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You'll never be Chinese

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Re: You'll never be Chinese

#71

Post by saraid216 »

colmvp wrote: post #12
Jd wrote: post #3

"A China that leads the world will not offer the chance to be Chinese, because it is impossible to become Chinese. " Of course. The British led the world and did not offer (at the time) anyone the chance to be British either. In fact, they actively discouraged interbreeding. It is a dogma of the modern Occident that it is stronger to be multi-ethnic, and that national identity should be open to anyone. History shows…

Whereas most Asian men in Western countries get rejected by Caucasian females for not being Caucasian. (Source: OkCupid studies, anecdotes, Quora, etc.)

I must be doing something wrong. All of the females this Asian male has partnered with have been Caucasian.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#72

Post by to3m »

travisp wrote: post #43
wensheng wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in China, i often ride in friends' cars. The first thing I do when I get in cars is buckling up, and I'm often ridiculed for fearing of death (i really am). Twice I sit on the passenger side and tried to put the seatbelt plate into buckle but I couldn't, because there's already a key holder in there. I learned since no passenger wear seat-belt, the driver just put the key holder there to silence the warnin…

This isn't just a Chinese thing. I've experienced it personally in Russia, and I've heard of it in other countries too.

It's an everywhere thing. Before seatbelts were compulsory in the UK, people used not to wear them there either. You'd have to talk to somebody who was an adult at the time - probably not many of those round here - to get the definitive answer, but I distinctly remember being confused by adults often failing to put their seatbelts on, even for quite some time after seatbelts became compulsory.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#73

Post by tokenadult »

As Confucius said, 三人行，必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my teacher is surely among them"). This is a very interesting article for an American who has lived in east Asia for two three-year stays (mostly in Taiwan) and who has been learning the Chinese language since 1975. Much of what has been said about China in the first decade of the twenty-first century reminds me very much of what was said about Japan in the 1980s--that it was destined to be the leading nation of the world. Today, demographics and looking behind the official economic statistics, and considering that China has not yet democratized as much as Japan had in the era when the Liberal Democratic Party had a lock on national power all suggest that China is most likely to have a "lost decade" that continues into two or more lost decades as China's economic growth fails to keep pace with the Chinese regime's world power ambitions. Political unrest is an ongoing fear of the Communist Party of China regime, and there is little to suggest that Chinese "soft power" can overcome the misgivings of neighboring countries (e.g. India, Vietnam, and South Korea) that remember being invaded by Chinese armies in the recent past.

It is possible to become an American. I have seen it done. My wife, out of all the girls I knew when I first lived in Taiwan, was the LEAST interested in gaining a green card or even living in the United States as a student until we had occasion to enter the United States (her first occasion ever) as a married couple after a year of married life in Taiwan. Over time, she has become a Minnesotan American by choice rather than by birth, and indeed we have spent far more time in the United States than I had ever imagined possible when I first planned my adult life as an American with a university degree in Chinese language. There have been great opportunities for us in America and much that my wife can cherish even though none of her primary or secondary education was intended to prepare her for life in the United States, and none of my higher education was intended as anything but preparation for living in east Asia. The United States is open to immigrants, accepting of cultural diversity, and a second home for many people that becomes a more meaningful home than their first home. That acceptance of outside influence is America's strength, and why the United States and not China will be the superpower of the twenty-first century.

What the United States can learn from China (but even more so from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea) is better provision of elementary education in government-operated primary schools, particularly in the subjects of mathematics and science. Native-born Americans like me who have lived in east Asia are APPALLED at the wasted opportunities that United States schools have with their lavish resources to provide a truly world-class education. United States schools do not do as badly as they possibly could, but they also don't do as well as they reasonably could be expected to do. Let's learn from China's best examples here in the United States. Meanwhile, I hope that the common people of China eventually learn from other democratized countries of east Asia how to come out from under a one-party dictatorship and to enjoy uncensored mass media, free elections, and a vigorous civil society.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#74

Post by rubashov »

tokenadult wrote: post #73

As Confucius said, 三人行，必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my teacher is surely among them"). This is a very interesting article for an American who has lived in east Asia for two three-year stays (mostly in Taiwan) and who has been learning the Chinese language since 1975. Much of what has been said about China in the first decade of the twenty-first century reminds me very much of what was said about Japan…

Inside every gook there is an american trying to get out!

