Jefferson is arguing with a strawman. I don’t remember anyone here saying that Asians want to “Be Like Mike”. Why is it when people like Jefferson argue against “Westernization”, they always pick the crassest and most cartoonish examples of Western culture? Most people in the West don’t want to “Be Like Mike”, either. It’s not just the boring cliches about exporting crap like Coca Cola and McDonalds and Nike (geez, can you people pick on a different set of corporations for a change?) It’s also about such things as civil and legal codes, parliamentary and participatory democracy, respect for human rights, advanced technology, modern medicine, etc. It’s stacking the deck to pick on two or three of the worst products of modern society and ignore the hundreds of positive achievements of the modern world.
Interesting how many people want to believe that Asian countries aspire to be cookie cutter Americas…
I’m no apologist for Asia and am not standing up saying, “Asia good. West bad.” Nor am I denying the numerous facets of Western civilization which are attractive to Asian countries. What I am saying (in this, my final post in this thread) is that there is not this “envy” among Asian countries to be little happy replicas of xxx European or North American countries. There are certainly aspects of those countries which continue to hold an attraction.
And vice versa. Look how American schools are turning into cookie cutter bushibans. Ever heard of No Child Left Behind? Children and schools’ performances are based on test scores. Looks a lot like the Lian Kao and Jiu Nian Yi Guan to me…
As I said, this is all rather a moot discussion and has, as I predicted, turned into a tennis match of opinion, hyperbole, and wishful thinking. The reason this discussion is moot is, despite whatever fantasies you want to conjure about billions of Asian Oompa Loompas singing the Star Spangled Banner under their breath as they make lawn chairs for Walmart, the fact, the FACT, the FACT of the matter is there is a tsunami of change taking place in most Asian countries.
It really doesn’t make any difference what you or I type, or whether you think Western civilization is the greatest thing since baked bread. Nor does it matter that I could very easily rip apart arguments proclaiming the greatness and inevitability of Western models. Because we have entered Lalaland, and in Lalaland the only things that smell sweet and taste nice are the fantasies that grow like vines in your imagination.
Me, I look out the window and see what’s what. I talk to the People. I track the winds of change. And, at the end of the day, I realize my opinions about this and just about every topic are little more than mental exercises fashioned from personal experience and judgment.
Look out the window. Track the winds. Witness the seed change taking place. Then decide if your arguments hold any relevance.
[quote=“Jefferson”]Interesting how many people want to believe that Asian countries aspire to be cookie cutter Americas…
I’m no apologist for Asia and am not standing up saying, “Asia good. West bad.” Nor am I denying the numerous facets of Western civilization which are attractive to Asian countries. What I am saying (in this, my final post in this thread) is that there is not this “envy” among Asian countries to be little happy replicas of xxx European or North American countries. There are certainly aspects of those countries which continue to hold an attraction.[/quote]
No-one is saying that. You’ve continually been dragging people’s comments out to illogical conclusions that support your argument. By far the majority of people in here have essentially said that by Westernization they mean the adoption of some aspects of the way things operate in the West. This argument, sure, may well be flawed in that the reason these things are the “Western” way could simply be because this modernization you referred to before happened, by and large, there first. If things had happened the other way around, we might have been arguing about the West Easternizing. Then there’s the issue of how we define “modernized”. What, exactly, makes modernized? What standards are you, I, and others applying here to determine that these Asian countries are “modernizing” or “modernized”?
No-one has even vaguely hinted at that.
[quote]Me, I look out the window and see what’s what. I talk to the People. I track the winds of change. And, at the end of the day, I realize my opinions about this and just about every topic are little more than mental exercises fashioned from personal experience and judgment.
Look out the window. Track the winds. Witness the seed change taking place. Then decide if your arguments hold any relevance.[/quote]
Wow, that didn’t come across snobbish and arrogant much. I guess the rest of us just hole ourselves up in our little windowless rooms and thumbwrestle our lives away. Give me a bloody break. You are not the only person on this board who can speak Chinese, you are not the only person on this board who knows Taiwanese people, you are not the only person on this board who gets out “amongst the People”.
[quote=“Tetsuo”]I guess the rest of us just hole ourselves up in our little windowless rooms and thumbwrestle our lives away.[/quote]Oh, but we are. The rest of us are just living in a bubble while Jefferson is out there bravely observing the real, true nature of things without ever once getting judgemental or superior. Gosh Tetsuo, how can you be so unperceptive? 
[quote=“Jefferson”]I think TC is intelligent enough to respond on his own.
Unless you have something original to contribute?[/quote]
Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine.
This is an open discussion board… not a private conversation. Everyone, including Tetsuo, is permitted to comment on anyone else’s statement, regardless of whether such statement was directed at him or some other person.
If you do not like other people to comment on your statements, perhaps this is not the appropriate medium of discourse for you.
Speak for yourself, please.
[quote=“Jefferson”]I think TC is intelligent enough to respond on his own.
Unless you have something original to contribute?[/quote]
I wanted to add this earlier when I first saw the comment. This is a public board. You (plural) are not discussing this topic via PMs so anyone may contribute, whether you (plural) think their opinions are “intelligent” or not.
Otherwise, it’s a good discussion. There’s no need to put other people down. No one died and made you (plural) king of the world.
