I’m currently working at a pretty affluent college in Yangzhou. Since I’m a foreign teacher, they’ve given me two dorm rooms put together for my apartment — FAR more space than I could possibly need, though from the setup I’m guessing that this is the kind of apt. they’d give a teacher couple too, and that would make more sense.

The dorm rooms are normally shared by four students each, or two teachers. The thing I find surprising or noteworthy in all this is that the room size is twice the size of an American double dorm, or four times the size of an American single — you could literally divide the rooms into quarters and have American single dorms. Maybe a *little* on the small side, but I’ve seen ones that size. I’ve slept in ones that size.

So it’s certainly not lack of space that’s putting so many students together here, though it might be the case elsewhere.

I would say the collective action I have observed so far is not only simple lack of confrontation… both in stores and in the school administration, people always seem to work cooperatively on tasks that I, the loner American, would stalk off on my own to attempt. It’s a different mindset and it does seem to flow naturally from the circumstances of life here, though I don’t claim a deep understanding as of yet.

@Rene: I think your write about suffer in silence thing, I remember how a Chinese student of mine exclaimed in whispers how he thinks living in a dorm with the other chinese who are from a diffrent city is like “Hell”. I wanted to kill himself and was afraid to return home as his parents needed him to finish collage.

My chinese wife lives with me in my family house, I have 3 brothers and 2 sisters. I also have a son, It really gets to her living in a house with so many people, how they speak too loud sing and listen to music too loud, she has had at least 3 breakdowns and keeps want to go back to china to be with her mother. She has had 2 breakdowns since I got back from 6 months in shenyang(because of her other breakdowns.) and I have only been home 2 months. So not all Chinese can stand overcrowding.

Thanks for your response. I’m glad to discuss this with you further.

I wholly agree with you on misconceptions of the Cultural Revolution and the factual inaccuracies related to the simplification of the language.

With respect to what I have said, is it that you are objecting to my choice of terms when I say “suffer in silence”? It seems like you are, but I want to be clear.

I agree that perhaps the term does have a negative connotation, but I assert that the essential meaning is true, that these students are put in a situation they don’t want to be in without the option to extricate themselves. Conventionally we would label such a situation “suffering in silence.” I don’t know of a convenient English phrase that would put a positive spin on it while retaining all the meaning. Perhaps you are right to say that the situation builds character, but the underlying condition is what it is, and beyond the terminology used to described it, it seems like you and I are speaking about two sides of the same coin.

Kris:
I agree with your observation about discriminative application of moral standards to different circles of relationships. Yet I’m skeptical that this could be attributed to Confucian teachings.

I’m not saying that we live in a post-confucious China, though. I’m just hesitant to hold Confucious accountable for this specific social practice.

I actually see the influence of Confucian philosophy deeply woven in today’s Chinese society, although the vast majority, myself included, may not be able to articulate Confucian ideas. Yet what we call Confucian thoughts today is the result of dynasties of deliberate misinterpretation of that plain wise guy’s original thoughts. All too often, Confucious quotes are taken out of context and pushed to the extreme, as one of the many ways of distorting its meaning. Alas, too many evils have been done in the name of Confucious…hmm.

Maria:
I like your story very much. Thanks for sharing. Reminds me of the heartbreaking fight I had with my pa about the fun of backpacking. It started out as a casual talk the day before an American friend of mine was coming to get back her huge backpack from my place. He said this whole backpacking thing is “oh so silly”. I was a bit offended and argued that, for one thing, it’s actually fun; for another, you don’t just go call something silly when you are not able to feel the fun of it. “Not being able to feel the fun? Are you calling me a narrow-minded loser inferior to your western friends who know how to enjoy backpacking?” my father roared at me.

I was stunned and hurt, but still tried to keep talking, saying that it’s just a difference. It’s not about supriority. He wouldn’t listen. He was trapped in his inferiority complex. (excuse me for saying this about my father, but I have to say what I see as truth. )

Anyway, Maria, you see it could get a lot worse than your different choice not being appreciated:-)

First of all, it’s nothing personal. I totally understand why you feel “not warranted” to my comment.

what really irritates me it’s the prevalent negative slant to a lot (I mean more than 80%) of comment on a chinese situation.

