Yeah gangster groups and gangs behave like that, not the average random citizen. Here we are talking about the average random citizen 
In my opinion, the people here are terribly materialistic. It even reflects in the religious belief system, the burning of ghost money or some of the rituals in the temples for fortune and wealth.
During the funeral they throw coins to communicate with the deceased. All the Buddha stores are just about making money big time.
Next are the terribly trashed apartments, balconies, sidewalks and rooftops. These people can’t throw anything away but still need to get new dungshi all the time.
If you, however, live here long enough, you’ve got to realize that if you do not concern about money all the time, you might end up with no retirement, on the street, with little or no mercy.
I think Chinese people are refreshingly honest about their materialism. The paradox for me is that Buddhism and its radical anti-materialism appeals to them so much.
It’s a sorry state of affairs when society labels one as a racist for identifying major traits of a particular culture or group of people. Why should people have to tiptoe around on eggshells just in case someone gets offended? It’s society that is screwed: It’s not normal.
[quote]What exactly about the way Chinese make weddings and births and deaths IN PART a tranfer of money is different from anywhere else in the world? Do you not give gifts in your culture? How is this somehow better or different, and somehow not worthy of contempt? I mean what abou setting up a young newly married couple with a houseful of material goods is so laudible?
[/quote]
I accept that cultures are different.
However, giving gifts in the west is not the same as giving money. Giving gifts affects my time - I have to go out and earn the money to buy the gift in the first place. Then I have to think about what to get while I am driving, or at work or lying awake in bed. Then I have to go out and order the bloody thing, or go shopping for it. I might need to call a friend and see if the single-serve gourmet coffee machine I intend to get is in the same style of his gift of an avocado flesh remover, and that they both match the kitchen.
Then I have to make sure that nobody else has bought the same gift.
Then I usually have to go to several outlets because the particular model I am looking for is out of stock. Then, when they finally receive the gift, I usually have to exchange it because it is broken/too big/wrong color/the deaf aunt got the same thing and didn’t tell anyone.
Giving gifts obviously requires thought and time. Giving money doesn’t. That is why it is different.
Whether you think one is more laudable than the other is not for me to say.
At weddings (and again I accept it is a cultural thing), my toes curl at the sight of some relative of the newlyweds writing my name down and the amount of money I have concealed within the red envelope. I politely smile while I imagine myself ripping the silly wicker basket of temperate-climate fruit off the fake mahogany table and ramming it into the fake white face of the temperate-mannered xiao jie recording the money.
Next time I’ll give $4,444NT. Yeah!!! Let’s see your face when you have to write that down!
And the burning of ghost money and ghost watches and ghost cars. Every time I ask why they are doing it they say it’s because the ancestor in question will have some money, a car or a Rolex in the after life.
To which I reply that all they will get is a paper car. Why don’t you burn a real BMW?
I usually just get looked at so I go away.
[quote=“almas john”]ha, ha, ha
Just a minute. I’ll ask my houseboys about this.
"Are you 'orrible little money-grubbing @#%$^&?
Well, they both answered with an emphatic “Yes, Honourable Heaven Born Lord.”
To anyone who isn’t some guilt-ridden bedwetting liberal nancyboy teetotaler, it’s obvious that the Chinese are more money-obsessed than other people are.
When you get to the root of many things here, it boils down to pieces of silver. For example, their feng shui, rather than being about harmony with nature and the like, is actually about grasping a bit more cash. The many aquariums found everywhere rather than reflecting a deep love of fish is all about primitive money-grubbing superstition. “Poor, dark, hopeless heathenism!” indeed."
The love of money is obviously a universal human trait but I really do believe there are shades of degree and it’s an interesting question, something someone should research. But I don’t suppose submitting a thesis proposal with a subject title like “Greedy Chinese; the Triangulation of Money, Luck, and Face” would make you flavour of the month on campus.
Muzha Man, you mentioned Buddhism. That reminds me. Why is the Chinese Buddha such a fattie, a really fat gluttonous tub of lard?
Anyway, best be going. I’ve had a lean couple of months workwise, so I’m off to the cemetery to move grandpa’s bones and get me some luck.[/quote]
This is classic almas john. Champagne almas john, in fact. The part in bold is brilliant.
It’s a sorry state of affairs when society labels one as a racist for identifying major traits of a particular culture or group of people. Why should people have to tiptoe around on eggshells just in case someone gets offended? It’s society that is screwed: It’s not normal.
[/quote]
Its something completely different. The jew thing is based on all the stuff that happened in the last thousands of years… money business is dirty lets leave it to the jews and then complain about them working with money and being good at it. The picture of the greedy jew is bs and everyone who knows them and has some education knows that. Maybe you will find one in a hundred who will fit the racist prejudice but you could find a person like that everywhere… thing here is… we all live here and we all see it in nearly everyone. Its not like we have an prejudice based on history or hearsay. Its based on what we see and experience on a daily basis all around us.
Bringing up racist prejudice against jews is just a pretty annoying way of killing this thread. Its like saying “nazi” in germany or america. Your point doesnt have to be good as long as you say the word nobody may disagree with you and you are immediately right and everybody else better be REALLY careful about what they say.