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#75

Post by wensheng »

w1ntermute wrote: post #59
wensheng wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandarin is not totally unrelated to Manchu. There are a lot of loan words in Mandarin from Manchu, for example, 姑娘, 罗嗦, 邋遢, 马虎, 麻利, 别扭, and lots of other common phrases. More importantly, Mandarin is heavily influenced by Manchu in other ways, for example, tones. Southern languages like Cantonese, Minnan have more tones (Cantonese 9, Minnan 8, vs Mandarin 5). Some Chinese believe Mandarin is a language polluted/redu…

> There are a lot of loan words in Mandarin from Manchu, for example, 姑娘, 罗嗦, 邋遢, 马虎, 麻利, 别扭, and lots of other common phrases. And I acknowledged them. Similarly, southern Chinese languages feature borrowings from Tai, Austro-Asiatic, and Austronesian languages. Sanskrit is another source of borrowings for many Chinese languages, due to the influence of Buddhism. The word "Mandarin", coincidentally, comes from the S…

>Do you have any proof that Manchu influence is the reason for Mandarin's relative paucity of tones in comparison to southern Chinese languages?

It's very hard to prove. There are materials from Qing Dynasty that still have the 入(entering) tone, this indicate the tone disappeared sometime during the late Qing. But others hold belief that the northern language lost the entering tone long before Qing, maybe as early as Yuan.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#76

Post by superchink »

rubashov wrote: post #74
tokenadult wrote: post #73

As Confucius said, 三人行，必有我師焉 ("wherever three persons are walking, my teacher is surely among them"). This is a very interesting article for an American who has lived in east Asia for two three-year stays (mostly in Taiwan) and who has been learning the Chinese language since 1975. Much of what has been said about China in the first decade of the twenty-first century reminds me very much of what was said about Japan…

Inside every gook there is an american trying to get out!

Are you kidding me?

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#77

Post by sparkie »

fring0 wrote: post #7

It's funny to see more of these articles about China where westerners get their panties in a bunch when they find themselves in a similar situation most other people have been in with respect to the west. I should write a similar article about my American/European dream. I hope the Chinese are able to take criticism better than the west. Westerners can't get over their superiority complex.

I do pity the guy for moving back to the UK, expecting some kind of blessing of freedom. Perhaps he has been gone too long to realize the extend to which our police state now reaches. In the past 15 years, we have reintroduced star chambers, armed the police, failed to prosecute anybody in the police force for murdering innocent citizens, introduced 'precrime' arrests to stifle dissent, and we're extraditing British Citizens for not committing crimes in Britain.

This lunacy shows no signs of stopping either. In fact, it's accelerated massively with high profile events like the royal wedding and the Olympic games used as excuses to kill political dissent and keep the population dumb.

Of course, most British people are mindlessly flag waving about the Olympic games, despite how they embody the erosion of civil liberties. The British do feel superior - their ego and patriotism blinds them to their own enslavement, just as it does the Chinese.

I know nobody will take my advice, but I'll give it anyway: Pick somewhere other than the UK (or US), because you're gonna be quite sour when you find out what you're really in for.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#78

Post by ender7 »

lionhearted wrote: post #17

Hmm. A strange article. A mix of really good points soaked in bitterness. I spend the bulk of my time in Beijing, Taipei, and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). My take is slightly different. Well, a lot is true. The property thing, definitely. The state industry takeovers is scary; you have to get a sense for what industries they don't mind foreigners in, and which they do. Media? Yeah, you don't want to own a media company in…

Whenever we talk about the nature of a people, things get complicated very fast.