This is a nice request for all posters, not just the poster quoted above. Myself included.
[quote=“914”][quote=“Jefferson”]I think TC is intelligent enough to respond on his own.
Unless you have something original to contribute?[/quote]
I wanted to add this earlier when I first saw the comment. This is a public board. You (plural) are not discussing this topic via PMs so anyone may contribute, whether you (plural) think their opinions are “intelligent” or not.
Otherwise, it’s a good discussion. There’s no need to put other people down. No one died and made you (plural) king of the world.[/quote]
thank YOU (singular)
[quote=“Jefferson”]I think TC is intelligent enough to respond on his own.[/quote]Jefferson -
Well, I am remined that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It appears that you have no intention in discussing anything other than the noted strawmen and willy wonka references you seem obliged to inject.
My coments were posted as a contribution to the thread.
There are people on this thread who were actually contributing to a reasoned and intelligent dialogue on this topic.
Unfortunately you are not one of them,
If you wish to continue with sarcasm and silly-ass wisecracks, no thanks, it is a waste of my time. Run-a-long now… :upyours:
I think your comments on the topic should stay, Jefferson. You do argue some very valid points.
The argument (yes, strawmanning again) against squat toilets being unhygenic…sitters are far more filthy than squatters as with squatters, the only contact you make is your feet on the sides of it where as a sitter…well, I consider many of the ones I encounter here in Taiwan (and the West) high squatters as I wouldn’t want a single inch of my skin touching those things. However, houses where the entire bathroom can be hosed down and all gunk directed down a drain in the floor whereas most of our homes back West involved simply slopping the muck back into a bucket, smearing it over the floor again and again, and then pouring it into a sink or bathtub…
There’s another piece of Taiwan that I would love to see them adapt in the States.
But that’s not the point of the argument. The point is that there are too many people back in the West boohooing the poor Asians who are having their culture snatched from them by greedy western corporations without stopping to think that perhaps their fears and well-intentioned but nonetheless misguided pity are ill-found. It’s very patronizing of Asians.
Don’t you have to be hard to precipitate a gang bang?
What, the Shang and Zhou dynasties weren’t genuine? Or weren’t in China? :loco: 
[quote=“DSN”]No, no, no, TainanCowboy. It’s 5000 years of civilisation, remember!
Um, China has Neolithic cultures going back 6,000 years or more. Have a Google at Banpo, for example, or Yangshao culture. 
[quote=“Dragonbones”]
Um, China has Neolithic cultures going back 6,000 years or more. Have a Google at Banpo, for example, or Yangshao culture. 
[/quote]
So does quite a few places actually, nothing special about that.
You can find neolitic cultures of roughly the same age in the most of Europe, big swathes of Asia, and perhaps even a place or 2 in the Americas.
It’s best to lock and temporize these off topic posts right about now. I was hoping after my comment we’d get back on track but it didn’t really. I was waiting for Jefferson’s feedback and he has given me the ok.
Thanks for everyone’s input. Keep discussin.
Many modern things come from the West. Automobiles, sit-toilets, and all that. Many modern things come from the East, esp. Japan. Some of the latest electronics, for example. I see the East simultaneously modernizing (including large-scale adoption of Western modernities) and absorbing Western culture – just look at all the fast food joints, food imports, movie imports, etc… The imports are VASTLY greater than the corresponding exports. So Asia is modernizing but also Westernizing, much more than the West is adopting Eastern things. No big surprise, given the dominance of Western media, and the paucity of Eastern media in the West.
Ha … this is a misconception about this drain in the bathrooms … this drain is there so that people can shower next to the bathtub and not in it … ask the hotals in Europe and you know why they put stickers showing the PROPER use of a bathtub and shower … well hotels that get a lot of chinese visitors from Taiwan at least … 
but indeed it’s practical for reason the we can hose down the bathroom
The idea that Asia is “modernizing” and not "Westernizing is interesting.
I’d say both or course…otherwise why would all these Asian businessmen be wearing suits and ties to work? And why in the world would Western style dress be the norm for most asian weddings…ok, weddings in Taiwan, or even everyday wear?
I’d fly a guess and that is this: Asian countries DO believe on some level that modernization and Westernization are one and the same.
And not only Asia, purty much the whole developing world is, in the very least, dressing like westerners, IN thier OWN countries…when it is permissable to dress as one chooses, that is.
Not only in Taiwan. In Japan, caucasian English teachers are raking in the bucks to perform “fake” christian weddings for Japanese couples as part of the actual Japanese wedding. Japanese hotels are redoing their Shinto shrines previously used for wedding ceremonies into Christian-looking chapels for these ceremonies. 
Yeah…and lets not overlook this phenomenon…
…A hunka hunka burning rove!
Like I said in my post before the martyrdom began, I think one point worth considering is that the two may almost be synonymous simply by virtue of the fact that the West got there first. The standard by which modernization is judged is, at least from our perspective, based on where developed Western nations sit on the spectrum, simply because those countries developed quickest. If, say, China or Thailand had had a massive burst of development and become and stayed the most developed nation, the standards for modernization would be their standards, not ours, and we may well be arguing about the West Easternizing instead.
And watching Shanghaiollywood to learn the latest fashion idea and best way to conduct a crime scene investigation.