Back a few weeks ago, I wrote a comment “recommending Cultural Revolution” every 50 years or so, provided the excessive abuses can be avoided.
FOARP (and other resident/expat Western mouth pieces) had a cow. http://foarp.blogspot.com/2011/11/hidden-harmonies-raventhorn-lets-have.html.
So, since an indirect challenge to me was issued, I confront it here, since HH is where I brought it up.
What did I write that was so wrong? Apparently, by FOARP’s perception, EVERY possible future Cultural Revolution would be exactly the same kind of destructive CR China had. Weird, I thought I specifically said the “abuses” should be avoided.
Let’s boil down the differences in what I wrote, and what he thought I wrote.
I wrote “Cultural Revolution”, he thought I wrote, “REPEAT of that 1 Cultural Revolution”.
Surely, by the plain meaning of the phrase, Every major political change can be considered some kind of “Cultural Revolution”? No?
FOARP further goes on his blog, that “Since China’s last Cultural Revolution started roughly 45 years ago, I guess Raventhorn thinks it’s just about due one today.”
Sure, let’s look at what has happened to China since the “Cultural Revolution” of 1960’s:
(1) Deng’s Market Reform, I would argue it was equally “revolutionary” culturally as the “Cultural Revolution”. Even Westerners wrote and wrote about how the “Reform” changed China drastically, in terms of lifestyle, political tolerance, etc.
Hard core communists lost influences in China, Reformists and Progressives gained influences.
Was this not some kind of “Cultural Revolution”, which avoided the “excessive abuses”??!
(2) Today, China is admittedly experiencing some problems as consequences of the Reform, in terms of widening wealth gap, once again conflicts over political ideologies of China’s Future, international relations, etc.
There are super rich in China, and there are growing number of hard core communists who are nostalgic for the days of Communes.
Even Westerners wonder, (and some clamour), whether China is heading toward major political changes?
Some Westerners clamour for a “Jasmine Revolution” in China.
Was this not going to be some kind of “Cultural Revolution”? (Although I would disclaim that I had in mind the kind of Imperialistic and externally driven turmoil that Westerners wanted for China, I merely stated that China IS likely due for a “Cultural Revolution” on its own terms and its own REAL internal Cultural/political/socioeconomic interests. I also recommend it, minus the abuses, because it is likely INEVITABLE pattern of history.)
*The problem of FOARP (and others) in this argument only demonstrate their inability to get beyond their own ingrained biases, even against a simple phrase as “Cultural Revolution”. And that’s the underlying problem they have with China in general.
If the phrase like “Cultural Revolution” is associated with “cultural genocide of Tibetans”, political persecution, etc., then so is China in general, in their mindset.
There is no getting over that kind of bias against China, if they can’t even get over their own bias against a phrase like “Cultural Revolution”.
I mean, READ the phrase, “Cultural Revolution”. It is neutral in plain meaning, doesn’t mean good or bad, (and in my comment, I specifically avoided the BAD).
*Is China heading for another Cultural Revolution? I say, it is likely and inevitable.
But so is the West. (Though they don’t want to call it “Cultural Revolution”).
Look upon the Austerity sweeping across Europe, the possible disintegration of EU, the fallout to US, the realignment of trade in Canada, Australia. Occupy Wall Street protests, stalemate in US Congress, etc.
What would you call what is happening across the West?
Politicians might try to come up with some benign temporary measure, with some benign sounding phrases. But I call it “Cultural Revolution with Western Characteristics”.
The West can’t avoid it, and if they try to push it or delay it, it may be even worse in the long run.
Si says
How about use the phrase “Culture Restoration”, or “Chinese Renaissance”.
raventhorn says
@Si
That might be quite optimistic.
I would prefer to be neutral at least in the beginning.
M F Cooper says
One difficulty – as Dr Wang Hui pointed out – is that frank discussion of the first Cultural Revolution appears to end even before it can begin. At present, the Cultural Revolution serves as a cheap way for liberals and capitalist establishment types to dismiss even those social-democrats (like Dr Wang and Dr Cui Zhiyuan) who reasonably criticise developmentalism and advocate levelling the economic playing field and providing basic social services for poor people.
… Even when these policy proposals have more in common with traditional Confucianism (derived from Mencius) than they do with hardcore Maoism.
Ray says
Revolution would probably be too drastic. Cultural reform is probably better. However, I noted in your other comments about corruption in China and this is a place where a revolution is needed. The crux of the matter is how to do it effectively? So far I have seen no viable option anywhere else, so it definitely have to have a home grown solution.
zack says
the term ‘cuiltural revolution’ has even been used to describe the revolution in US society in the 60s where ppl like john lennon amongst others rebelled against the stifling order of established values and norms.
Of course there were good and bad things to come out of it, but regardless of what ppl think about it now, you can’t deny the impact the 60s have had on US culture
Charles Liu says
@zack
@M F Cooper “levelling the economic playing field and providing basic social services for poor people”
Interestingly the “we are the 99%/OWS” counter culture (yes IMHO it’s developing into something akin to 60’s era counter culture) is about very similar changes. Societal reactions between China and US should be an interesting comparison.
Same with the EU austerity revolts. If the bank meltdown isn’t about greed and corruption, what is? Another example is Iceland (didn’t make big in the news for some reason) – Icelandians threw out their government instead of bailing out the banks, wrote a new constitution and gave a collective middle finger to the IMF.
pug_ster says
@zack
Exactly. ‘Cultural Revolution’ doesn’t relate to China in general and in the US there were several waves of them. During the 1950’s McCarthyism and the country went bonkers towards communists. After 9/11 the country went bonkers towards ‘Islamists.’ Need I say more?
aeiou says
Democracy isn’t doing so well at the moment, so if there were to be a revolution I don’t know where they will get their inspiration. Arab spring? maybe a Chinese caliphate? lol.
raventhorn says
@aeiou
A “revolution” does not require “inspiration”, merely the sufficient conflict of core beliefs and principles among the people.
Over time and generations, People’s values and beliefs and principles change, and diverge. We see that in China as well in US, where the extreme factions of political ideologies become almost impossible to reconcile with 1 another.
Thus, when the conflict of values/beliefs/principles become too much for the existing political system to bear, a “revolution” becomes inevitable.
A “revolution” causes a new “social contract” between the People, this is different and separate from the “social contract” between the People and the Government.
When the People have reached a new “social contract” among themselves, then changes in the government will naturally follow.
Often within “revolutions”, the government can do little to intervene. If a government tries to stop the inevitable change in the People’s “social contract”, they will face even more dire consequences.
This is how societies evolve.
raventhorn says
I find it ironic.
Apparently, the “Angry Expat” groupies, are now ignoring the existence of “revolutions” in the West.
WTF.
“Harmonizing Revolutions” now in Western Media. Ie. Only “Revolutions” outside of West is possible. In the West, there are only “riots”, “disturbances”, “incidences” of pepperspray.
Apparently, the brains of the Western Expats are pre-scrubbed, so no matter where they go in the world, they adopt the terminologies of their media back home.
(You don’t see the likes of Pekingduck and Chinageeks calling protests in the West as “___ Revolutions”, do you?!)
Hey, how about the “Occupy Wall Street CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS“??!! Or the European Austerity CULTURAL Revolutions???!!!
Well, I’m calling the hogs for what they are, starting here on HH.
🙂
silentchinese says
how about “cultural enema”.
aeiou says
@raventhorn
>“Angry Expat” groupies,
More like a incestuous group of self promoting liberal arts deadbeats. Every guy and his dog who’s been in China for a few weeks feels they need start a journal to let the world know about their expertise on China.
>This is how societies evolve.
Or you can do as the west for the last 200 years and bomb each other and then everyone else who disagrees into democracy. kekeke
YinYang says
Recently I saw an article through Kai (chinadivide.com)’ Google+ of Chinageeks talking about the ’50 cent party’ based on some picture of a supposed deposit slip circulating in Weibo showing someone paid for writing articles on behalf of the Chinese government.
I don’t read Chinageeks, but I would venture to guess tons of ink spilled on this supposed ’50 cent party.’ I would also venture to guess he never talks about the propaganda in VOA, NED funded Epoch Times, NTDTV, and other bs in the same context. This comparison is actually not even fair. There is no concrete proof of the ’50 cent party’ as of today.
It’s more of the same bigoted lens you already see in the mainstream U.S./U.K. media. Fart in the wind best be ignored.
pug_ster says
@YinYang
Mainstream Western propaganda is probably no different. The latest tale is when some Georgetown Professor did some ‘research’ that China has 3000 nukes have an extensive network of tunnels to house them based on Google Earth, blogs, military journals and fictionalized TV shows. Almost all of the research of this backed by unsubstantiated claims yet this Georgetown professor is interviewed by the mainstream media failed to criticize him on that. Many of these Chinese blogs just chose not to talk about it because they know it is utter BS or reiterate that same BS without being critical of their own.
zack says
@pug_ster
note also that the washington post refused to post the rebuttal by professional experts, like one such arms control wonk:
http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4799/collected-thoughts-on-phil-karber#more-2103
raventhorn says
@YinYang
I would say “50 Cents” certainly gets pretty good opinions in China. (Whereas the “50 Cent Envy Expat” Partiers, like some we know well, can’t do basic research worth crap). 🙂
On that note, it certainly makes economic sense that the Western media would NOT pay anything to people who are already drunk on their brand of Cool-Aid/energy drink.
Seriously, these people are actually proud of the notion that they are NOT being paid to believe in the kind of crap being broadcasted in the Western Media??!
Or maybe it’s just a cry of frustration and/or Envy??!!
Maybe they keep talking about the “50 Cent Party”, because they are trying to get some money from their own media, but can’t?
(That would certainly explain certain expats we know). 🙂
LOLZ says
FORAP can be fair at times, there are expats who are far worse. Though, I never get the Chinese expats who harbor intense hatred of China and the Chinese people, but somehow still stay in China.
raventhorn says
BTW, there is a ongoing protest in Wukan over local land seizure, which has lasted since September.
Don’t let anyone tell you there is no “democracy” in China, because well, compare to OWS. 🙂
Of course, the “50 Cent Envy Expat Party” is all over this one, calling it “unusual”, a “Rebellion” even.
Don’t see them calling OWS “Rebellions”, DO YOU??!!
No, no, no rebellions or revolutions in US. Just rowdy protests in “democracy” in action, with police wield batons and “sound cannons”, arresting protesters, destroy their tents, etc.
But no, those are not “rebellions”.
George Orwell, eat your words, we got newspeak.
pug_ster says
@raventhorn
This stuff is tame compared to the OWS protests. Both sides are at fault here. The local government should’ve try to listen to the grievances or at least try to compromise, though they don’t have legal rights to their land. There was a really bad riot 3 months back where many police cars were flipped and a local police station were raided. So they are not ‘peaceful’ protesters so of course some people should be going to jail for instigating this.
Hopefully there will be some good in this, perhaps the provincial or central government will intervene.
raventhorn says
@pug_ster
some “50 cent envy Partiers” have wrote that the Wukan “rebellion” indicates the deficiencies of the Chinese legal system.
