Culture and the Great Divide Forward.

[joe]

Culture and the Great Divide Forward

Summary:

Cultural values are built it. And necessarily cultures clash. This can be appreciated intellectually, but not with any greater depth of feeling. Thus, screwed.

Thesis:

Cultural values are built it. One grows up with them, and even if one is able to identify them, one is unlikely to be able to expunge them. If one did remove one or more of ones cultural values, one would become a different person, probably lesser, for the absence of a tool by which the world is viewed, organised and approached. And cultural values are unlikely to be easily substituted, one for another, or one over another. Added to your life they can be intellectually appreciated, but not felt as strongly as those which have been part of a world view for an entire life inside a corresponding community.

And necessarily cultures clash. For example, on the question of the value of work, or the character of endeavour, or the character one should assume in a given situation. If, broadly, western oriented persons find value in individual character, and, broadly, eastern oriented persons find value in group association, it will be difficult to understand and support one another. Goals and approaches will be different, and an encultured person of one kind viewing the efforts of a person encultured in different values will view their efforts as misdirected or misguided.

Culture clash can be appreciated intellectually, but I am gravely concerned that the other side in any clash cannot with any depth of feeling be more generally appreciated. I suggest this because if there is one useful thing my father ever did point out to me, it is that in times of crisis, people fall back on what they always knew. This belief is the origin of my suggestion that ones appreciation of another culture will always remain fragile.

Conclusion:

I'm surrounded by all these people I can get to know but can't get to appreciate at the deepest levels. And they, likewise, suffer my presence without being able to form the stronger of attachments.

It's a bummer, doncha think?

[joe]

Personal character does of course play some part too.

[Dajiang]

i know what you mean, but isn't understanding in a way appreciating it at the same time?

And even when you've reached that level, even though it's not the deepest level, that's a pretty big deal right? Most people dont go further than just observe how 'weird' China is. At least by seeing where the problem lies, we appreciate this culture much more deeply than the average Joe (no pun intended).

I don't know, but I feel part of a collective here at the school, which in a way makes me more Chinese. So, I'm not sure if it is that impossible to let go of our homegrown cultural values and take on some of the more appealing local ones. How fragile though that may be, it can still be felt.

I do hope they don't really 'suffer' my presence though.

[Lotus Eater]

The culture thing is fascinating. Even within one culture e.g. Australian culture, there are many deep down 'cultural' differences - city/country, eastern suburbs/western suburbs. We tend to gloss over these becasue we think we speak the same language and assume we have the same cultural understandings.

How deep does culture go? Can you take the boy out of the country but not the country out of the boy?

Students will often tell me that the Chinese culture and its values are changing and I ask them - tell me about Chinese culture that is being changed, what is Chinese culture? It is very rare that they can actually name anything that is specifically Chinese culture. What they look at is stuff like traditional customs - Mid-Autumn festival etc.

But when they talk about family values etc there will be dissenters saying - no all families in China do not work like this, and they can easily be countered by examples of very similar values found in western families.

The individual/collective thing is interesting too. The Chinese themselves have a saying - one Chinese person alone is a dragon, a team of Chinese is a worm. (This was frequently said to me after the World Cup!!).

A Chinese mate of mine was telling me yesterday about an incident in his village this week. An elderly woman was found frozen to death. Her son and d-i-l both work and each morning when they leave for work they put her outside the house to wander the village until they return. This woman apparently has some mental problems, wandered off to a nearby village, lost, and was heard crying during the night. Next morning she was found frozen and naked.

The villagers were angry with the young couple for accepting the mothers money but not looking after her. But no-one in the village cared for her either. No-one did anything to set up a care program for other elderly people in similar situation, no welfare agencies or authorities stepped in either.

Where is the collectivism, the family values etc here?

I'm not certain that deep down any form of inculcated culture changes essential human nature.

[joe]

There's a text I use in writing classes. I have one understanding of it. I have also often found that the students have another understanding of it. In the story a mother waits for all her life to tell her daughter some important thing. The students tell me this is a deep love. I view it as a deep waste of time, a chance missed. There is a vital cultural issue here.

"I was moved by it."

Does anyone know the meaning of this sentence? If I say "moved" means something like "my feelings were engaged", then I am starting to use western ideas to understand a Chinese idea. Though I have some idea of what a western person means when they speak this way, I don't know what it means for a Chinese to have their feelings engaged, if that is in fact what they mean when they use this expression.

It is appaling sometimes. This central lack of communication. They say they learn English because it is a tool of communication. So I ask, do Chinese and western styles of communication sustain one another? I am afraid they do not.