Ran the man wrote [quote]the Chinese believe by and large that it is okay to lie and cheat in business.[/quote]
Yep, that’s the sad truth that I’ve experienced. I’ve also noticed that many foreigners here are (or become) dishonest or tricky. There was a time when I never lied, except for the smallest of white lies once in a while. Now i find myself telling white lies without thinking about it.
Hatred is so cowardly, it is love that takes guts, and while I may be something of a physical coward I see no reason to be one in print.
I recall one afternoon stopping by the Spot for a bit of a gander at the advertisements when the usher came out and invited everyone within earshot in for a free viewing. Eraserhead I think it was. Anyway, by his logic they had sold all the seats they were going to and, seeing no need to waste seats, decided to give away the rest. Ponder if you will for a moment the exquisite stupididty of that and then come back and talk some more.
[quote=“ran the man”]if Chinese culture is a religion, it is an evil religion that allows for the worst in human behaviour as long as the basic tenants are kept, mainly pious devotion to dead ancestors and parents. nothing is said about cheating or lying. it even claims superior status for it’s members (superiority on the basis of being part of a 5000 year old culture) and exclusion to others (lao wai can never understand us).
does Satan have a grip on the Chinese people? I say yes. satan, AIT, and Zhonghua ming gouh. they are the unholy trinity.[/quote]
Ran, I think you should fuggitabout your music career and instead, make the switch to stand up. Where do you come up with this stuff? 
And please, when you take your act out on the road, don’t forget to include this gem:
[quote=“In another thread, ran the man”]it’s a scary world, and I don’t like it. I don’t mind problems if they can be solved. a problem with a solution is a just a challenge. but so many problems in taiwan are WITHOUT ANY FUCKING SOLUTION AT ALL. they’re just there.
what would make it bareable:
i wanna make a decent sandwich but the bread, cheese, and ham here sucks. so do the tomatoes. spoils my sandwich everytime.
i’m just a guy who wants to make a decent sandwich for himself and sit on the sofa with a guitar. is that asking too much?
even the milk sucks here. can’t take it anymore.
no costco is NOT the answer.
[/quote]
I swear that’s Buttercup’s ALL-TIME favorite Forumosa post…
EVER!
then i’ll just have to take buttercups out for nice dinner!
yeah i’ve been thinking of doing some standup at open mic. there’s this one pub in taipei where they do that. metrosexual does a routine there, but i haven’t had any free time to get up there and see it.
You guys would LOVE eachother.
i’ve PMed back and forth with Metro a few times. i really need to get up to taipei and support his show.
[quote=“ran the man”]what I’m getting at is, maybe it’s possible for one culture to be morally worse than another?
My history skills are a bit off; remind me again, was it a Western or Chinese racial superiority complex that brought us Holocaust 1?
western. but China is headed for facism. this has been reported on. china will convert to a facist regime, using nationalism and fascio- racial theory to keep the country together.
chaing kai chek was in fact the last facist to survive WWII. The ROC was a facist concept and chiang’s early advisers before WWII were from nazi germany.
That is incorrect, the KMT was originally advised by Moscow.
Admittedly the Chicoms are nasty authoritarians, but they do seem to be (gradually, protestingly, in little tiny baby steps) inching toward a more liberal system- though yes, they have employed the nationalist card as a substitute for Marxism as a justification for holding on to power.
And how about Taiwan, supposedly a much more traditional Chinese polity, which has made the transition to democracy reasonably painlessly.
Nope, the Caudillo outlasted the Generalissimo by four months: CKS, April 5 1975; Franco, November 20.
As Quentin points out, Chiang was happy to take advice from anybody, as long as it was along the lines of advising him to shoot anybody who disagreed with him.
Originally the KMT’s aim was “guiding the people to democracy”; quite different from fascism’s rejection of liberal democracy itself.
Sorry, one of my pet peeves, the use of “fascism” as a synonym for “nasty people I don’t like”.
“When I find the Mythical Chinese Consumer I am going to worship him.” - All Foreign Companies.
The Chinese worship money the same as everyone else. If they ever get any time free from fighting with the ridiculous way of life here where the simplest task takes all day, then I’m sure they will develop other things to worship like talent show hosts and celebrity cooking programmes.
[quote=“ran the man”]I would say that Chinese sayings are their Bible. they look at the world thru those sayings. some of the sayings are misquoted without knowledge of where they came from or who said them, and taken as “gospel”. example:
“ren bu dz sz, tien dzu di mien”
“if people are not selfish, heaven would bow in shame”
if Chinese culture is a religion, it is an evil religion that allows for the worst in human behaviour as long as the basic tenants are kept, mainly pious devotion to dead ancestors and parents. nothing is said about cheating or lying. [/quote]
I suspect that proverb means Heaven wants the people prosper more than anything else. Maybe an ancient way of supporting “enlightened self-interest”? 