That said, my personal experience with community-vs.-individuality in Chinese culture is closer to the OP's than yours. There is incredibly strong feeling in China that the world -- and, indeed, your fellow countrymen -- are out to get you, so you'd better get them first. The tragedy of the commons is not a problem in China because the concept of a commons is itself perplexing to many Chinese. The way that Chinese citizens treat common areas such as parks (read: with great disdain) is indicative of this mindset.

Put another way, the concept of "community" does exist for many Chinese people, but it usually extends only to family members and friends. If you're within this boundary then things are as warm and welcoming and community-focused as you might desire. However, the boundary is razor-sharp and does not usually extend to things such as neighborhoods or towns.

And of course, there are always exceptions. A Chinese woman I know prides herself on the fact that the never screwed anyone over during her life (she puts it a little more delicately than that).

Perhaps this is all growing pains. Maybe things will mellow out once people become wealthier, or feel that they are better protected from adversity and/or their fellow man.

Disclaimer: much of my opinions are based on anecdotes from city life (Beijing, Shanghai), rather than rural life.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#79

Post by getsat »

fr0sty wrote: post #28
jisaacstone wrote: post #22

Take a moment and conciser how a similar piece, written of the United states around the turn of the last century, might read. Remember the 'roaring 20s?' Materialistic society, ambivalence about foreign affairs, widespread corruption, distrust of foreigners. A Chinese who owned a tea shop in a small town may well have to beg for a renewed lease, yes? Well, China is not the United States, but lets put things in perspe…

> Remember the 'roaring 20s?' Yes. Remember what followed? The Great Depression. The trend in China may be upward but is that because of real growth or just due to the inflation of a huge bubble?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, no?

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#80

Post by Apocryphon »

msabalau wrote: post #32
Jd wrote: post #3

"A China that leads the world will not offer the chance to be Chinese, because it is impossible to become Chinese. " Of course. The British led the world and did not offer (at the time) anyone the chance to be British either. In fact, they actively discouraged interbreeding. It is a dogma of the modern Occident that it is stronger to be multi-ethnic, and that national identity should be open to anyone. History shows…

Of course, that we speak of "the British" is a testament to a certain level of success of melding English/Scottish/Welsh identities, much of which happened in the context of imperial endeavor. And certainly many other groups (Sepoys, say) found their interests aligned at times with the imperial project, in a way that outweighed their ethnic background. Being open to a flexible interpretation of identity/citzenship (B…

I find this interesting, because Chinese identity, as much as it is tied to Han ethnicity, seems to be something that could include once-outsiders, as long as they assimilate into it. The OP itself cites how the Mongol invaders established the Yuan dynasty, and the Manchu did the same with the Qing. Despite there is always a separation between Han and non-Han, I've found that the traditional (pre-20th century?) idea of "Chinese" is more tied to cultural traditions and the Confucian ethos, than ethnic/racial divisions. In some ways it's almost comparable to the concept of being "American" as in from the U.S., though of course far less malleable and open to including outside traditions.

Consider the mythological origins of the Han: http://knowledgechina.blogspot.com/2010/02/origin-of-chinese...

"3000 years before the Han dynasty, when what we call China today was inhabited by various tribes, the mythical ancestors of the Han, the Huaxia, controlled swathes of land centered around the Yellow River. According to legend, the leader of the Huaxia, Huangdi, defeated the 4 surrounding tribes, to the North, South, East, and West of Huaxia and incorporated their people and territory. The 4 leaders of those tribes, along with Huangdi became known as the 5 Emperors. Legends also tell of Huangdi defeating and assimilate the tribe of Yandi. Together, Huangdi and Yandi have been viewed as the progenitors of the Han race, which refers to itself as 'descendants of yan and huang'."

Even from the beginning, the Chinese came from the intermingling of multiple peoples, not one specific race. So I think the identity of "Chinese" can certainly be more cultural than ethnic/racial, and so open to outsiders who self-assimilate.

The questions are, what is Chinese culture in modernity? And if traditionalist Confucianism makes some sort of comeback, how will the world outside China react to it?

Oh, and how do current Western/non-Chinese expats in China assimilate to local Confucian norms?

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