lived in China for a year. Your comment really worries me though, because it seems to me you're conflating the subculture of Guangdong with the culture of Honk Kong, perhaps in an attempt to make a tenuous argument that it is in f…

I think that is a disingenuous take on their comment. They said it is culturally and linguistically distinct from the mainland ruling class. I think it's pretty easy to see how that arose from the historical separation. They specifically mention how it came from years of British rule, and skipping the cultural revolution. They didn't even mention Guangdong.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#219

Post by jnbiche »

oinkl wrote: post #72
TASMebWdhWc9NeA wrote: post #51

I am in Verona (Italy) at this time, and I'm in a hotel where some tourists from Shanghai happen to be as well. I'm alone, so I hang out in the lobby a lot. I just engaged in some small talk with some of those tourists, and the discussion somehow shifted to the Hong Kong protests. Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the chinese culture. They don't seem to say that the chinese way…

America's Fundamental Misunderstanding of China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojr-tqaQQOQ

Boy, all kinds of new accounts in this thread, with just one or two comments about the Hong Kong situation.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#220

Post by roboys »

addicted wrote: post #209
3131s wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that "saving face" is uniquely central to Asian cultures is complete nonsense. It's a common metaphor in Asian languages, that's it -- the desire to avoid embarrassment is an absolutely universal human trait.

A clear example is the political discussion around the US China tariff war. Most commentators will present the reason why China cannot back down as the government not wanting to lose face, while presenting the reasons Trump does not want to back down in very different language (not wanting a loss, for example), although they’re the same thing. The former is presented as a cultural trait, while the latter as an object…

One would expect Trump has more reason to "save face" in this trade war, with an election coming up.
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