[quote=“Ryan the third”]
No its not the same and “face” is by far the most moronic cultural concept I have ever encountered.[/quote]
I don’t know, I think I would have to beg to differ with you Ryan. Maybe it could just be the South East US, but plenty of people here are overly concerned with keeping up appearances, pretending to be more than they are, and keeping themselves from losing that “face” in the eyes of other people. I admit, it’s no where near as ingrained as it is in Taiwanese society, but it still exists.
[quote=“HeyPharaoh”][quote=“Ryan the third”]
No its not the same and “face” is by far the most moronic cultural concept I have ever encountered.[/quote]
I don’t know, I think I would have to beg to differ with you Ryan. Maybe it could just be the South East US, but plenty of people here are overly concerned with keeping up appearances, pretending to be more than they are, and keeping themselves from losing that “face” in the eyes of other people. I admit, it’s no where near as ingrained as it is in Taiwanese society, but it still exists.[/quote]
Hm but do they go out of their way to save the face of others even in ridiculous situations?
I am trying to think of one now… Maybe you can give me a good example of Taiwanese trying to save face in a ridiculous situation and I can give you a parallel/similar situation I’ve seen.
I am trying to think of one now… Maybe you can give me a good example of Taiwanese trying to save face in a ridiculous situation and I can give you a parallel/similar situation I’ve seen.[/quote]
Language teacher teaches bad english, student gets corrected by a native speaker, student and parents insist that the teachers english must be used. Maybe not the best example… I know I have better ones from work but I cant think of one now 
Person says some word incorrectly repeatedly (For example one of the most irritating, Quesadi-LAH versus Quesadi-YAH), try to correct them, “Oh that’s just the way I talk/say it”. (Although I’m not sure if that’s a great example hmm… 
)
Maybe this would also be a good example? Ask friend to come hang out with you and your other friends, they decline, say they are super busy with work/school/etc etc, you see them out somewhere that night, confront them about it later, “Oh no I wasn’t there” “Are you sure? Because I definitely saw you.” “No no no, I was studying all night in my apartment.” (Also the whole concept of telling someone that you are _______ excuse rather than no I don’t want to hang out with you so as not to hurt their feelings/make them feel embarrassed/lose face?)
Look, the OP was asking a legitimate question about a specific aspect of Chinese culture. He didn’t say: “seems to me all Chinese people care about is money, and for the good of the Master Race, we ought to just gas them all”. Westerners are also obsessed with money, but in a different way, and with different (mostly unhealthy) results. It’s interesting to compare and contrast. It’s not racist to discuss some unusual aspect of a foreign culture. Neither is it racist, IMO, to flag up when something is fucked-up in someone else’s culture, as long as we have a valid argument. We do that all the time about our own cultures, don’t we? So what’s the difference?
Nobody here is saying that Chinese have money flowing in their veins and that they are therefore some inferior species. I think the original point was something like: does Chinese culture, at the present time, place too much emphasis on personal wealth, and could that have something to do with the plasticizer problem? OP, correct me if I’m wrong.
‘Face’ means something different in Western and Chinese cultures. In the west, people are mostly concerned with saving their own face. In Chinese culture, it’s equally important to “give face”, which is tied up with concepts like respect for your elders. So, for example, if you have a crusty old boss who is clearly incompetent and venal asking you to substitute plasticizer for clouding agent, you don’t tell him he’s being an arrogant bell-end and call the police. Instead, you say “yes sir” and go and do as you’re told, because in that way your boss can maintain face, as befits his station as a boss, an elder, and a rich person. If he ended up in jail for being a little shit, he would lose face. And that would be bad.
It’s tempting to equate “giving face” with brown-nosing, but it’s far more subtle and complicated than that. We really don’t have any equivalent in western culture.
Um. That’s pretty much EXACTLY what he said, followed by the usual suspects jumping on the bandwagon. No matter. I probably won’t ever meet any of them, thank god. Opinions posted on the flob are worth less than the steam off my piss, of course – mine included. No biggie.
[quote=“finley”]
‘Face’ means something different in Western and Chinese cultures. In the west, people are mostly concerned with saving their own face. In Chinese culture, it’s equally important to “give face”, which is tied up with concepts like respect for your elders. So, for example, if you have a crusty old boss who is clearly incompetent and venal asking you to substitute plasticizer for clouding agent, you don’t tell him he’s being an arrogant bell-end and call the police. Instead, you say “yes sir” and go and do as you’re told, because in that way your boss can maintain face, as befits his station as a boss, an elder, and a rich person. If he ended up in jail for being a little shit, he would lose face. And that would be bad.