Well, by that logic, OWS indicates “99%” of Americans think there is deficiencies in US legal system. 🙂
Of course, these “50 cent Enviers” only see black and white. Never heard of stalemate in Politics? Well, Exhibit US Congress, Stalemate happens all the time in politics and law.
(BTW, even if you win a lawsuit in US, it doesn’t mean that you can collect. “Dead beat” dads and debtors exist in the West quite often, especially in this economy.)
In India, Squatters constantly take over properties, and will tie you up in courts forever. Try protesting on that!
Belgium had 541 days of NO government style stalemate. Talk about major deficiencies in the system!! But apparently, Belgium continued to function as a nation.
Stalemate is the ultimate legal recourse: IE. NOBODY GETS what they want!! (Chinese know that lesson well). 🙂
raventhorn says
I have no comment about FOARP (Grundy)’s fairness. I do note his rather obsessive need to blog about other people who actually have better credentials than him, for example, he targetted Chris Devonshire-Ellis and Shaun Rein.
Obsessive and apparently envious that people he feels are less qualified are getting paid better than him.
Sleeper says
In my opinion “revelotion” is quite a hard word. In the last 100 years “revelotions” kept happening, brought both great change and damage. However I do agree that China needs another great change.
Nowadays Chinese people are not in one mind, generally. China doesn’t have explicit values that stands for her people and very existence, and the governement has no more than persistence in GDP growth. Something needs to be done to rebuild faith and values, otherwise the existence of China, or even Chinese culture will vanish gradually.
YinYang says
@Sleeper
I recommend a read here:
https://hiddenharmonies.org/2010/09/william-hooper-the-scientific-development-concept/
Principles of Peaceful Co-existence has gained a very large following around the world. China is embracing Confucian thought broadly as of late.
I hope China doesn’t go and bomb some country because that country doesn’t believe in certain values. Values propagandized with missionary zeal with pragmatism completely removed causes a country to do that sort of thing.
Sleeper says
@YinYang
Thanks for the article. Unfortunetly I was quite struggling with those technical words……
One of the key words “education” reminded me of an argument with my friend. When discussing the origin of all problems existing in China, he thought that masses in China “never being given freedom”, now it is time for the government to grant some sorts of freedom to masses, and that’s the beginning of the settlement. But I didn’t agree with it, instead, I suggested that further education on masses should be prior to “giving them freedom”. It’s extremly dangerous to endow masses who know little about their capability with unsuitable rights.
As the article said, “freedom is a illusion”. And recently, “freedom” and “democracy” became a sort of elixir to many Chinese. They think that unfairness, corruption and oppression can be eliminated once for all by releasing all constraint held by CPC, and voting can help them to claim their own benefits. What a terrible superstition.
YinYang says
@Sleeper
You said:
That’s a good summary. I’d add, foreign political entities come to China with noises about “freedom,” “democracy,” and “human rights” usually seek to undermine Chinese society and to weaken the Chinese state. This done to a society of 1.3 billion people will be disastrous.
Obviously, Chinese people want more genuine freedom, democracy, and human rights. For Chinese people abroad too! But this largely comes from a more economically advanced China.
As Allen argued here, “Understanding Democracy,” Americans really don’t understanding some of the critical problems of their own democracy. Their democracy obviously do not offer them the ‘nirvana’ often promised in their media.
What China needs more of is for ordinary citizens to become even more interested in happenings outside China so the citizens themselves can see the good and bad. The trend has been great – for example:
1. Look at the number of Chinese students studying abroad in the last few decades.
2. Look at media web sites like anti-CNN and April Media systematically documenting the “human rights” hypocrites.
China is going through industrial revolution right now with hundreds of millions of people on the move! Naturally that brings incredible stress to society. People should criticize with the aim for improving society. That ought to be supported.
China has to look at the Soviet Union and Russian experience. China has to remember the recent past of Opium Wars and invasions – without a strong enough country, her people will suffer at the hands of foreign exploitation. Look at how Libya could be taken down and a rebel faction put in charge in matter of months. Chinese people should never be fooled to support this kind of nonsense.
jxie says
When Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, did they think about “a computer on every desk and in every home” as their mission statement? At that point, they just wanted to make sure they could sell their crappy Micro Soft Basic. A lot of things only get revealed and crystallized, as time goes on.
The values that stand for the Chinese people, will become apparent, when the time comes. Hey, it may be a mission statement, “we want the people worldwide to enjoy hot pots, and afterward play Mahjong.” Methinks, people are making it more complicated than it needs. Case in point, Chinese movies vs Hollywood movies — when the living standard in China exceeds the level in the US, Chinese movies will automatically sell well globally.
Sleeper says
@jxie
You’re right, time can examine many things. But during these years, it’s so hard to bear those treacherous views in China. MANY fools in China (on the internet) spit that they would rather being enslaved by US, would rather believe that US stands for justice. It is CCP’s fault to fight against US so that CCP must die, while after CCP being wiped out US will help China gain freedom and democracy. Anyone who blame China and CCP to hell can be awarded medals, because the darkest things happeing in China by the hands of CCP, etc.
That’s why I suggest “be in on mind”. Many of us in this blog have already realized that the west led by US will NEVER care about us other than their own benefits, NEVER bring us stability and prosperity. Because the rising of China is breaking the previous system of distribution, the increasing requirement of 1.3 billion Chinese people is draining the world of decreasing resource. The west will never lower their living standard for a rising China, therefore they has to constrain China to keep their priority of distribution of resource. It is bad for Chinese, but the west is doing the right thing for themselves——It is not a matter of justice, freedom or democracy, but a matter of the very survival. Nobody can be blamed in this conflict, for everyone has their rights of claiming survival.
Therefore we Chinese should also prepare for the conflict (explicit or implicit) for our survival. However, according to many Chinese websites and forums, it is sadly to see that many fools still believe that the insidious west is the Messiah. Leaving those selfish complaints, people with healthy mind should’ve know that only those who are on their own side will truly care about them. What’s worse is that these fool are not truly claiming fairness and justice, instead, they’re just looking foward to taking the place of the privileged.
I may be inciting people into opponency, but it is the west who lit the fire first. As a result further education should be exerted on the masses, telling them not only right but also duty, and then ensure the fact that “be in one mind” (however I have to say, CCP did many stupid things in propaganda in last few years, while they should’ve got the job well done). Otherwise we may lose before real battles begin.
PS: I may receive the title of “lap dog of the government” (or “五毛” in Chinese) because of my views. In fact, anyone who tries to support Chinese government may be blamed like this. As I said above, “anyone who blame China and CCP to hell can be awarded medals”. These guys know nothing other than their selfish complaints, dreaming of the impossible prosperity by the hand of the west. How pathetic.
jxie says
Sleeper,
The latest Pew survey pegged 10% of Chinese as being dissatisfying with their country’s direction, by far the lowest among all countries surveyed. Those “fools” probably are among the 10%. Their voice is just being amp’d several orders of magnitude higher.
You asked a question what values China stand for. While this will become clearer and more pronounced in the future, there are certain signs out there that may give us clues as to how they may unfold. For example, the 4th Media (www.m4.cn in Chinese and http://www.4thmedia.org in English) is a new online media outfit partially born out of the anti-CNN movement. Its Editor-in-Chief and Editor-at-large are a Korean American, and a Japanese American. Well what drove them on board with the “‘Just Another Voice’ in the progressive media global landscape”?
The ancient Confucianism society is an inside-out model: people were raised to be civilized, compassionate, and self-introspective gentle-persons (君子, Junzi), and with these gentle-persons a harmonious society was built. You can impose the modern Western model of “democracy”, “freedom” & “rule of law”, which BTW are often contradictory to each other, to a society of apes, and the society will still be an ape society; but if you can make all apes Junzi, then you have a harmonious society.
Maybe those 2 editors were drawn to the Neo-New Confucianism movement that is rarely reported in the mainstream Western media?
YinYang says
@jxie
Indeed.
When Chinese society becomes more affluent and viewed more as a success story (before the West industrialized, they worshiped China), those ‘values’ will be sought out. This is simply human nature.
Wayne says
“I never get the Chinese expats who harbor intense hatred of China and the Chinese people, but somehow still stay in China.”
I find the white expats who date or are married to chinese women the very worst in this respect.
I worked in Hong Kong during the 1990s as a civil engineer, mainly in Western consulting firms. The expats got paid huge amounts of money compared to the locals, got the promotions, dated the local women, yet still derided the local chinese. In some cases one could sense they almost hated the local chinese, in spite of their immensely privileged position in Hong Kong.
So it has absolutely nothing to do with the political system of the place where they reside. But everything to do with a type of racial supremacism almost unique to folk of anglo saxon heritage.
dan says
About ‘Anglo-Saxon supremacism’. I beg to differ. Who do you think should shoulder most of the blames? I believe it is the Chinese inferiority complex or as Allen said in other post: Chinese tendency to revere (I would add: worship) Westerner that get us into this predicament.
Though I won’t classify my experience as special nor typical, I like to share it here: I had the opportunity to work in China on and off since 2004 and I will always remember the water cooler gossip related to my first time being at the Chinese’s client office that basically went something like this: ‘这位就是美国来的专家?’, ‘是的‘, ‘我以为是…’ the speakers spoke disappointingly and somewhat unfriendly. Although I was the one responsible for 80% of the product design; it was, to my belated amusement, who I am that was the source of their disappointment. I realized that the disappointment was mainly they thought that only white guys can go to China as ‘Experts’.
Another small incidence that was no less a ‘watershed event’ to help a little further my understanding of China and Chinese in that particular time: it was with the same company in 2006 or 7, but this time there were two of us working in China. Let’s call my friend Bob. Bob is your quintessential WASP, can’t get any better. We were out touring the local historic places one weekend and as we walked out from a pedestrian tunnel toward TAM plaza, a beggar in his 60s approached in our direction but not particularly toward us. A policeman materialized out of nowhere, dragged this poor guy out to the corner and shouted: ‘ 你是中国人的羞辱，你难道没看到有外国朋友在吗？离开，走！’ What this policeman said was more than enough to arouse my anger and a deep sense of shame that I know Chinese still has not completely respect ourselves!
‘Western Expert?’ you say? Chinese tend to think all white folks are experts, and pay them an astronomical amount of money to be the ‘experts’. It is true that some are truly great with the expertise that China needs, but there are things Chinese themselves can do just as good and as competent. However for whatever reasons, many Chinese (male and female) everywhere revere Westerners out of a sense of self-deprecation and some even out of fear. Why do the expats still and want to stay there if China is such a horrible place, you ask? It is because Chinese treat them like king and who won’t want to be? I don’t know what the causes for this cartoony manner are and I certainly don’t know what the cure for this strange behavior would be, but to blame it all on Western ‘superiority complex’ is not only unproductive but dangerous. It will only drag ourselves down further in this hole of self-loathe that we dig it ourselves. Until Chinese can learn to look at all people (ourselves and especially, White folks) as equal in the eyes, we will not gain respect from anybody.
Wayne says
I agree with most of your post Dan.
Of course the reason why expats hang around is because the local Chinese treat them like gods, ply them with high paying jobs, the best food, the prettiest women, all in the desire for a compliment from the white man.
That undesirable trait of some chinese is to look down on those whom they perceive as ‘inferior’ and grease up those who they deem ‘superior’.
