Respecting Cultural Differences Out-of-Focus

February 26, 2010

I read at Crooked Timber that three Google executives were convicted of violating Italy’s privacy laws. That taught me that China is not alone in having laws different from other countries that limit activity on the Internet.

When China censors the Internet, or hires mothers to go after on-line pornographers, the family centered culture drives those actions. Most of China’s arrests of dissidents and executions of criminals are also driven by the family centered culture influenced by Confucian, Taoist beliefs.

Confucious

A few years back, a Japanese citizen, wife and mother attempted suicide in the United States and killed her children in the attempt, but the mother was saved by bystanders. She tried to kill herself and her children, because she had lost face when it was discovered that her husband had an affair with another woman.

When the American legal system was going to try her for murder, the Japanese government protested and said her actions were driven by her culture. Respecting the differences between the two cultures, the United States allowed her to return to Japan.

If we really respect the differences between cultures, why does the Western media and American politicians go out of their way to treat China without respecting the cultural differences that explains why China’s government acts the way it does?

To understand China more, I recommend pietyface and heroes.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Similar “Oily” Interests

February 24, 2010

China’s hunger for oil is not equal to America’s gluttony but it is getting there. Meanwhile, America and its allies blame China for the stalemate over stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This is my confession. I’m seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins. Every American who drives a car is an accessory to a crime—9/11.  The more oil, gas or diesel consumed, the more guilt.

There are two parts to this sin.

The first stage for this crime took place during America’s Cold War with Communism. If you haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War, rent it.  Americans were the mad scientists who created the Frankenstein, the metamorphosis of the wolf men—the demons we call al-Qaida.

The Taliban, who supported al-Qaida’s goal to eliminate all Western Cultures and create a Caliphate—a throwback to another era, learned their Islamic Fundamentalism from Saudi Arabia’s dominant faith, Wahhabism. Oil money paid for the Wahabi schools that Saudi Arabia built around the world.  These schools teach fundamentalist Islamic principles that grow future terrorists recruited by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Saudi Oil Wells

And who feeds Saudi oil to their SUVs, cars, trucks, eighteen-wheelers and coast to coast freight trains and jet planes?

When China blocks action against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, because the Chinese people love American food and buy GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota, isn’t their hunger the same?

See America Doing Business in China


After Mao

February 22, 2010

Unlike Mao’s time, today’s Chinese leaders must answer to the seventy-million party members scattered throughout China. These people listen to the 1.3 billion Chinese that do not belong to the party. The result: if an elected official is not doing his or her job, that person usually isn’t reelected.

Deng Xiaoping

Other changes took place after Mao. Under Deng Xiaoping, the People’s Republic announced a policy of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” John Gittings in The Changing Face of China quoted Deng Xiaoping as saying, “Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity.”

Soon after Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping’s Beijing Spring was introduced. This was a brief period lasting from 1977 into 1978. During that time, the public was allowed greater freedom to criticize the government, which wasn’t allowed under Mao.

An example of this may be seen in “The Awakening” (Su-Xing), a movie produced during this period starring Joan Chen (Chen-Chung) and Gau Fei. [ISBN: 978-7-88611-603-2]. There are no English subtitles so it helps to have someone that reads or speaks Mandarin beside you while watching the movie that can point out the subtle criticisms of the Party that appear in the film, which was considered controversial at that time.

There was also a new Beijing Spring between 1997 to November 1998 where the Chinese government relaxed some control over political expression and organization. It was during this time that China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Learn about China’s Modern Dynasty

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Modern Dynasty

February 21, 2010

In 2012, the new rulers of China will “all” have been educated in the West.

After Mao died, Deng Xiaoping and his supporters “rebuilt” the government. The party instituted term limits, two five-year terms for any political position and an age limit of sixty-seven.

Mao

These changes were implemented to avoid having another modern emperor like Mao. Those who spoke out against Mao while he ruled China were usually killed, went to prison or fell out of favor. Deng Xiaoping’s son was dropped from a high rise and paralyzed for life—the message to Deng was to “shut up or else”.

A high-ranking, retired Communist who fought with Mao during World War II and the revolution told me that the seventy million party members (like America’s Democrats and Republicans) do not always agree on issues.

The difference is that the world hears little of what goes on behind the scenes in China. Doing business that way has little to do with the party. That type of behavior is classically Chinese—not to talk about the elephant in the room or to hang out your dirty laundry for everyone to see as the West does. Behaving like that goes against what “face” means in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Innocent Until Proven Guilty

February 21, 2010

An American friend who taught English and lived in China for several years once said that it was possible to get around the government censors and reach sites that have been blocked.  It just takes time.  With that in mind, pointing fingers, as Google and Secretary of State Clinton did over the Google hacking episode, was a blunder and an insult to the Chinese people and their government.

Catching clever, cyber criminals on the Internet is not easy—especially if those criminals are Geeks getting thrills hacking into protected Websites. From what I’ve learned, organized Internet criminals are worse and harder to catch.

Shadow Land, the post before this one, is a case in point.

To understand more, I suggest you read How Prisoners Are Using Facebook to Harass Their Victims , and remember, next time you decide to blame the Chinese government for everything that happens in China, hold your tongue with forceps until the evidence—not opinions—proves guilt.

Consider that China has 1.3 billion people and only seventy million belong to the Communist party that rules the country. And regardless of popular Western opinions, the Chinese government does not control everything the Chinese people do with their daily lives and they never will.