And you’re wrong that lying and cheating are acceptable aspects of Chinese beliefs and culture. Even without reading anything about Chinese philosophy, common sense should tell you that. It would be impossible for any society, much less a civilization dating back to ancient times, to maintain social unity if lying and cheating were considered acceptable behavior. I am no Confucian scholar, but in my Chinese history classes I had the opportunity to read parts of the Analects (in English), and Confucius spoke repeatedly about the importance of virtue, honor, and integrity. He was born during a period in China’s history when it was divided into dozens of states, frequently at war with one another. Confucius apparently perceived the primary cause for these divisions as being a lack of virtue among the Chinese elite. He thought academics had become arrogant yes-men, eager to appease whatever ruler happened to be in power at any given time, and were not constantly striving to improve themselves as Confucius believed the ancients had done. Well, over the centuries Confucian philosophy became state doctrine and one of the pillars of Chinese thought. And I’m pretty sure centuries of Confucian based education and rule by Confucian scholars speaks more to the Chinese peoples value of virtue than one seemingly contradictory proverb.
All great civilizations have considered themselves superior. One of the things I find so interesting about Chinese culture is that while they are no exception to this rule, their feeling of superiority was not really race-based. In many cases the Han Chinese did not so much as displace other cultures as other cultures were attracted to the beauty and order of the Han, and eventually Sinified. Even the Khitan and Jurchen invaders adopted many Chinese customs during their rule of north China in the Song period. When the Mongols conquered the Jurchens and then all of China, they took pains to make sure the same thing wouldn’t happen to them. They instituted a strict social hierarchy, elevating all non-Han people above the Hans, limited the number of Han advisors at court, decreed that only Mongolian could be spoken at court, etc. The allure of Chinese culture was strong and the Mongols did whatever they could to resist it. The colonization and eventual Sinification of southwestern China during the Ming dynasty is another good example Chinese culture becoming dominant through mostly non-violent means. So I do think the Chinese people take pride in their fascinating and ancient culture, and yes to a certain extent they are probably consider themselves the world’s best culture. But I don’t think they are filled with hatred towards the lao wai as you suggest. And if anything it is based on negative experiences with foreigners, not some embedded feeling of superiority.
Have you ever noticed the foreigners on here who seem to have best integrated in Taiwan are often the ones most familiar Chinese and Taiwanese history and culture? Guys like say, Dragonbones, Vorkosigan, and bismark, just to name a few? I think everybody appreciates it when others express interest in their culture. I think you’ll find the Taiwanese are less likely to place you in the category of ignorant lao wai if you stop saying things like, “Chinese people think it’s OK to lie and cheat,” and “Chinese religion is evil.”
Gather together 10 Chinese people between the ages of 15 and 40 and ask for their opinion on China’s diglossia and the cultural impact on modern China of the Ziqiang movement (even throw in Japan’s contribution to this debate as a result of the Meiji Restoration and the education of China’s elite there at the time, or ask them where the term “ziqiang” comes from if they are in a particularly anti-Japanese mood) and the subsequent debate amongst contemporary Chinese scholars over Wenyanwen and Baihua and the May the Fourth movement and they will tell you “we have a big wall you can see from space”.
I would love* to get into a heated debate with someone in China over the real meaning of Ah Q Zhen Zhuan, but the only people who have actually read it in the spirit it was intended are in their 60s.
I am being facaetious, but even talking to a Chinese person under 35 about Lei Feng or Lai Ning results in blank stares (they have heard of Lei Feng - just), and this is stuff they are supposed to have learned at school (yes even in the 80s).
So, “culture”. Fireworks were only legalised a few years ago, so what does that leave?
Talking to old Chinese people is fascinating, but I would have to say there is more “Chinese culture” in the DPP heartland of Tainan than in the whole of China (sweeping generalisation mode ON).
Flame on (!)
There’s a saying that goes like:
A Chinese wears Taoist shoes, Buddhist robe, and Confucian cap.
The CCP members grew up in a time of strife, instability, foreign occupation, war, and turmoil. Miraculously, they were able to “take back” and unify the country which had been weak for over two centuries. Then, during the cultural revolution, the country underwent further chaos, disruption, and all values and cultural ties to the past were deliberately swept away, so that people of that generation lost their chance at education, rejected traditional values to be replaced with brute, uncovered power. That the current generation of leaders and such couldn’t talk to you about Lu Xun and Tang poetry and Shang bronzes and therefore are uncultured, while possibly true, is not entirely representative; they were busy staying alive, and struggling for power. Others were simply struggling for everyday livelihood, not starving and such. I don’t particularly care for Confucianism; it sought to freeze an idealized and edited past, but choked any creativity or development for the future. But saying Chinese are evil, because of a, b, and c is simply ridiculous, if not racist.