Because of centuries of Western imperialism, military, economic, and cultural, the mindset of far too many Asians (not just Chinese) is white is superior, non-white inferior.
One amusing example is the way so many Chinese women who partner up with the most useless unattractive white man, suddenly adopt a superior attitude towards other Chinese, chattering away in broken english at a 100 miles an hour trying to ‘baan gweipo’. How these white males can stand being around them, I really don’t know.
This problem of course largely resides within our own culture. As Mao said almost a century ago too many chinese are of the attitude “if one of our foreign masters farts, it is a lovely perfume”.
However that is not the whole story.
The fact is in a world where Western, particularly US corporate interests continually seek to impose their ‘values’, culture, movies, entertainment, mores on others, all in the interests of making the entire world a place comfortable for themselves (hence their fury at countries who go against the grain ala Cuba, North Korea, Libya, Iran, Venezuala), and the white racist mentality that wants to force everyone else to bow down to them, it is almost impossible for people as a group not to demonstrate some of the aforementioned undesirable traits.
Obviously as individuals, we can be aware, and give and expect equal and fair and dignified treatment. However on a group level things are not quite as simple.
The fact is, if you bombard any group of people with endless Hollywood, with advertisements of status products using only white people, then it is small wonder that many members of that group will behave in a self-deprecating way around whites.
Zhang Yimou is one example. He thinks he has to have the approval of Hollywood, of a Western audience, for validation as a competent filmaker. That is why he casts a white man as the leading man in a movie about a horrific event in China’s history. I hardly think a white director would cast a Chinese man as the hero and love interest for white women in a film about say, Dunkirk, or the US Civil War.
The fact is Hollywood, marketing, the mass media, marlboro man, etc are all basically propagandists for white supremacy. Inundate any non-white society with these, and it will to some extent be stuffed up. No other culture is as narcissitic as white American, Anglo Saxon culture. The fact is Anglo Saxons are supremacists. They are the masters of manipulating the minds of non-white peoples to self-hate, to hate one another, and to serve the interests of whites.
The solution requires of course self-cultivation on an individual level, but on a societal level it requires a government which recognises the insidious nature of white cultural invasion and do something to diminish its presences and offset its effects.
LOLZ says
This is very true. Although I would have to say that it’s not only the Chinese, but pretty much all of the Asians who have inferiority complex when it comes to Caucasians. A lot of this makes sense: By most key performance metrics Western nations are indeed better than Asian nations. Asians coming from Western nations are typically better educated and more “cultured” (by western standards) than other Asians. Since white men rule the Western nations and multinational corporations, naturally Caucasians get the most respect in Asia. The fact is that Asian nations were late coming into the industrial revolution. China itself being mismanaged by erratic leaders for so long, only started to rise within the last three decades and is still in the process of evolving. It shouldn’t be any surprise that many Chinese look up to Caucasians when it comes to many times. The problem of course is that just because someone is white doesn’t mean that they are more capable.
All of this is changing slowly though. In Japan there used to be commercials featuring Caucasians all the time, but today there are far less. In Singapore it’s pretty much the same (although ads featuring Eurasians are popular). In Shanghai the belief that expats are losers who can’t make it in their own country is becoming more accepted. However, I think it will be decades (if ever) before the average Chinese see themselves as equal to the whites from a wealthy western nation. This is because there is still a wide gap between the standard of living between China and the developed nations. Per China’s population I am not sure if China can ever catch up.
Wayne says
LOLZ. Your analysis is flawed. The problem is more because of massive Western cultural infusion in our societies which constitutes a form of mass brainwashing.
You mention Japan and Singapore and Taiwan. Also of course there is South Korea and Hong Kong. All these nations are rich, yet all are subject to Western cultural onslaught, and the people in these places, especially in Hong Kong are among some of the biggest running dogs on the planet.
In fact China is the perhaps the only East Asian nation which has significantly lower per capita GDP than most Western countries (not through any fault of her own by the way – except for weakness in allowing most of the West and Japan to attack us).
So your economic reason is not sound.
The reason is twofold. Firstly there is the Confucianist tradition of sucking up one’s perceived superiors and putting the boot in one’s perceived inferiors (that is one strength of the Christian religion – all are equal in the eyes of God). Mao tried to change this type of thinking during the Cultural Revolution.
The other main reason. We tend to use exactly the same metrics as Westerners to gauge national or civilizational performance. Whereas say the Muslim world does not, at least to a much lesser extent than East Asians. The Muslims have a strong militant religion. Even if they are poor compared to Westerners they feel they have something worth much more than simply earthly wealth. Their God, their religion. They have the truth. So if a Westerner has a million bucks that means nothing – because he is an infidel anyway.
And if a white man (or non-muslim) tries touching their women, they better watch out! The white man would soon find his head rolling along the pavement.
Perhaps the Chinese had this in the early years of the Revolution. They had a great socialist revolution and mainly by their own efforts overthrew foreign and domestic oppression at huge sacrifice. The early generation of revolutionary leaders were exemplary with great nobility of spirit. After the Sino-Soviet split, China was the leader of their own camp – the anti-revisionist camp. The US was imperialist, the Soviet Union social imperialist. Look at the people during that era. They had confidence in their own path, their own ideology, and they walked with straight backs.
Now after three decades of Western cultural invasion, you have to go to the most rural of areas to find true salt of the earth Chinese. Too many Chinese are into pop music and fashion and celebrities and all the other sick goings on one finds in the West. I’m afraid the whole of China could be turned into one giant Hong Kong and that would be terribly sad.
Look at the lifestyles of the Mongols. They are a proud people, still riding their horses, shooting their arrows. Marrying their own kind and continuing the lineage. Perhaps us Han could learn off them.
And half of our women celebrities date whites now anyway. Iconic stars such as Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung etc. What kind of national or racial dignity can is there when your most prominent and beautiful womenfolk are sleeping with men of a foreign race?
Do Indians have this problem? Pakistanis? Sri Lankans? Mexicans?
No. And these countries are all poorer than the West, the first three much poorer than China. Heaven forbid that we have to wait for per capita GDP to equal the West before we feel we have the right to a little more national and racial pride – as LOLZ suggests.
And I don’t see 8 out of 10 Hollywood stars sleeping with black men (or any other non-white race of men).
Really we need to add a more strongly racial component into the national ideology, whatever that is now. Marxism Leninism was good for its time, and its contribution and history should be honoured. But it was a foreign import.
We need a definition of what it means to be chinese. And we need to confront, as Dan said, our own cultural weaknesses.
And women who have half caste kids should understand that they can never ever come back to the Chinese family.
raventhorn says
“And half of our women celebrities date whites now anyway. Iconic stars such as Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung etc. What kind of national or racial dignity can is there when your most prominent and beautiful womenfolk are sleeping with men of a foreign race?
Do Indians have this problem? Pakistanis? Sri Lankans? Mexicans? ”
Actually, you should watch Russell Peters, a very funny Indian Canadian comedian.
According to him, Indian parents love to see their daughters get married to White guys.
I agree with your “brain washing” theory. We Asians have been seriously affected by the last 2 centuries of Western Cultural domination in the world.
But I also agree in part with LOLZ, and I think part of the reason is economic.
Interracial marriage with Westerners is not isolated on the race line but on the economic line. (For example, there are a lot of poor White women from former Soviet republics immigrating to US and Europe, marrying across borders, primarily for economic reasons).
This also relates to a “status” thing, a cultural thing.
That is, even if it is not predominantly economic reasons, there is currently a “status” symbol to marry into a particular kind of class, and cultural group. That being, White Christian “group”.
(I will admit, Asian families sometimes carry too much family ties, in the Confucian familial values. It’s very difficult for a non-Asian to understand/adjust to that kind of environment).
But I would argue that this kind of “group” status, is not racial, because it is a commonality across all the races that women in general are seen as more willing to adjust to different cultures, and men in general are seen as the ones who will maintain traditions of their families.
And yet, in modern Asia, even young Asian males are rejecting much of their Confucian values. (In essence, Asian Males are also converting to more Western values, but in this role, they are seen as being contrary to their traditional male role of “maintaining” their family traditions, and in doing so, they are seen as LESS “masculine”).
tc says
@Wayne
“…and the people in these places, especially in Hong Kong are among some of the biggest running dogs on the planet.”
It might be more true by replacing “Hong Kong” with “Taiwan” in the above statement. (I’ve never been in HK and know little about it)
Have you seen those Taiwanese TV personalities frequently intersperse “oK?”, “uh huh?” in their conversation with 100% Chinese/Taiwanese to 100% Chinese/Taiwanese audience? It makes me feel so embarrassed to honestly answer the question “Where are you originally from?”.
Naqshbandiyya says
@Wayne
Hateful, disgusting, appalling. Expat bloggers often say this about some of the political content on this website, but nothing debases our legitimate arguments more than comments like Wayne’s: such crude Naziesque rhetoric about racial purity and male domination should make the firmest Chinese nationalist recoil.
“And women who have half caste kids should understand that they can never ever come back to the Chinese family”? Congratulations, you’ve just made enemies out a constituency uniquely placed to bring understanding between China and the West. You’ve also hurt people who could make serious insider’s critiques of Chinese systems. And for what? Your own sexual insecurity and conceit that you own women?
How can you seriously aspire to the social system of “Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, and Mexicans”?! Are these prosperous, advanced societies? No; the oppressive, caste-ridden, and patriarchical features that keep their “womenfolk” in line are exactly what make people want to flee their cultures and homes for more open societies.
You are furthermore seriously deluded about the Mongols. They are not “marrying their own kind”. Those idyllic pastures are quick becoming fantasy; Mongolian prostitutes now swarm Beijing and Harbin, and Mongolian men are regularly betrothed and trafficked to richer Chinese men across the border. This has nothing to do with race; it has everything to do with poor women advancing themselves through “marrying up”, as they have done throughout history.
Hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be a sign of approval of Chinese people that whites consider them, above “Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, and Mexicans”, to be suitable marriage partners? That maybe marriage, as the equal partnership that it is in in the modern world, could be a vehicle by which influential citizens of developed countries come to sympathize with, if not completely understand, Chinese culture? That if a significant portion of whites have deep family connections in China they might not want to hurt it?
No; you are not acting in the greater interest of any race or nation. Pride for pride’s sake is trash. Islam is not a “strong militant religion” – quite the opposite – if it requires force to keep people in line. Muslims suffer daily the indignities of poverty, servitude, and a lack of control over their own destinies because they are so concerned about policing themselves that they aren’t thinking about getting ahead. Thank god your thinking isn’t mainstream among Chinese, or else we’d all be living like Mexicans.
Wayne says
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be a sign of approval of Chinese people that whites consider them, above “Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, and Mexicans”, to be suitable marriage partners?”
No. It is probably entirely race related. Something to do with relatively fair skin colour and the smooth silky skin – which are racial characteristics of our women. And subcontinental men keep their women in line far more than Chinese do. They have a strong culture, and their women simply do not have the wannabe attitude of some of our Chinese women.
When I was a lad, chinese women who dated outside the race were stigmatised and some were disowned.
Frankly speaking our women nowadays are a disgrace. The way they fall at the feet and adulate the most useless white loser is the supreme affront to national dignity. What, I ask you, have wars been fought over in the past? Basically two things. Land and women. And we are surrendering our women (in a time when the male-female imbalance in China is becoming more and more felt), without firing a shot.
