Sunday, June 01, 2008
Breaking News: The Middle Kingdom Shuns the World
China watchers never fail to mention at the beginning of their travel memoirs or China novels that the word for China, Zhong Guo, literally translates as 'Middle Kingdom.' In fact, you get sick of hearing it. It has taken me over five years to truly appreciate what it really means, and just why it is always the first point that is made.
I have never found it easy to have what I consider a 'normal' conversation with my Taiwanese/Chinese friends. They say one thing, they mean another. You say one thing, you mean one thing, but they think you mean another. And so helpless confusion follows.
In Taiwan last week, just seeing my friends again after four years solidifies what may have previously been more superficial foreign-guest-in-Taiwan friendships to something of more meaning. You could feel it, especially with Jeccy, who I spent time with in Shanghai as well. And I am so very grateful that I have reached such a point with any local Taiwanese person I knew in Taiwan.
So this time, I decided to try to be honest about the differences in communiation style between Westerners and Chinese and talk to them about it. I have always found the Chinese to be ridiculously polite, sometimes to the point of absurdity. So to each of my Taiwanese friends, I talked about how in Australia, when someone offers you something, you either say 'yes' or 'no' and leave it at that, whereas in Taiwan, they offer three times and you decline three times, before you finally decide whether you want to accept whatever it is. I felt confident that with Hans, who speaks unusually good English with natural intonation and therefore makes you feel at ease to express yourself, would be able to have a normal discussion with me about this topic. What I found was that rather than acknowledging that there was a difference between two equal cultures, in his reponse he implied, without saying it outright, that it is not that there is a difference that should be respected between the two cultures, but that all other cultures are simply not as polite as the Chinese. Being ridiculously polite, as I would call it, is a sign of sophistication, which outside cultures have yet to attain. The implication is that sophistication equals culture, and because noone is as sophisticated as the Chinese, Chinese culture is in fact the 'only' culture. Even looking at it that way makes me feel as though we foreigners are indeed lacking something of that. Chinese cultural arrogance is fierce and those who never felt neither proud nor unproud of their own culture, would be extremely vulnerable to believing that Chinese culture is indeed superior to their own, just through not having the arrogance to match that of the Chinese. The Chinese lack of respect or appreciation for other cultures is in fact not a stereotype that foreigners make of the Chinese. It is completely true. They can be the nicest, most educated people in the world, but this feeling of cultural superiority is deeply ingrained into the Chinese mentality, and unless you are ready to be made to feel ashamed that your own culture is not as good as theirs, then I would recommend that you go to China with a thick skin, and remain ignorant to all of this, if it means not reaching a level of friendship with your well-intentioned Chinese friends that you would with any other friends.
China or Taiwan, therefore, offers a bizarre experience when making friends. You are approached as a celebrity and then played with like a toy with your occidental appearance and your ghastly height and build. Later, when you have broken ground with your hosts and have reached a certain level of familiarity, it dawns on you, once their cultural arrogance becomes apparent, that they consider themselves condescending to be your friend the whole time. Not condescending as we would use to the term, but condescending in the way that in the back of their minds, they will always perceive you as less cultured and less sophisticated as themselves and their countrymen despite their good intentions. It is a commonly observed fact that the Chinese consider many foreigners to be naive and gullible. This accounts for the directness in our communication style, and whereas we consider this honesty to be a virtue, they consider it to be a lack of finesse.
God help me. I majored in Chinese Studies. What now? ¶ 14:08
China watchers never fail to mention at the beginning of their travel memoirs or China novels that the word for China, Zhong Guo, literally translates as 'Middle Kingdom.' In fact, you get sick of hearing it. It has taken me over five years to truly appreciate what it really means, and just why it is always the first point that is made.
I have never found it easy to have what I consider a 'normal' conversation with my Taiwanese/Chinese friends. They say one thing, they mean another. You say one thing, you mean one thing, but they think you mean another. And so helpless confusion follows.
In Taiwan last week, just seeing my friends again after four years solidifies what may have previously been more superficial foreign-guest-in-Taiwan friendships to something of more meaning. You could feel it, especially with Jeccy, who I spent time with in Shanghai as well. And I am so very grateful that I have reached such a point with any local Taiwanese person I knew in Taiwan.
So this time, I decided to try to be honest about the differences in communiation style between Westerners and Chinese and talk to them about it. I have always found the Chinese to be ridiculously polite, sometimes to the point of absurdity. So to each of my Taiwanese friends, I talked about how in Australia, when someone offers you something, you either say 'yes' or 'no' and leave it at that, whereas in Taiwan, they offer three times and you decline three times, before you finally decide whether you want to accept whatever it is. I felt confident that with Hans, who speaks unusually good English with natural intonation and therefore makes you feel at ease to express yourself, would be able to have a normal discussion with me about this topic. What I found was that rather than acknowledging that there was a difference between two equal cultures, in his reponse he implied, without saying it outright, that it is not that there is a difference that should be respected between the two cultures, but that all other cultures are simply not as polite as the Chinese. Being ridiculously polite, as I would call it, is a sign of sophistication, which outside cultures have yet to attain. The implication is that sophistication equals culture, and because noone is as sophisticated as the Chinese, Chinese culture is in fact the 'only' culture. Even looking at it that way makes me feel as though we foreigners are indeed lacking something of that. Chinese cultural arrogance is fierce and those who never felt neither proud nor unproud of their own culture, would be extremely vulnerable to believing that Chinese culture is indeed superior to their own, just through not having the arrogance to match that of the Chinese. The Chinese lack of respect or appreciation for other cultures is in fact not a stereotype that foreigners make of the Chinese. It is completely true. They can be the nicest, most educated people in the world, but this feeling of cultural superiority is deeply ingrained into the Chinese mentality, and unless you are ready to be made to feel ashamed that your own culture is not as good as theirs, then I would recommend that you go to China with a thick skin, and remain ignorant to all of this, if it means not reaching a level of friendship with your well-intentioned Chinese friends that you would with any other friends.
China or Taiwan, therefore, offers a bizarre experience when making friends. You are approached as a celebrity and then played with like a toy with your occidental appearance and your ghastly height and build. Later, when you have broken ground with your hosts and have reached a certain level of familiarity, it dawns on you, once their cultural arrogance becomes apparent, that they consider themselves condescending to be your friend the whole time. Not condescending as we would use to the term, but condescending in the way that in the back of their minds, they will always perceive you as less cultured and less sophisticated as themselves and their countrymen despite their good intentions. It is a commonly observed fact that the Chinese consider many foreigners to be naive and gullible. This accounts for the directness in our communication style, and whereas we consider this honesty to be a virtue, they consider it to be a lack of finesse.
God help me. I majored in Chinese Studies. What now? ¶ 14:08