It’s like choosing to say blacks are evil coke-dealing, gang-banging, 40-swilling, raping murderers and ignoring their contribution to the arts, civil rights, literature, sports, and military honor. Or Italians are all mobsters who eat spaghetti. Germans are all warlike, Huns and Nazis. Jews are all money-grubbing, hook-nosed, Gentile-hating thieves of a shadowy network. Let’s start another thread on the Protocols of Elders of Zion while we’re at it.
The question presumes a prior one, that of what a “religion” is. Unfortunately there is little agreement about this.
Does any collection of traditional beliefs or practices count as a “religion”? If some tribe believes in astrology, how are we to decide if this is an article of religious belief, or merely an example of primitive science? How are we to distinguish religious rituals from non-religious ones (e.g. saluting the flag), or from etiquette?
Confucianism is often held to be religious on the grounds that it has a revered founder, holy texts, rituals, beliefs, and a hierarchy. On the other hand, the same could be said of the Boy Scouts, or of Soviet Communism. Others say that Confucianism does not qualify, either because it does not involve belief in supernatural beings, or because its members do not think that it is a religion.
Some writers describe a “Chinese folk religion” which includes Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian specialist activities alongside popular devotion. The idea that these three belong together apparently arises from minority sects similar to Yikuandao today. The proposal that Chinese culture as a whole should count as one religion is even broader, though I think it has merit.
I see Chinese medicine and qigong practices as religious in nature, in that they consist of beliefs which are not open to challenge or reform. Popular wisdom such as proverbs is a different order of activity, but they are obviously related as parts of a common culture. On the other hand, if we say that Chinese culture is a religion, then what use is the word “culture”?
Here’s a question: Could the Rectification Campaign that took place in Yan’An in 1942-43 be considered a religious event? Mao wrote essays reinterpreting Marxist and Leninist doctrine to fit the Chinese situation and circulated these essays among the party faithful at Yan’An. Anyone who did not agree with all aspects of Mao’s writings took part in a “struggle session,” complete with tearful confessions and guidance from the “pure” Maoists. Those who did not see the error of their ways experienced mass public humiliation and sometimes lost their positions in the party hierarchy.
I think the struggle sessions are at least quasi-religious in nature, resembling the confession chair events at revivalist camp meetings in 19th century America. Sinners would sit in the chair and confess all their sins prior to conversion. Well…plenty of people were “converted” to the Maoist line during the Rectification Campaign, and while some just learned to shut their mouths, some historians do think the struggle sessions and public humiliations helped create a new collective consciousness.
It seems strange to me that such things could happen at political events. Did the Long March engender a certain esprit-de-corps that made the struggle sessions less bizarre to the people involved, or is there really some religious-like quality to Chinese culture that is conducive to these things occuring? Those Taiwanese crying shows come to mind…
Discussions of the nature of “religion” often focus on the question of Communism–usually in its Soviet form, but Mao’s seems basically similar. What you are describing seems basically similar to the religious identification of heresy (and punishment of heretics). We could also compare the veneration of Mao to the adoration of saints, or worship of deities. (I understand there is at least one temple in southeast China in which a statue of Mao is worshipped.)
The ethos which united Mao’s group during and after the Long March could be compared to religious enthusiasm, but then many other things (language, nationalism, race or ethnicity) could potentially unite such a group, and we would probably balk at subsuming all of these under the category of “religion.” No?
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]Discussions of the nature of “religion” often focus on the question of Communism–usually in its Soviet form, but Mao’s seems basically similar. What you are describing seems basically similar to the religious identification of heresy (and punishment of heretics). We could also compare the veneration of Mao to the adoration of saints, or worship of deities. (I understand there is at least one temple in southeast China in which a statue of Mao is worshipped.)
The ethos which united Mao’s group during and after the Long March could be compared to religious enthusiasm, but then many other things (language, nationalism, race or ethnicity) could potentially unite such a group, and we would probably balk at subsuming all of these under the category of “religion.” No?[/quote]
Well my point is not that they were simply united…but that they were united in a religious-type way. If an ethnic group decides to band together to compete with other ethnic groups or whatever, I would not immediately say they are doing so via religious means. I just think that the struggle sessions/public humiliations are religious in nature.