Naqshbandiy: Answer this. Are you happy with the dating disparity being wildly skewed towards the white man? Are you happy that the Chinese nation basically prepares a feast of our best food and best woman for any white loser who steps ashore the Chinese mainland, 60 years after Chairman Mao said ‘the Chinese people have stood up’? Do whites promote us to the highest corporate positions, ply us with their sexiest blondes when we go over there? Of course not. So why do we do the equivalent for them? Is it perhaps some sort of servant mentality on your part – after all what type of chinese man is happy with chinese woman running off with white men because it is an indication that the white man ‘approves’ of us? Would white men be happy if we plundered their blondest biggest titted white women? Of course not. Your obvious servant mentality is quite pitiable.
“Congratulations, you’ve just made enemies out a constituency uniquely placed to bring understanding between China and the West.”
Sorry. They already are our enemies. Have you not noticed that often the most shrill anti-china critics are married to Chinese women? From Winston Lord, to Chang and Halliday, to to most of the bloggers on a site like Peking Duck. You are utterly deluded if you think that simply because a white man marries a chinese woman he is more likely to be kindly disposed towards China. More likely the opposite. I’m not sure what their psychology is, but maybe when they look at their chinese women, they are constantly reminded of how much of a loser they are in their own white society, that they have to put up with a pain in the ass wannabe-white chinese women, when in their original teenaged fantasies it was big-titted Sally Ann, that they could never ever get. These complex feelings mutate to hatred towards the race which provided them with the very thing they would otherwise have to live without – sex and offspring.
Take a walk through Victoria Park on the anniversary of June 4. Note that over half the crowd consists of chinese women and their white partners. Look at Ang Sugn Su Kyi or whatever her name is. Her husband hated and despised Asian people.
“No; the oppressive, caste-ridden, and patriarchical features that keep their “womenfolk” in line are exactly what make people want to flee their cultures and homes for more open societies.”
Absolute rubbish. People go to the West for economic reasons, or to escape war and unrest. Rarely to escape political or social ‘oppression’ at home. The West, because of several centuries of imperialism became a black hole for the wealth of the world. Non-white people who end up in the West are just getting some of the wealth stolen off their ancestors.
Now if women in the Islamic world were really fed up, we would be getting streams of refugees from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The fact is most women in the Middle East are happy with the way things are, as are most Iranian women. Muslims do not have the type of social system I would enjoy living under, but that is irrelevant. They have a system which works for them, and has worked for them for centuries. And I respect them for resisting US and Western cultural imperialism far better than any country in East Asia.
“…about racial purity and male domination should make the firmest Chinese nationalist recoil.”
Sorry. Chinese nationalism is for people of the Chinese race. Without the Chinese race their cannot be Chinese nationalism. Period. Not for half breeds (those with chinese fathers might occassionally get a pass —-most half-breeds identify with the fathers side, and of course take the father’s surname in most cultures, someone say, like Han Suyin would have been OK).
Wayne says
“And women who have half caste kids should understand that they can never ever come back to the Chinese family”? Congratulations, you’ve just made enemies out a constituency uniquely placed to bring understanding between China and the West
You are absolutely deluded. Again. The constituency best placed to bring ‘understanding’ between China and the West (assuming such a thing is desirable), are Chinese born in the West or Chinese who have been raised in the West from a very early age, but still retain some of the culture. And they certainly knows what it means to be chinese because they are often reminded of it on a daily basis, due to the racist nature of many of these Western societies. They have an instinctual understanding of Chinese culture, having being raised in a real Chinese household.
Half-breeds to white men, chinese women have absolutely no idea of Chinese culture or civilisation. Their home lives are not chinese. Their mothers do everything to expunge the Chineseness out of them. The produce of a white loser and self hating Chinese mother is not going to produce anything of much use to anyone.
And I have heard that on more than one occassion that when the genetic lottery produces a more asian looking half caste, the self-hating Chinese mother is fulled with disappointment, rage, and shame.
zack says
Wayne,
i happen to like white women a LOT, so please be a little more open about interracial relationships. FYI, if i do settle down with a white woman i’d expect her to learn how to speak mandarin, just as i would speak her language.
and halfies, now i’m sure some of them might encounter identity issues but with a good upbringing and familial support that should be a non issue. what you don’t want are halfies in some sort of perpetual identity crisis wallowing in self hate-as can be seen with gordon chang who even confessed having a difficult relationship with his chinese/taiwanese father. i’ve met other half chinese, half white men and women who don’t have a major issue like the gordon chang example, and even find ways to bridge worlds. ppl underestimate the human tendency to cooperate, live and make allowances.
but let’s suppose that this hypothetical chinese woman who did marry some white man was self hating; would YOU want her/marry her/ fuck her? i sure as hell wouldn’t give her the time of day. good riddance, i say.
Wayne says
Zack: I have little issue with Chinese men with white women. My own brother is in such a relationship.
It is the disparity which is fucked. And it is the attitude of 99.9% of Chinese women with white men which is fucked.
Also remember this. Alexander the Great got his soldiers to marry Persian women, anticipating that the offspring would be Greek. He did not offer his Greek women to Persian men —knowing full well if he had done so, the offspring would have ended up Persian.
During the Jim Crow era, white women were completely off limits to black men (under threat of hideous violence). But of course white men could enjoy themselves with black women ala Strom Thurmond.
The interracial dating disparity reflects who is the conqueror and who is the conquered. At the moment we Chinese are submitting like running dogs as the conquered. Let’s be very clear about that. Zhang Yimou is a running dog, regardless of his current good relations with the government.
Genghis Khan of course knew all about this. Apparently, he sired more descendants than anyone else in human history. Good for him.
Wayne says
Here is a typical example of bitter white man with Chinese woman. The moderately well known NRO racist commentator John Derbyshire, who simply seethes with hatred for China:
Importing sino-fascism:
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/China/sinofascism.html
This unattractive white man in an interracial relationship with a Chinese women is so sympathetic to China, so grateful that we allowed him one of our women, that his ‘wisdom’ on China can be distilled in the following paragraph:
“China is an un-democratic, in fact anti-democratic, country with a state ideology centered on racial superiority, rabid nationalism, historical grievance (real and imagined) and the restoration of ancient glories (ditto). She is, in short, a fascist dictatorship. This is the beginning of wisdom about China.”
For more of Mr Derbyshire’s ‘unique’ understanding and sympathy for the Chinese people (as Naqshbandiiyu would put it), you may wish to be further enlightened here:
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/China/page.html
Let’s call a spade a spade.
White man + Chinese woman = disgusting.
Case closed.
raventhorn says
@Wayne
“White man + Chinese woman = disgusting.”
I would not extrapolate the particular racisms of individuals onto an entire group of people. I’m pretty sure that there are lots of White people who would disagree with John Derbyshire.
So no, I would not make the kind of sweeping generalization you are making, based upon 1 or even a few individuals.
John may be an ungrateful racist. I would not want to be like him.
I’m grateful to be Chinese, and I’m also grateful for having been in US, and having made friends with Americans of all races and national origins and religions.
A man like John can never make me think less of my friends, nor make me less grateful for all nations that I have come in contact with, given all their faults.
*On the side note, Wayne, While we do not question your bitterness, I think you are becoming irrational with your generalizations against the “White” people.
And “generalizations” against any race or color or creed, is not some thing that we want to promote on HH.
Undoubtedly, John Derbyshire’s own generalizations against China are sufficiently worthy of condemnation. You don’t need to drag his choice of Chinese woman into it. (I see nothing wrong with that choice.)
Ray says
@Wayne
I understand where you are getting at. The examples you gave proved there are people who are racist despite marrying outside their so-called race. Of course there are Asian women who “sell out” but there are a even more who uphold their own culture and heritage. You are right in that WMAW couples are a lot more common. However, there are a lot of reason for this. In Malaysia, Singapore for example, the local Chinese who marry with Malay and Indian are predominantly Chinese female too. I don’t have the actual statistic, but a Chinese man who marry outside is easily outnumbered 1 to 10 by Chinese female. So it is not just simply Chinese women debasing themselves by marrying for wealth or better life.
You are beating a whole boatload of people with one bamboo. Most couples got into relationship because of mutual attraction and love. Just let haters hate. You can tell a lot from those people who have the most hateful and vile contempt for other people or countries. Don’t fall into this trap yourself.
jxie says
@Wayne
Han didn’t become the largest ethnicity by insisting racial/ethnic purity. What happened to Hui in early Ming was rather telling:
Mongols had brought in several hundreds of thousands from Central Asia to Arabia to the China Proper. They were called Hui Hui, mostly with Islamic faith. In Mongols’ caste system, they were the 2nd-tier, 色目. (Mongols were at top, Hans at 3rd-tier, and Southern Hans, the last group defeated, at 4th).
After Ming pushed Mongols out, there was a problem on how to treat these Hui people who then looked quite different from Hans. If this had been the Western world from ancient Greece to Jim Crow, since Ming was in a power position now, the main choices would have been: enslaving them, killing them, and/or forcefully evicting them.
Instead, Ming simply forced them to marry Hans, bidirectionally, which is why today Huis by and large don’t look much different from Hans. What goes around comes around. If the history is any guide, nobody stays at top forever. If your options of treating others are only enslaving, killing and evicting, sooner or later they will be the treatments you receive.
Huis overall ever since have been faithful to the core Chinese nationstate, in many of the subsequent foreign wars.
jxie says
@Wayne
I had this guilty pleasure from the 90s and to quite recently, of reading John Derbyshire. It’s not his writing style, which IMO is quite awful. His writing style is sort of like the opposite of Michael Lewis (author of “The Big Short”, “Blindside”, “Moneyball”, etc.) who is a top-notched story teller. Derbyshire tends to bumble his main points, with a lot of useless and long-winding personal stories, which mostly aren’t that interesting.
Derbyshire went to China right after Deng’s reform was started, like John Pomfret, and Lisa Brackmann (OtherLisa in PKD. Didn’t you send her some rather foul email?) Unlike the other 2, Derbyshire was well in his 30s then. The China they first saw was quite a bit different than today’s, which is why their viewpoints on China are pretty interesting to know. BTW, Derbyshire didn’t marry his Chinese wife until in his 40s. If you think he despises China, unlikely it was because of his wife.
While Brackmann comes across as a warm and easy-going person — her comments in PKD are among a few commenters’ that I would read, the other two are both quite opinionated. In Pomfret’s case, this tends to bow ill for him being a decent news reporter.
Anyway, back to Derbyshire. With his output and the publications he writes for, he is likely financially strapped. He was envious of Gordon Chang’s speaking fee, which can’t be THAT much; and talked about a suit he had owned since 2 decades ago. But despite of that, he is quite condescending to a lot of groups, Chinese, blacks, Latinos, etc. He is well read. A major reason why his writings despite the poor style, are interesting to read, is the various sources of material he quotes, and the experience he has had. Most of the sources related to China, as you can guess, are to make his key points, such as the lack of competitiveness of the Chinese civilization in the modern world, the faulty core Chinese narratives, most Chinese being brainwashed, etc. If you hold the opposite viewpoints of his, he is like an intelligent (but quirky) opponent — often only through intelligent disagreements you can get the best out of yourself. To get there, first and foremost you need to take your emotion out of it, sort of like a surgeon seeing a tumor as a tumor not as a horrible tumor.