It’s tempting to equate “giving face” with brown-nosing, but it’s far more subtle and complicated than that. We really don’t have any equivalent in western culture.[/quote]
Thanks for the example. Way better than mine 
Regarding Buddhists:
There is a huge gap between what most Westerners (including Western buddhists) believe Buddhism is and what Buddhism really is. What Westerners have been taught about Buddhism from people like D.T. Suzuki, Dharmapala, Henry S. Olcott, and so on is a highly idealized concept of Buddhism, heavily influenced by Western ideas. It has VERY little in common with the way Buddhism has been practiced in Asia for millennia. Buddhism (like any religion for that matter) has for most buddhists always been about dealing with everyday problems and not so much about reaching Nirvana, which was a privilege given to monks anyways and that privilege was even limited once people started to believe that the times they were living-in were so corrupt that not even monks would reach Nirvana. And since Buddhism was and still is primarily about dealing with everyday problems, the focus on money shouldn’t come as a surprise. Money (or more broadly: prosperity) is a question of existence, even more so in poor societies. And, again, this holds true for religion in general.
Sandman wrote:[quote] Angry, angry, angry, angry, angry…[/quote]
Oh, wow, you sound angry!
a short while later Sandman wrote:[quote] Ha, you losers, I’m not even slightly angry, how could one be angry over such piffle.[/quote]
Oh, I see. Not angry, not even slightly.
Back on topic, I think there are several things worth noting about the Chinese um… apparent… er… alleged… love… er… mild fondness… for money.
Small talk. Just in terms of conversation, how often is money mentioned? Incredible. It was a real pleasure to take my wife to Oz and NZ and expose her… no wait, I haven’t finished… expose her to people (friends and family) who virtually never discuss money. She was pleasantly surprised (she had wrongly assumed that my distaste for talk of money stemmed soley from my poverty and …um… unhealthy spending habits).
Second point. But related to the previous one. There is an enormous amount of financial interaction between family members and to a lesser extent friends, and thus who has lent who x amount of dollars, and who has not repaid Y is a mainstay of chatter.
Where’s my bloody drink? Excuse me. I need to go and thrash… I mean train my new drinks coolie.
Oh, wow, you sound angry!
a short while later Sandman wrote:[quote] Ha, you losers, I’m not even slightly angry, how could one be angry over such piffle.[/quote]
Oh, I see. Not angry, not even slightly.
[/quote]
One word. Grouse.
I believe grouse are typically shot for sport. Unless they’re famous.
I’m told it’s even more in-your-face in China, where (supposedly) a typical conversational opener is “how much salary do you earn?”. I have occasionally been asked that in Taiwan - and like you, I’ve come across people who assume I’m skint because I’d rather talk about something interesting.
Have you also noticed how bloody awful some of them are at actually managing money? The money-go-round of X lending to Y who can’t pay it back yet because he’s lent some to Z who’s invested in his friend A’s half-assed “business” selling chicken bollocks and won’t be able to pay it back until his wife B gets a part-time job with her mate C … well, it’s a bit nuts. Money just vaporizes, leaving bad feeling in its wake. Then there’s the obsession with investing. My ex was always giving her money to fund-managers in shiny suits and would be genuinely surprised to observe the charts drifting slowly down the toilet. She would also squirrel away so much money each month that she invariably carried a credit-card balance at 280%APR, or whatever it is in Taiwan. I met another woman who lost about NT$1m - her entire life’s savings, basically - investing in a friend’s LCD company. LCD manufacture is a massively cut-throat industry, with razor-thin margins and huge investments in machinery and IP required, even at the low-tech end. Anyone even remotely familiar with the industry would predict a 100% failure rate for a small, underfunded new entrant. The ‘friend’ apparently took about US$1m down with him. This woman was not an idiot: she was running a successful business. Yet she didn’t seem to have a clue how money and investment works.
Look, whether you like it or not, it’s difficult to deny that Chinese culture is centred around money. From Hong Bao’s at Chinese new year to cash gifts at weddings.
Every time I park my car the parking attendant kindly wishes me something to the translation of “I hope more business comes your way.” Have you ever seen the queues at gas stations when the price of gas goes up by less than half a dollar?
There are money gods.
A worrying turn of events seems to be the occurrence of a US style suing system. I am often asked how much I earn by strangers or people I have just met.
Chinese culture in my view seems to be centred around actual physical money, while other cultures appear to be centred around things that money can actually buy - and to prove this, just look at another country with a similar or lower GDP and take a peek inside an average person’s house. Although purchasing power is similar, a person form another country may have spent a lot of money making their house look nice, whereas in Taiwan, the average house is pretty sparse, aside from a face-saving coffee table and a nifty plasma screen TV.
Now whether people think that it is racist to observe these cultural differences, and whether those people feel that it is somehow worth alluding to other cultures in order to try to show someone up as bigoted - well, that’s their problem for being shallow, half-baked knit-wits with barely to brain cells to rub together. Reading a post about a cultural difference and then automatically labelling the the post as negative or racist because it does outline a difference is just immature.
It’s a cultural difference - it’s different here, and unless my value, friendship or kind-heartedness is measured in cash I’m pretty neutral on the topic, and I am sure it is that way for the majority of posters on this subject.
At weddings you give an envelope full of sweaty money. They take it out in front of you and write down your name/amount given in a ledger. Horrifying as that is when I asked why in the world would they do this I was told because sometimes the helpers (usually family) has sticky fingers…enough said?