People


 * The Chinese People**

How the Chinese Communicate Some notes about this.

The difference between the Western family and the Chinese.

Interesting perspective on the Chinese affinity for math and hard work. Math

The following is from chapter 4 of "From the Soil; the Foundations of Chinese Society." This is a translation of 乡土中国, perhaps the most important anthropological work about the Chinese, written by a Chinese, Fei Xiaotong, in, I believe, 1947. Although he focuses on the countryside, the following talks about selfishness of all Chinese. Of course, to get a fuller picture, you should read the rest of the chapter. I post this because it helps to understand the apathy and lack of concern that Chinese have for people they do not know. [|The Accident_ The New Yorker.pdf] Great story about this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqG4gQEEGKA Nice short about this called Bus 44 车四十四.

Selfishness is the most serious shortcoming of country people. That is the opinion of those intellectuals who advocate rural reconstruction. When we think of selfishness, we think of the proverb "Each person should sweep the snow from his own doorsteps and should not fret about the frost on his neighbor's roof." No one would deny that this proverb is one of the Chinese creeds. Actually, this attitude is held not only by country people but also by city people. The person who only sweeps the snow from his own door is still regarded as having high social ethics.

Ordinary people usually throw their garbage onto the streets right in front of their door, and that is the end of their garbage problem. For instance, in Suzhou the houses usually have back doors that that open onto slow moving canals. This sounds very beautiful, and, in fact, literary works depict Suzhou as the Chinese Venice. But I do not think that there are any waterways in the world dirtier than those in Suzhou. Everything can be thrown into the canals, which even in the best of circumstances do not flow well. Filled with garbage, they flow even worse. Many families use no other toilets. Even knowing full well that other people wash clothes and vegetables in the canals, they feel no need for self restraint.

Why is this so? The reason is that such canals belong to the public. Once you mention something as belonging to the public, it is almost like saying that everyone can take advantage of it. Thus, one can have rights without obligations. Even if we reduce the scale and look at a small courtyard shared by two or three families, we can still see dirt piled in the public corridors and weeds growing in the backyard. No one wants to clean or to weed. But the worst place in such a courtyard would be the public toilets. Not a single family wants to take care of this business. Whoever finds the condition of the toilet intolerable has to clean it up without pay or even without thanks.