Anyway, if you follow his writings throughout the years, on China obviously he has constantly been backpedaling. Sometimes I wonder if he ever stops and thinks, “hmm, what did I miss when I made that prediction that ends up to be completely wrong?”
Wayne says
“You are beating a whole boatload of people with one bamboo. Most couples got into relationship because of mutual attraction and love.”
Of course I am. That is what you simply do not get. The reason why we can have discussions here on ‘Americans’ on ‘Chinese’ on the ‘Japanese’ etc is entirely because we can (and have to) speak in terms of groups, and how different groups behave. We can speak of ‘American’ public opinion, ‘Chinese’ public opinion, precisely because we ignore the outliers —-some Americans are communists, and you never know, some Chinese are even white supremacists (at least a significant minority of our women are).
We of course often mention Western media bias against China. Is that a generalisation. Of course it is. But it is a valid generalisation, and a necessary one.
Of course within each group there are differences, but if we could consider some sort of statistical distribution, there is a mean, and then there is a spread, and if we speak of chinese women with white men, if we could quantify something like ‘self hate’ then these women (as a group) would probably max out the scale quite easily.
You mention the case of Asian women marrying other non-white races. If that is the case, you and I know the racial dynamics involved in these is completely different from that between Asian women and Western white men. At least in these cases, the chances of these matches being true love is a lot higher than Asian women with white men. Because really there is little mass media or Hollywood promotion of these types of matches. Just as a marriage between an Asian man and white woman is likely to be based on real love, not social climbing – because the mass media simply does not promote sexual intimacy between a non-white man and white female.
Remember Chow Yun-Fat. He made, as far as I know two Hollywood movies, “the replacement killers” and “anna and the king”. In both these he was the main character of the movie. The good guy. There was also a sort of lead female. White. But in both these movies, the producers made damn sure that he did not get within sniffing distance of the white female. Because you know, the white American audience simply would not accept what they consider to be a ‘chink’ or a ‘chinaman’ even dare to look at a white woman. That is the racism there.
Now look at ANY movie involving white people in Asia. The white man gets not only the Asian woman, but often gets her after defeating some sort of sinister Asian suitor.
Now consider the movie ‘Flowers of War’. Do you really think the white audience gives a shit about one group of Asians killing another group of Asians? Of course not. Do you think half of them even care to know the difference between Japanese and Chinese. Of course not. To most whites both Chinese and Japanese are yellow peril. This film will get not one iota of sympathy of China. Most whites will read it simply as the heroic white man saving Asian folk from themselves. And of course getting the beautiful Asian woman as a reward. And these whites will laugh at the Chinese for not being able to defend their own womenfolk during this hideous period in our history.
All white men, when they go with Asian women, think of themselves somewhere along these lines. For them it is simply unavoidable. They have imbibed white supremacy from their mothers milk. Lets be clear here. There is not one white person alive in the West, who is not in some way or form, a white supremacist. That is why I oppose White male-asian female relationships, but not other forms of interracial relationships, at least not nearly to the same extent.
In fact my Indian friend has a Chinese girlfriend and I have no problem with that.
So the issue is clear. The order of preference in interracial marriages/dating as follows, from acceptable to unacceptable (note NWF or NWM means non-white female, non-white male, who are obviously, not Chinese or East Asian):
AM with AF: the most natural and logical pairing
AM with WF (or NWF)
NWM with AF
WM with AF: A RACIST match. Completely and utterly unacceptable.
jxie says
@Wayne
You forgot Tony Leung and Jane March in “The Lover” (1992), of which some sex scenes are as steamy as soft porn. There is a host of relatively low-budget and low-box office films with AM getting more than sniffing distance that I can give you.
Actually you are onto a little dirty secret in Hollywood movies — it’s not safe to have WF with any NWM in sex scenes, in big-budget movies, which you want to target the widest audience possible. They have done some research on this topic, when shown sex scenes of WF with NWM, the white women tend to react positively in body language and facial expression. However, a sizable portion of the white men in the research show negative body language and facial expression. Think about it, Denzel Washington, the Sexiest Man Alive (most People readers are females), didn’t have a sex scene with Julia Roberts in “The Pelican Brief”, or Angelina Jolie in “the Bone Collector”. Will Smith, a tier-1 actor in Hollywood, didn’t have much intimate scenes with Charlize Theron in “Hancock”. They are trying to push the envelope, but when a lot of money involved, better safe than sorry.
In Latin American countries, they won’t have the same issue. However, even down under they have this issue. A recent movie “Tomorrow When the War Began”, an Australia version of “Red Dawn”, is a big budget film for Australian standard. There is obvious sexual tension between the leading actress Stasey who is BTW quite cute in East Asian standard, and one of the rebellious teenagers who is an Asian. Yet that was all platonic – they didn’t even have a kiss. I love to be proven wrong in the sequel.
On the other hand, while the most plausible invading Asian country in both films is obviously China, they managed to just call it an Asian country (Indonesia?) in the Australian film, and North Korea (!) in the American film. I guess China is not be offended in that way…
Well, the question to you is, what should you do about it in your life, and why should you let the negativity overwhelm you?
Ray says
@jxie
Very good points you got there. Any group that promote exclusiveness will end up with bad genes or go extinct. Chinese society have many ills but even more strength which many naysayers refused to see.
zack says
@jxie
oh god, jane march was so HOT!! that’s eurasian girls for ya. (march is half chinese/viet, half white i believe).
i do believe Australian society is more partial to asian men/white female couples than American culture and society-but only slightly; jordan rodriguez from popular australian teen drama ‘home and away’ gets with a white australian girl who’s not too bad looking.
but given the rather strong negative reaction from American male audiences, we have to remember this is a society which is insecure about its own masculinity, hence the swing in extremes between hyper masculinity and homophobia to girl boys with tight jeans and faux homosexual tendencies.
oh btw about ‘tomorrow when the war began’, the asian guy and the australian girl do share a kiss actually.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJRfadDXWp4
wayne, try not to break the replay button on that one;)
Wayne says
“Think about it, Denzel Washington, the Sexiest Man Alive (most People readers are females), didn’t have a sex scene with Julia Roberts in “The Pelican Brief”, or Angelina Jolie in “the Bone Collector”. Will Smith, a tier-1 actor in Hollywood, didn’t have much intimate scenes with Charlize Theron in “Hancock”.
Exactly. Yet in the atrocious Monster’s Ball, Bill Bob Thornton gets to fuck Halle Berry.
Hollywood is purely and utterly a vehicle for the promotion of white supremacism. Anyone who cannot see this is either batshit blind or stupid or both. Just because they don’t spell it out in words does not change this fact.
And Zhang Yimou jumps on the bandwagon – cheered by too many chinese that at last – he is getting a pat on the head from these same white supremacists.
A despicable piece of works (not just because of his recent film, but his previous ‘works’).
Zhang Yimou is a transparent running dog.
There is something quite self-indulgent and self-important about these so called ‘artists’. They are parasites living off people who do real work.
i do believe Australian society is more partial to asian men/white female couples than American culture and society-but only slightly;
I think in general the Anglo Saxon derived societies are the most fucked up. Both in terms of racism, and in terms of their own suppressed culture. Europeans in general are far more open than Anglos, and in a surprising way a lot more similar to Chinese people.
Wayne says
Any group that promote exclusiveness will end up with bad genes or go extinct.
Yes. But you are talking about groups of several thousands. Not 1.3 billion.
There is already a huge amount of genetic diversity in China already. Even within Han, between North and South (refer Cavalli-Sforza’s work on genetic distance).
The fact is this. Take away the Chinese race, and you don’t have China. Period.
Half-breed children are half Chinese. Simple.
If I own a house, I would not give away half of it to someone else for nothing. Even if I had a bowl of won ton noodles, I would not simply give 50% to a complete stranger (unless charity demanded).
Yet my racial identity, who I am, what I want my children to be is Han Chinese. I would not want to devalue my own genetic stock by 50% in the next generation. With the very real risk that it will reduce to 25% the next, 12.5% the next etc
If we care about China or Chinese at all, the least we can do is make sure our descendants are also chinese.
jxie says
@zack
I stand correct. They did indeed have a bit fish kiss.
Speaking of down under, the person that I can’t quite get a read on is Kevin Rudd, the so-called “Manchurian Candidate” by some Aussies. Speaking Mandarin itself is no big deal, so do Huntsman and Geithner. In Rudd’s case, he even has a Chinese son-in-law (Tse, in PinYin, Xie). Assuming the Wikileaks story of his meeting with H. Clinton, and his supposed proposal to India an “anti-China axis“, are true, any more capable hand (especially if you live in Australia) cares to shine some light on Rudd?
@Wayne
California is somewhat a special state in America, and many working in Hollywood are the socially progressive type, and wouldn’t mind pushing the envelope, e.g. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967). In this case, it’s more about Hollywood catering to the heartland America. Personally I tend to think when the Chinese movie market is close to, or even overtakes the American movie market in size, first you will see a lot more Chinese films shown worldwide; also Hollywood will have to cater more to the Chinese taste.
Ray says
@jxie
Although the movie “The Lover” does show some hot scenes between Tony Leung and Jane March, the movie pretty much summed up Wayne’s view about the power dynamic between China and the west. In the movie Jane played an impoverish French girl living on the fringe of her society, Tony played the scion of one of the wealthiest Chinese family in Indochina. Basically, the underlying tone is that the most qualified Chinese man can only get the poorest French girl. On top of that Jane is part Asian.
It is a fact that Hollywood is sexist and racist. However, I don’t see changes coming soon.
Ray says
@Wayne
Like I have said Zhang achieved fame by selling movies to the west that paint a negative picture of China. However, I think after spending some time in the west he realized the hostility the west for China. For example, one early movie he made that contained a little positive description of the Chinese government was excluded from the Cannes Film festival.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_One_Less
How about movie like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_(2002_film)
which stand for a strong and united China. I sincerely believed that he has a gradual change of heart after spending time in the west. Thus he gradually abstained from making negative movies about China. However, as the west is still the largest movie market he has to pander to them! That’s why Zhang went from persona non-grata to Beijing in his early days to the main director of 2008 Beijing Olympic.
Ray says
@Wayne
I have to disagree with you on definition of being Chinese. The so-called Han Chinese grouping is simply created out of convenience. It is no accident that 90% of Chinese identified as such. The group itself contained sometimes more diversity than Austrian/German; French/Italian; Portugese/Spanish etc.
A Han Chinese wouldn’t be a Han today without infusion of many generation of “foreigners”. I have written exclusively on this topic before so I will only state my main points.
https://hiddenharmonies.org/2011/07/on-chinese-language-dialects-and-chinese-people/
Basically being a Chinese today, one need not even be a Han. A Korean Chinese, Hui Chinese, Tibetan Chinese even Russian Chinese etc are all Chinese. And in my view, if they hold a Chinese passport they are probably more Chinese than those who identified culturally as Chinese overseas who no longer has political connection with China or speak Chinese or practice Chinese culture.
