You'll never be Chinese • Hacker News Board

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#141

Post by abhaga » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 8:15 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #131

The author seems to be stuck in a country which is rising after coming from a country which had already risen. The path to success is no cake walk, its tiring and it causes fatigue. As as Indian this article to me on many counts also looks like the story of India. The west will find it difficult to digest but the desperation to grow forces a person to go out of his way to do and achieve things people in the west in a…

This is easily resolved. Did American education system or the education system of any other country which you consider developed now, underwent similar stages?

There are grave dangers in justifying our current systems and saying that in time, we will get there. For one, the products of this system may no longer wish for a better system to emerge.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#142

Post by Ingaz » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 8:24 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #11

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 hope the Chinese are able to take criticism better than the west. Westerners can't get over their superiority complex. Actually, most Chinese people I've met, especially those who were born and raised in mainland China, have a massive superiority complex. In every type of discussion comparing the West to China, they keep bringing it up the fact that China has thousands of years of history, and has invented things…

Russian people of Soviet era had the same complex.

We were taught that we have best science, culture, sport, military and most progressive state. Also we were strong but good, not as "prokliatye imperialisty" ("cursed imperialists")

It evaporated in '90s, but not completely - I often hear "we were ...."

Jerome K. Jerome wrote about the same complex in British people. If I recall correctly that must be in "Diary of a Pilgrimage"

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#143

Post by derleth » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 8:25 AM UTC

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.

> Westerners can't get over their superiority complex.

We don't need your racism here.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#144

Post by philwelch » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 8:41 AM UTC

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…

> a certain level of success

From the outside. On the inside, I think most Britons identify more as English, Scottish, or Welsh than British. Scotland and Wales live under the semi-official delusion that they are actually "countries" in some meaningful way, not just autonomous subdivisions of the UK, and even compete separately in international sporting events outside of the Olympics. Even forming a unified soccer team for the Olympics that the UK itself is hosting was a source of significant controversy.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#145

Post by chubs » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 9:12 AM UTC

I loved this bit: "Leadership requires empathy, an ability to put yourself in your subordinate’s shoes"

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#146

Post by killyourheros » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 9:12 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #81

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…

> 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. I know this is a popular refrain about American education, but it's only a ha…

This is the most overtly racist post I've seen on HN. Congrats.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#147

Post by kaptain » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 10:00 AM UTC

What does it mean to be Chinese?

Technically, there is no Chinese ethnicity. China is made up of (officially) 56 ethnicities. My parents are ethnically Han Chinese. I was born in Canada, raised in America. I carry an American passport. To my neighbors, I'm a 华侨 (overseas Chinese); one taxi driver told me that I would be Chinese forever because it's in my blood. So what am I? Moving from the questions of ethnicity, is it possible for a foreigner to immigrate to China and become a Chinese citizen? I suspect the answer is 'no' but I have heard (perhaps from the internet) that one can become a citizen at the invitation of the Chinese government. It seems, being Chinese has more to do with ethnicity AND culture than anything else.

While some may deride China for being parochial/uncosmopolitan for this, many countries share this same trait: the majority ethnicity defines citizenship and acceptance. The United States isn't immune from this. Even though I grew up an American (and still consider myself American) I have experienced personal bias and prejudice because of my ethnicity. I got comments from kids about me going to Buddhist church (I'm not Buddhist), using karate in a fight (I don't know any form of martial arts), using chopsticks (this is true), or speaking "Ching chong, ching chong" (I am not familiar with this language). High school was hard. Not that it wasn't for any of my white friends who shared the same weight/height/car/popularity class as me, but none of them were ever told to "Go home."

The big "but" here is that I live/lived in the United States. And though there is a history of disenfranchisement as well as evidence of racial bias today, I am more hopeful that you (whoever you are) /can/ become American... not by becoming 'white', but by participating in a society that has the opportunity to change itself as well as the opportunity to change you.