For instance, in your particular example, I happened to think it’s a good thing for students that they are learning how to resolve conflict in a group in their school. One cannot wilfully buy out of tight situation in life everytime and to start learning to compromise early in life is good; a little hardship goes a long way. This is PART of the education process.

BUT, if given any (most) westerner the situation, 80% of them will come to the same conclusion as you: suffer in silence.

I have come to a conclusion that westerners are not doing it intentionally. Most of the time it’s just subconcious, and it IS natural to them. But in a sense, that makes it worse.

Another instance that can be observed in this thread is the cultural revolution thingy. Many people commenting on it probably heard one or two horror stories on it without really trying to find out what it is. Then you get things like “Mao throw out traditional writing” which comes out completely naturally.

And this both irritates and scares me.

On the other hand, you are just unlucky . All my accumulated irritation just happened to explode when I read your comment. So divide the scale of hostility by about 80 and that’s about the right scale.

I agree with you that the cultural fator plays an important role on people’s behaviour. But you have to consider the economic factor as well, it’s equally important. You can’t separate the two. Think culture is the inner factor, environment (economics) is the outer factor…

You live in America, I am sure you know the fact that whenever there is an economic downtime in a city, the crime rate goes up there. So Kuan-tzu’s theory does make a lot of sense.

I didn’t say people from the West are more civilized MORALLY, I said they are more civilized MATERIALLY. Let’s just take New Orleans for example. After hurricane Katrina, so many “civilized” people became robbers and murderers when they suddenly lost everything, there were people shooting people in the backs, it was hell on earth. Yet you don’t see similar situation in South-East Asian countries after they were hit by the recent tsunami. I read an article recently (sorry, I forgot which newspaper), a Bangladeshi told the reporter after he learnt what happened in New Orleans: “I wonder who is more civilized, the American or us?”

I appreciate your efforts to bring a balanced stance to this topic, but I think your response of “Silly Westerners” (more or less) to my comment and those of others was not entirely warranted. Where do I imply that group cohesion is a negative quality? I am merely saying that I’m not sure that this cohesion (if it exists) always comes from an altruistic position.

Let me reiterate. I was talking from experience. From real conversations that I have had with students that I teach. Lots of them. Students who have had fights with their roommates. Students who have asked school officials to move out only to be denied, so they continue to 吃苦. Students who have in fact moved out if (once again) they have the money to do so. So yes I did consider cultural factors, but they seemed not to completely explain the situation, which is what I thought I was saying in my previous post. If that was not clear, I apologize.

In short, the situation is not as simple as “China is a Confucian society.” While I agree with your interpretation of Confucianism as you presented in your response to Handan, it is after all just a philosophy. Whether or not everyone in a given society follows a given philosophy is open to some debate, which is what we are doing here. I hope that we can all agree that Chinese society is changing, and that with these changes, so also does adherence to traditional values change. I would think that recent trends of social unrest in the countryside would indicate this if nothing else. Confucianism may be ideal in some ways, but it is not a panacea.

Thank you for your elaboration. My exertion by no mean contradict yours. In fact, I am quite familiar with all the undercurrent, backstab double-dealing in a typical chinese situation.

What is important is that the undercurrent feelings do not become concrete problems, and they do not spill over to the surrounding people and the society at large. And in a country with too many people and too little resource, the ability for individual to stomach these negative feelings and preserve the harmonious front is important.

This is where confucianism comes in. It bascially teaches you how to be self-reflective and be tolerant of exterior circumstances. To be sure, not everyone will be able to achieve inner peace with it, but what’s more important is everyone attempt to. (If one can’t stomach the rigid structure of confucianism, there’s always the nihilism of Taoism.)

And even with the unsaid resentment and “repressive” tolerance, I would wager individuals still benefit a lot from a community environment. There is no lack of company, and people can easily get help from each other. One also has more chance to have genuine connection to a real, human community (instead of the fake one on the internet nowadays). And after all, learning to function and behave in a group environment can’t be a bad thing: we human are group animals first and foremost.

On a sidenote: here is another article on simplified chinese, but this one is in mandarin and is much more technical. I don’t seem to come across any English translation:
http://fhpi.yingkou.net.cn/bbs/1951/messages/10310.html