The reason I emphasized so much of inclusiveness is this. A British who took up citizenship in the US would called himself American, or Australian if he moved to Australia. Their descendents would no longer identified as British. However, a multi generation Chinese to all those countries can still identified as Chinese even if he moved to those countries. The fact is a British or Australian can also become Chinese too if he wants to be. Being a Chinese transcend more than citizenship, language, culture or even historical connection.
That’s how Han Chinese grow to be over 1 billion strong and Chinese numbered over 1.4 billion worldwide. The western Roman style of citizenship as practice in those English speaking countries have its advantageous but seems exclusive compared to the Chinese view of what constitute a Chinese.
Wayne says
Interesting you mention Hero. The two female stars, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi both fuck whites.
How completely screwed up is that.
Could you imagine the analogous happening —say Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow with Chinese boyfriends? Does Kate Winslett have an Asian boyfriend? Of course not. Simply unimaginable.
You see, there is one thing you can say about white people – their women have higher standards than ours. Many of our women are just out and out sluts nowadays.
And it is not as if Zhang Ziyi or Maggie Cheung were in desperate straits needing to marry a richer husband. They are just sell out race traitor sluts. As is Gong Li.
Wayne says
And in my view, if they hold a Chinese passport they are probably more Chinese than those who identified culturally as Chinese overseas who no longer has political connection with China or speak Chinese or practice Chinese culture.
Ray, with all due respect, I think you are confusing ethnicity with nationality or citizenship.
And you are wrong about British moving to the US or Australia. They identify in the census with the group ‘white’ or ‘European’. Chinese identify perhaps as ‘Asian’ or ‘Chinese’ these terms all meaning ethnicity.
But all are Australians, or Americans etc by nationality, not just whites. Australian or American is not an ethnicity. It is a nationality, it refers to citizenship.
And what’s more, those Chinese with foreign passports are obliged by Chinese law to give up Chinese citizenship.
Similarly in China, a white moving there could adopt Chinese nationality, but he could never be of the Han ethnic group, in exactly the same way that a Chinese moving to the US can become American, but not say, white American, or black American.
Ray says
@Wayne
I am talking about the theme of the movie. What those actresses want to date or do with their private life shouldn’t be my concern. You are implying that we should do something about it. Frankly, my point all along is to develope China so things can change in the future.
Ok, I suggest you go date Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi and if you have the time add in Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Ray says
@Wayne
I am not confused. Because what define being a Chinese or even Han Chinese changes with time. For example, many minority groups become sinicized and eventually become not just Chinese but Han Chinese. For example, if you have last name such as Dugu, Muyong, Zhangsun, Yiuchi, Yuwen, Linghu etc, you are not considered Han during the early Tang dynasty. A large group of Hun also become sinicized during the Han dynasty.
In English Chinese can mean 中国人 or 华人. However, I am talking about the former. The latter can also mean中华民族 which pretty much include all people who live in China today or those who identify culturally or ethnically as Chinese.
Anyway, I suggest you do an in dept study of ancient China, the minorities played a major role in shaping Chinese identity, without them China wouldn’t be China.
Wayne says
the minorities played a major role in shaping Chinese identity, without them China wouldn’t be China.
I have no problem with your #58. You are right. The Han Chinese themselves of course are descended from people who were of course, not originally Han Chinese, as you say. But the important thing to me is all are Eastern Mongoloid.
Similarly the British —they are descended from Celts, Anglo Saxons, Vikings, Normans etc. But all are of the white race.
I dream one day, as I think Sun Yatsen once did, of an East Asian commonwealth, of China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, and yes, even Japan, and Mongolia, not fighting one another but united what is common to our cultures, a thoroughly modernised, and the economic centre of the world, as she once was.
Ray: By the way a question: as a Cantonese, we often to describe ourselves as ‘Tong yan’ —do you know why this is –does it relate to when we were sinicized or is it something else? I would be interested in your answer. Thanks.
Ray says
@Wayne
I used to have this clear cut definition of race but the more I study the more I am sure there is no such thing as race, except the human race. Is Semite people considered white? What about the Aryan in Northern India and Iranian? (Iran means land of the Aryan)
For example, in my quest to find where the Hun people belonged I find conflicting answer. To ancient Chinese dealing with them, they have Caucasian features but the European would describe them as Asiatic people. Btw, the modern Finnish and Hungarian people claimed they are descendents of the Hun. Many Hun leaders married Han Chinese princess and some descendents also become sinicized and claimed the throne too.
Another famous example would be the so-called Chinese door deity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_god
The guy on the left actually have few East Asian facial features. Noticed that he has round eye, lots of facial hair and darker skin. I actually did some research on him, I used to thought that he is central Asian. To my surprise his ancestors turned out to be from India, Yuchi actually is the sinicized writing of Vijaya. So I am not surprised today that the so-called Han Chinese has super diverse DNA.
In Cantonese “Tong Yan” means Tang people. In the Minan dialect, it is the same. Tang people, Tang language and in place of China we have Tang mountain. There is no doubt that Tang leaves a strong legacy on how the Chinese see themselves. This is despite the fact that the later Song and Ming are also Han Chinese dynasty. Ironically, 20% of the population of the Tang dyansty are non-Han who eventually become sinicized.
Wayne says
I used to have this clear cut definition of race but the more I study the more I am sure there is no such thing as race, except the human race.
The concept of race simply comes down to who your ancestors are. My ancestors are mainly Southern Chinese. At some relatively recent point in the past I have common ancestors with Vietnamese, with Northern Chinese, all Chinese, and then Koreans, Mongolians, and Japanese, and Tibetans, and then even further back with South East Asians, such as Malays, Indonesians, Polynesians even, and Amerinds. Then really far far far back we even have a common ancestor with whites. And further back we all come from Africa.
But that is not the point. Simply because races can sometimes overlap, that does not invalidate the concept of race. Just as certain traits can run within a family, like some kinds of illnesses, or even a talent for mathematics or music, certain genetic traits run through our race (which is really just an extended family).
So if the concept of ‘family’, ‘clan’, or ‘tribe’ is a valid one, so is the idea of ‘race’. Your ‘race’ is simply your very extended family.
Now you sort of argue that race has no real meaning, we are all one race, because the boundaries between the races are sometimes not all that clear. Am I correct in reading you here? But that, to my mind, is not a good argument.
You could similarly say the same for colours. On the electromagnetic spectrum, there is a zone where red fades into orange, orange fades into yellow, yellow into green etc. In these zones of course we are unclear – is it red or orange? is it orange or yellow? yellow or green?
But simply because you have zones of haziness, or non-clarity, does that invalidate the concept of colour, or our everyday use of colour? Of course not! The concept of red, organge, yellow, green, blue etc all have a useful meaning and describe something real (in spite of the fact that one fades into the next on the visible spectrum).
So simply because you argue that a few people (and it is only a few people) are not clearly of one race or another, does not suddenly mean that we are all of the same race. Anymore than saying red is the same as orange is the same as yellow etc…..
zack says
@jxie
about kevin rudd, i think that when he first came into office he may have wanted to cooperate/engage in sort with China-but only to a certain point. When push came to shove, the Chinese realised his idea of an Asian Union would’ve been a geostrategic trap meant for channeling China’s energies and containing it within a legal framework. How would Beijing go about asserting its territorial rights over the Diaoyutai and Taiwan if it was going to be continually blocked by its co-signers in the Asian Union. So, whilst Beijing was in favour of an Asian Union, it was simply premature to hope that it would work.
And then of course, Rudd probably realised that with China’s growing size and power, Australia would naturally have to defer to China as it currently does with the US-and that’s where i think we found out what sort of person Rudd really is.
Rudd is a product of his environment as are so many of his political colleagues; brought up in the heady days of the White Australia Policy and the myth of the ‘Domino Effect’ and the Yellow Peril that had so plagued Australian’ psyche. The idea of a white anglo saxon heritage nation eventually becoming ‘sinicised’ was offensive to ppl who were used to the paradigm of caucasians being the dominant ethnicity on the planet. Not to mention, Rudd also realised that China’s growing power meant Australia’s own backyard wasn’t Australia’s own backyard anymore; traditionally Australia has been a bit of a regional power over the island states of Oceania but with China around, there was competition and if there’s something anglo saxon cultures like the American and Australians don’t like, it’s competition-especially if it’s competition from a darker skinned slanty eyed chinny chin chin long duck dong who should know their place in the world and stay there, the way the good filipinos and south koreans know how in their expertise of fellating the white man.
Anyway, Rudd’s decidedly anti China policies were probably there from the get go; it’s probably true that he likes Chinese culture and language but wants to control it the way the ppl at Epoch Times and NTDT want to control it so when he realised Australia would eventually have to play second fiddle to a non white country, he went full retard.
Rudd’s administration is known for difficult broils with the Chinese such as the Stern Hu case, the gaffe of the White Paper on Australia’s Defence which named China as a target and proposed the purchase of as many as 80 F-35s (which is substantially more than the standard 30 odd fighters peacetime Australia is used to), the invitations to Rebiyah Kadeer, and as recently as last yr, Rudd in his new post as Foreign Minister (he was overthrown as PM by his own party- go figure- over an unrelated mining tax issue) collaborated with the Americans to set up a US base in Darwin, Northern Australia guaranteeing that Australia would remain a white man’s country for now and always.
sharp analysts and historians might note the irony that Rudd in his attempt to (in his view) keep Australian ‘independant’ of perceived Chinese influence, actually sold out Australia’s sovereignty to another even more belligerant, war mongering country. The only difference being that this was a white anglo country so that was alright. Musn’t let those yellow skinned asians think they’re able to get above their station, oh no.
But that isnt to say that all Australians share Rudd’s sentiment; the basing move was controversial and PM Gillard (the lame duck ranga who Australians refer to as madame prime minister) was criticised by forward thinking australians such as ANU lecturer Hugh White who realised keeping Australia out of the American made, American trade marked Cold War was more in Australia’s best interests, rather than staying on as ‘dubya’s deputy’ as our then PM Howard was renowned for being.
what’s my view in all this as a Chinese Australian? i think time’s on China’s side; the TPP will not be as succesful as its planners hope it’ll be; asians who worship the white man might prolong its life expectancy but when u form a currency union with the sole intent of excluding the one country that’s been the only source of growth in a sluggish financial year riven by global currency crises, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Even the Japs who’ve paid lip service to the TPP know this; they’re not going to open their markets to foreign rice and agriculture, give me a break and the fact that the japanese PM just signed a currency swap deal with the Chinese further proves the point that ppl who aren’t living in some fantasy land of ‘America, Fuck Yeah!!’ know where their bread and butter are going to come from.
jxie says
@zack
Muito Obrigado & Feliz Ano Novo. For what’s worth, methinks your ranga PM is pretty hot for a woman in her 50s.
I can understand there is certain misgiving of China in Australia. If Australia is forced to take in 10 million people tomorrow, likely far more Aussies are willing to take in Americans, than Chinese. Is there racial undertone for that? Sure, but probably mostly cultural.
In the case of Rudd, when you marry your daughter to a Chinese (born in Hong Kong and currently work in Beijing), you already earn the badge of being a honorable friend of China. But for those 10 million extra immigrants, will he pick Chinese? — I doubt that… which is the end of my read on the man.