It's not clear to me that this is possible in China (i.e. social change to embrace differing ethnicities). The average Chinese (pick any of the Chinese ethnicities) person has very strong feelings about one's identity as it relates to race and language (e.g. some people couldn't believe I was Chinese and couldn't speak Mandarin when I first got to China). In my first trip to China, I made a friend who relayed me this interesting anecdote (this was the late 90's): he (an American) was on a college campus and he engaged in a discussion about race relations in America with a Chinese student. The Chinese student told him: "There is no racism in China because there aren't any black people." While the ethnic tensions aren't as visible here, simply ask a Han person how they feel about Uyghers.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#148

Post by epo » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 10:02 AM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #77

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…

Spoken by someone who seems to have no experience of the real world, whether in the UK or elsewhere. Still live at home do you? Do you even have a job? The UK and US may not be socialist paradises but it is far worse in most other parts of the world, especially if you are not wealthy.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#149

Post by reedlaw » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 10:17 AM UTC

kaptain wrote: post #134

Shenglong wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not taking offense in a patriotic stance. I'm offended because it's plain incorrect. I don't know if we're arguing the same thing, but I'm saying looking at China from a western perspective is misleading, and leads you to formulate judgments that are based on slanted information. It's much like how the average citizen believes he's knowledgeable about the economy. It's still commonplace for companies to provide h…

PSB registration does not take two minutes, literally or figuratively. I was at the 出入境 for about an hour two weeks ago. This one visit was one of many visits. Yesterday, I went to register at the local 派出所. I was the only person there. They processed all my documents (three passports) in one hour. I should amend my statement above: PSB registration does not take two minutes for me . You are fortunate that it only ta…

At a hotel where they are supposed to register for you it might take 2 minutes. But in my experience it takes anywhere from half a day to a week in smaller city. Half a day is the minimum because you get directed from one place to another and wait in lines. A week is how long it could take of you're missing anything they require such as a photo. Yes, it varies widely.

Re: You'll never be Chinese

#150

Post by Fleuri » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 10:40 AM UTC

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…

When talking about education in China, given that I just graduated from a chinese high school last year(I'm chinese), I think I can have a different view-point from others looking outside.

The fact is that, chinese students indeed have really really lots of things to learn in the subject of science, especially math, but something has missed, gravely. For example, the spirit of science. In china, students are told to be well-behaved, from the first step of the primary school till you graduated from high school or university, imagine that a 6 year-old boy obliged to wear a red scarf(Honglingjin in chinese) as a sign of being young pioneer(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_of_China), and saying "Be prepared, to struggle for the cause of Communism!", that red scarf will accompanied with that boy, untill junior high school, yes, time to step into Communist Youth League, it will end till the university, where you can really choose to join the party or not.

Back in to the education, students here will learn truelly lots of knowledges in math, but for what? the love of science? No, for the exam. this is what I really want to talk about, the real main spirit that construct the form of education in China. For a normal student, when it comes to the education, it's the exam, like a hash, no other values, education => exam, study => better grades, pursuit of science => nil. The summit of your life being a student is the GaoKao, takes place once a year, depend and only depend on which you can enter your ideal university. For lots of students, it's the whole family's "dream", parents and teachers will say again and again the importance of get good grades in GaoKao, some student even commit suicide when they faild their GaoKao. Maybe you can already feel that something goes wrong, yes, student take "good" elementary education(especially in math), but with the misleading of the meaning of education, math, physics, chemistry, are nothing but a game of grades. Can you imagine that in high school, only 2/3 of time you can really learn somthing, and the 3rd year of the high school is a full-time practice of topics in exam, everything you are told to do and really do is solving wired and meaningless topics. After doing all this, when you finish the GaoKao, it's done, it's the very end of study, lots of students know nothing about what they should do in the future, because the game finished, and their's no grades for struggling.

You know, after GaoKao, a lot of chinese students go study in foreign universites(especially US) for the sake of, for example, Freedom. When it comes to me(I'm going to France this year), I nearly think that I'm a "survivor" of the form of education in China, I know what I really want, the high school was almost a "prison of spirit" for me, so it's really really exiciting when I graduated, I can really choose what I want to learn, start a startup company, study the real science but not those meaningless topics, do lots of things that aren't "well-behaved".

We are tend to see only good points of other education systems, because we know our own weakpoints, and the solution may be find in other systems, but the underlying problems are easy to be ignored. I wish this will helps you guys to see a different aspect of education in China, and cherish good things in your education system.