Australia’s recent boom, is mostly because of China. I can understand the idea of keeping an arm’s length to everybody, but pissing off your best customer is never good for business.
zack says
@jxie
my latin’s a bit rusty;), translation please?:P
it is true that australian women are fine indeed, as i myself have been fortunate to become acquainted with a fair few; this is why having a foreign nation (despite similar culture) planting a base in my country (yes, i do regard Australia as my country but that doesn’t mean i’d kill fellow Chinese for it, or betray China any more than it’s reasonable to ask an anglo-celtic Australian to join in an invasion of the UK) reeks of a foreign occupier coming over to fuck your women is fairly demeaning and even humiliating hence the heavy media coverage over ‘the China Threat’, never mind the response from the Chinese foreign ministry being fairly diplomatic rather than the vein popping cartoonish impressions given off by ALL media outlets in Australia. yes, it saddens me to say that even the ABC and SBS’ coverage of Chinese affairs is little different from what you’d expect in say, the US. On that note, i have to say it’s disturbing to note the rising right of centre Christian influence permeating the ABC; why for fuck’s sake would the ABC give archbishop george pell a podium? where’s the media impartiality on religion and culture? but i digress…
about Rudd, i agree the line where you’re willing to accept (not merely tolerate but accept) a different culture is when you let someone from a different culture marry your daughter, but hang on a second. i wonder what religion his son in law is? if it’s christian, that’s not really as big of a deal as if Rudd (a religious person according to what i’ve read) was to allow a non christian marry his daughter. what if his new son in law was a traditional Chinese folk religion adherant? lighting incense for his Ancestors? or even a Buddhist or Confucian or Atheist? If i do end up marrying a white girl, i do expect her to practice the same Confucian rituals i and my family practice; in effect i suppose she’ll be ‘sinicised’ lol
Anyway, i have to say that under Rudd’s tenure, he was a god awful PM- as shown from his urging the US to engage in war with China and his panicky policies of Containing China as if it’ll bring back the 1980s or something. In any case, it’s far too late for Australians to pine for a world that’s (much deservedly) dead. Chinese ppl are amongst the largest migrant groups moving into Australia, overtaking the British to take the no. 1 spot for 2011; soon, it’ll be a matter of time before there’s a significant portion of Australia’s population that’ll be Chinese-enough to make a difference i reckon, cuz Australia’s a fairly small population~ 23 million or so, about the same population as Taiwan; if even Chinese ppl made up a quarter of Australia’s population that’d be enough to see some real changes in art, culture, entertainment and politics.
i do think the Australian government allowing the basing of US troops in Australia has pissed off Beijing enough for them to reconsider other places to source their iron ore, but that doesn’t mean Chinese investment in Australia’s just going to stop. The height of idiocy last year was the sinophobia over Chinese investment in Australian industries-what jackasses. The Chinese are here to give you money so you both profit and you cry ‘Chinese invasion and conspiracy’??!! idiots. About on par as the BS Obama goes on about with ‘rebalancing the world economy’ which is a euphemism for ‘open your markets to our firms, China so we can rape you like we did with the open door policy) where the hells does the US President get off, telling other citizens of another country what to do with its own money??!! it’s like if the PBOC Governor were to ask, no, demand that the Fed increase interest rates so the Chinese can earn some real interest over their holdings of US debt.
Thankfully, the Chinese are looking at sinking their holdings of worthless as America’s Credibility Treasury Bonds into material goods, with the creation of new soverign wealth funds in Europe and America.
btw since i’m on a bit of a roll tonight, what’s the deal with singapore king Lee Kwan Yew asking the US to ‘pretty please, return to Asia to stop us from dem evilz commiezz’; is he some sort of hanjian or rather, is he afraid of his so called ‘legacy’ being absorbed (it already is, singapore has a heart attack if China sneezes economically) by mainland Chinese? i am referring to the view that most (not all) Singaporean Chinese are a bit up themselves and worship all things white and western and ardently wish they could turn themselves caucasian American (hence the goddam awful singaporean american accents)??
Wayne says
Rudd’s daughter is a hot looking *lady*. Rudd is really a sinophile, a mandaring speaker. But he has been accused of that in the past, and some of his recent china threat stuff is perhaps to counter that image. That’s the way this works. Rudd is accused of being too friendly with the ‘chinks’ by whites, even his daugther is married to one, so he tries and strikes a pose.
The only thing is, Australia’s economy would be fucked if it was not for China. They are digging stuff out of the ground like nobody’s business and sending it to China, so they can strike their poses, thump their chests oroclaiming they are a full member of the white boys club. But they know which side the bread is buttered on.
The Australians and New Zealanders are a bit screwed. White to the core, but desperate for that bit of business from Asia. They better learn to show more respect. Otherwise China should just cut them adrift and allow them to sink. Mahatir of Malaysia knew the mindset of these racist white skinned pigs very well.
(post edited for language by ray)
John T Bone says
Wayne was it your poor upbringing that leads you to curse as you do?
I just noticed that this site is becoming a bit of a laughing stock in the interweb, so well done my little brother!
One wonders though that possibly your lack of any success with women may have something to do with your misogynistic and racist character. Personally I’d advise against calling women bitches if you expect to get any poon tang, but maybe thats just me. Forgive me if this is some kind of “Chinese characteristic” and its Ok in the motherland. It would certainly go some way in accounting for your countrymens lack of success with Western women.
Wayne says
what’s the deal with singapore king Lee Kwan Yew asking the US to ‘pretty please, return to Asia to stop us from dem evilz commiezz’;
He’s done some good things in Singapore, but he has no ideology and he does not give a shit for other third world people or non-white people. Singapore is successful but fucking souless.
And yes, I don’t think I’ve ever met a decent Singaporean. They are mostly fuckwits, and I know because my brother worked there for many years. Hong Kong people are similarly ‘doggish’ in behaviour, but they have become more likeable over the past 10 years. And they do have a bit more character than Singaporeans.
As for Lee Kuan Yew being a ‘hanjian’, I suggest you do a little googling and find out what he got up to during WWII. Hardly edifying stuff.
Singapore do some things right at least. Whites go to the gallows the same as Asians, and the Singaporeans did not buckle when Clinton turned the screws on them to save white boy Michael Fay’s ass (literally)……..although that white boy did have, thanks to his mum, one slight redeeming feature,,,,,if I remember rightly his step-dad was Chinese.
Yes. The Singaporean accent, I am sure is the worst accent of any language in the entire universe. Really.
jxie says
@zack
That’s Portuguese: Thank you very much, and Happy New Year. really like your long rant.
The modern-day Confucian rituals likely are far from the orthodox procedures they practiced eon ago, plus Chinese are wide open as far spirituality goes — we have accepted Buddhism, Islamism, and Christianity, and mixed with the traditional Chinese believes. The last country on earth that would ever go to a war for religious reason, has got to be China. Even into a religion, most Chinese are half believers anyway, which is why Chinese can integrate well just about in any societies. In your case, I recommend to follow the tail.
Chinese make up what, about 3% of the Australians now? It’s gonna be hard to raise that to 25% without going through some major pushback in the general public, including a major scale-back of immigration. If you are really serious about helping the cause, one way is to procreate early and often.
In the case of Singapore, my read is that Singapore, as a small trading nation, doesn’t want a dominant nation in the region, which may endanger its long-term economic viability especially given how freakishly competitive Chinese are. If Singapore is anti-China, it wouldn’t push for more Chinese immigrants to balance out its population. Yes, the Singaporean English accent is awful — it’s the only English accent when spoken, I need subtitle.
zack says
@Wayne
yeah, whilst i won’t go so far as to condemn the entire Singaporean population, having met a fair few who were top blokes-i do agree that the entire city is fairly soulless. At least Shanghai and Taipei and Nanjing have life and breathe (though Nanjing is fairly haunted); it seems most Chinese Singaporeans have been taught to suppress their Chinese-ness in favour of being more ‘Western’. i will do some research on Lee Kwan Yew now that you’ve whetted my appetite:P
it’s kinda ironic but HK ppl are surprisingly more patriotic in Australia than their mainland counterparts; i suppose more of them are starting to become aware of how much the British impressed the servile role upon them.
@jxie
Thank you very much for your vote of confidence;)
and you are indeed correct about the fluidity and platonic nature of Chinese society and nature; the Universalist mindset you see so much in christian/islamic/judeo/middle eastern is remarkably absent in general Chinese society; now i’ve heard Westerners regard this yin yang fluidity as cowardice (such as JG Ballard’s ‘Empire of the Sun’) but that’s more indicative of the uncompromising universalist ‘my way or the high way’ zero sum mentality that has permeated much of contemporary western culture. I’ve met Chinese catholics who still light incense and go to temples to pray-something which would be unthinkable in most christian societies; though the protestant Chinese have been ordered (yes, ordered, mandated under pain of their version of “hell”) by their church leaders to be as uncompromising as the US President likes to make himself appear to be in front of Arab Tyrants (Bahrain and Saudi Arabia being massive exceptions which the western media have been complicit).
You’re right about the demographic makeup of Australia and the Chinese community; the thing is, some of the oldest families in Australia have been Chinese-those who came over during the gold rushes; actor Josh Quong Tart has Chinese ancestry though he looks as anglo as anything; only the enforcement of the White Australia Policy stopped the natural flow of migration. In any case, most Australians are pretty much against mass migration-Chinese or otherwise-but it’s not going to stop Chinese migrants from coming to Australia. The laws these days are basically if you aint got money like at least 100k in the bank account then you can’t stay/get residency etc so it tends to be the wealthier Chinese families who come to big ciites like sydney, Adelaide, melbourne, brisbane and buy houses. And it’s not like Chinese Australians haven’t contributed to Australian arts and sciences; the famous pioneer of cardiac surgery-Dr Victor Chang was Chinese Australian, as is the Neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo and i do think a fair amount of Australians in the population do recognise that
Wayne says
…having met a fair few who were top blokes
Fair enough. Accept your point.
And they do have the redeeming feature that they are 人’s and not 鬼’s…that means a lot……hahaha
zack says
@Wayne
they were only a few though, lol one was actually a halfie and the other one was born in Taiwan but grew up in Singapore so not really a homegrown singaporean:P it is only to their defence that i stand; all other singaporeans that i’ve met haven’t been as nice and are actually really arrogant. I swear if there was a gene manipulation machine that could alter a person’s ethnicity, practically everyone in singapore would’ve turned themselves caucasian-that was the sort of attitude i’ve encountered with most Singaporeans, sadly.
No matter, Singapore’s status as a major port or even financial hub is in a precarious spot as more and more Chinese cities look to overtake it and given the strategic nightmare that the straits of Malacca poses to Beijing, other ciites such as Urumqi and ChongQing might well prove to be the hubts to the markets in Europe and elsewhere (i’m alluding to plans by Beijing to turn the SCO into a FTA and a proposed cargo rail/HSR from China to Europe
Ray says
Hey Guys,
All your comments on Singaporean Chinese reeks of prejudice too. When you talked of funny accent, don’t you realized that it is a way of Singaporean reafirming their own identity. And to called Singaporean souless is also very judgemental. Singapore is a poor city with no natural resources. To achive developed status, a lot of short cut and sacrifice was made. As Singapore is multi-racial to use Chinese as official language would simply show the world the Chinese are chauvanist.
LKY himself was from a minority where he doesn’t speak or write Chinese, so he simply modeled Singapore after himself. On the positive side, Singapore does become one of the 4 dragon economies. Today, Singapore is trying to balance its own unique Chinese Singaporean identity against too much westernization and also sinicization. At one time the only language that matters was English, now the govn’t put as much emphasis on Chinese.
raventhorn says
@Ray
I agree, we should avoid such generalizations.
Rhan says
About the English accent, Singaporean is actually not much difference with Malaysian, while HK is a bit unique perhaps due to Cantonese tone, however I notice many mainlanders speak close to perfect Whiteman English accent, seem like they are the most ‘doggish’ one.
Rhan says
“LKY himself was from a minority where he doesn’t speak or write Chinese, so he simply modeled Singapore after himself. ”
Ray, LKY look down Chinese that is poor, he change when China open up and more assertive in world affair, his immigrant policy that welcome mainlanders now backfire, one reasons why young Singaporean vote opposition, Chinese buy Singapore property like buying toy, don’t know where their money come from, but as long as you have money, LKY welcome you.
kchew says
To be fair, it is not only Singapore that welcomes migrants with money. Practically most countries do that. Younger Singaporean are unhappy because the face tough competition in the job market against the newer migrants who are willing to work harder and earn less.
LKY latest book is called “My lifelong challenge”. Here’s how a Singapore media website describes the book:
“My Lifelong Challenge is also the story of Mr Lee’s own struggle to learn the Chinese language, which began when he was six years old and his Hakka maternal grandmother enrolled him in a Chinese class with fishermen’s children. In evocative detail, the man born to English-speaking parents recounts his own feelings of rebellion and humiliation at different points in his life, when faced with the Chinese language and his own inadequacy in it. This book describes in matter-of-fact yet vivid fashion his steely determination to improve his Chinese and reclaim his Chinese heritage right up to the present when he is well into his eighties”.
I think LKY story is not much different from many of the English educated Chinese growing in Malaya, during the days of British colonism. The English education then was seen as the only ways for young people to find better paid jobs etc. The rise of China today has contributed immensely to the interest in Chinese culture / language. Another factor is that many of the English educated people are finally rediscovering their roots.
Wayne says
HK is a bit unique perhaps due to Cantonese tone, however I notice many mainlanders speak close to perfect Whiteman English accent, seem like they are the most ‘doggish’ one.
The only people who speak english close to a native accent, are Dutch, or Germans, Norwegians (closely related languages) ….and even they can be easily distinguished after even a sentence or two. Of course speakers of non-european languages are even easier to tell. But it does not matter what accent one speaks in as long as one can be understood, enough to at least to tell the white wench to kneel down and do the biz.
It is not the Singaporean accent that is the problem, it is as described by Zack above, the overwhelming desire of far too many Singaporeans to be white. That is why they, as a group, are dogs.
In China still, at least you have stories of white men with their chinese women harassed (not nearly enough, but it still happens). In Hong Kong and especially Singapore NEVER. Where have you heard of a Chinese man in Singapore standing up for his dignity and smashing a fist, or even better still a beer bottle into the face of a white man with a Chinese woman? In Singapore the dog authorities would arrest the Chinese man first. That is because they are white man’s suck ups.
I don’t hold much brief for Lee Kuan Yew. While other Malay Chinese such as the heroic Chin Peng (of the Malayan communist party) took up arms to fight the Japanese invaders, guess what our Mr Lee was doing?
Safely helping translate allied documents for the Japanese and working for their propaganda bureau.
I use to go to Lan Kwai Fong and look for trouble as a younger man, during the 1990s. I smashed the nose of an arrogant expat there but was fast enough to escape the cops. I have many other amusing stories which I won’t bore you with here, but to me, even the sell out bitches are open to a backhand across the face, or worse.
A few days before the handover on July 1 97, I smashed a white expat on the MTR between Causeway Bay and Wanchai, pushing him off the train, and he wrote a sob story moaning about the attitude of the locals, and sent to the South China Morning Post which they published just after the handover.
One trick to avoid trouble with the authorities is this; when you see them walking down the street, noses in the air, walk straight into them, but lower your right shoulder a bit –you can easily knock them back a few steps, or even over (especially when they are ascending a flight of stairs out of the MTR)—and then pretend that it was the baak pei jue’s fault…hahahahahahaha
The thing is this. If every coloured man rose up, and stood up to these white skinned pigs, smashed his fist into the nearest one he can find – especially those in relationships with our woman, much of our problems would be solved overnight. We have the strength, the intelligence, the numbers, to put the fear of god into them. We should be doing it more.
Heard of the term Sarong Party Girls, Rhan? Such sluts can only exist, without harassment, in a dog environment.
Anyway I don’t want to criticise Singaporeans. I know some good ones. We are all Chinese. As long as one is not a hanjian and a wannabe white, they are fine with me.
You know white people during the era of Jim Crow. They would kill a black man, all the evidence would be there, but the white jury would acquit him. That is wrong, but at least whites had a sense of racial solidarity. And if a black man so much as looked at a white woman, they would castrate him, burn him alive. That is how white people feel about coloured people touching their women.
And yet, we, the so called ‘rising’ China, the Chinese who supposedly ‘stood up’ 60 years ago, think it glorious when a white man approves of the many women lavished upon him when he visits the far East.
We have to wake up!
pug_ster says
@Wayne
Wayne,
Errr, interesting perspective with your tales about Chinese women. Though I probably wouldn’t agree with you totally on the whole White man’s racist thing. I think part of the problem is with many Chinese themselves believing that everything from America is better than in China, which is totally false. Many Chinese parents in China prefer White Americans teach English to their Children rather than a Chinese person who knows English but I think Chinese are better teachers because they teach English as ESL whereas White Americans learned English as the first language. You hear of defects in American cars and food products in China. Yet in places like in HK you would rarely see a Chinese made car. Chinese companies have to step up the food chain and start saying that their products are as good or better than foreign brands and Chinese people have to stop believing in that BS notion.
Raj says
Wayne, have you considered therapy to get over your problem with Asian women dating Caucasian men?
raventhorn says
Richard can warn us as he wishes. His credibility is also on the line.
Who is to say who is who online. I see no reason to validate Richard’s paranoia with deletion, (unless he tries to spam the forum with repetitions).
jxie says
@Ray
@Rhan
Point about not poking fun at Singaporean is well taken. The Singaporean English accent itself, as Rhan pointed out, is similar to the English accent spoken in Southeast Asia. In most business settings, folks in Singaporean accent are quite easy to understand. The accent/language I had in mind was Singlish. It’s insanely hard for outsiders to understand. This is actually a milder version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUg04hCqGDg
I venture to guess Zack’s “Singaporean American accent” is like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F74FZfdSJY
Among societies with significant ethnic Chinese population (percentage-wise), Singapore has by far the highest living standard. Poking fun at them should be allowed. On second thought, rap songs with a lot of American black slang could also be hard to understand too by the public, even despised by many educated blacks. However, in the 90s and 00s, rap became hot and many non-black youths got acquainted with the slang. Those youths are getting older, and the linguistic sub-culture has gradually turned mainstream. Who is to say Singlish one day won’t become cool?
LOLZ says
I am a “foreign talent” living in Singapore right now and work regularly with the locals, Australians, Americans, Malays, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Thais (it’s the most diversified placed I’ve been to). I think Singaporeans in general are conservative and somewhat repressed (their lives mostly consist of just eating, shopping, sleeping, and working). However they are a very proud group of people and for good reasons. Singapore’s diversity come about as close to a real functional “melting pot” as it can get. The standard national holidays include Western new year, Chinese new year, Indian new year, Malay new year, etc. There is quiet a bit of xenophobia and resentment going on right now against “foreigners” (especially the migrants and wealthy from mainland China) but as long as you don’t create trouble most people from different backgrounds would fit right in. As others have pointed out, as long as you have money to contribute to Singapore you are totally welcomed there. The Singapore government goes out of its way to make money off foreigner workers by legalizing prostitution and running casinos (it costs Singaporeans 100 SGD to enter but free for foreigners).
“Singlish” actually is made up of a mixture of (broken) English, Hokkien, Malay, mandarin, and some other languages. The problem is that while most Singaporeans speak both English and Chinese they cannot speak well in either language. I actually have more difficulties understanding their Chinese but occasionally I have trouble understanding their English as well. The local government here has made multiple attempts to correct people’s English but I think many if not most Singaporeans actually want to speak their own version of English rather than the standard English.
pug_ster says
@LOLZ
Yeah, but isn’t most of the people from singapore are of Chinese descent? Do they feel more like more pro-China or pro Singapore?
LOLZ says
The Singaporeans consider Chinese an ethnicity and many are quiet proud of that fact. However this doesn’t mean that they feel an automatic affinity towards other Chinese people. Like many in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Singaporeans don’t care much for people from Mainland China and mock them regularly. A lot of this has to do with habits and behavior of the people from mainland China, they can be very rude in many ways (queuing for example is extremely important in Singapore but in China people just cut in line all the time). Then there are the uber rich mainland tourists who tend to stir up jealousy with their massive purchases and plays on materialism. The situation reminds me of how many Canadians felt towards the massive Hong Kong immigration before 1997. Overtime though, I am optimistic that the attitudes towards mainland chinese will change for the better.
raventhorn says
Wukan protest leader becomes new CCP party secretary of Wukan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/asia/protest-leader-becomes-party-boss-in-chinese-village-that-rebelled.html
Politics as usual.
Ray says
@raventhorn
This is the flexibility of the CCP that most western commentators refused to see. Just contrast the dealing of the OWS movement with this.
raventhorn says
@Ray
I personally thought from the 1st moment (or right after 1st reading the Wukan protest), that it was a local power struggle.
A few Western media reported that this “Uncle Lin” who “represented” the protesters, owned a 3 story house in the middle of the village.
And the villagers asked him to represent them in the negotiations, because of his personal connections with the CCP.
After reading all that, I thought, HMMM…. it doesn’t sound like a protest to me. it sounded like a power play, by someone who wanted to grab power.
Sure enough, “uncle Lin” gets the CCP secretary position, right after the “successful negotiation”.
FOARP says
@Allen, YinYang – Guys, if you want to allow someone to use your site to urge people to attack those of European descent, freely admits assaulting them himself, advises people how best to attack them, that’s your prerogative, but don’t think that others don’t take note of this.
raventhorn says
@FOARP
Thanks for your concern.
We have already said numerous times that Wayne’s positions were “over the top”. (Even he admits it himself at least once).
Your objection is noted.
pug_ster says
@FOARP
You can read some of these comments below of others asking Wayne to stop making these kind of personal attacks.
@Ray
@YinYang
I also made a comment telling Zack not to make personal comments about Richard.
@pug_ster
Now if Richard and Charlie C would stop having China Whiners in their sites that would stop making personal comments about me, even if I don’t comment in those sites anymore. I asked Charlie to stop that and guess what, I got banned.
jxie says
@Wayne
Derbyshire got canned by National Review for writing this.