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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Gambling for “Face” – Part 4/4

February 18, 2010

For the Chinese, taking risks is no stranger. It’s probably the reason the Chinese invented paper, the printing press, gunpowder, built multi-stage rockets centuries before anyone in the West did, and the cross bow—China’s list of revolutionary inventions is long so I’ll stop here. Many eventually appeared in the West where Westerners took credit for them. Now you know the truth.

In “What the Chinese Want even More than Oil or Gold”, the focus was on Chinese gambling and about illegal lotteries going legal and national. Since I married into a Chinese family, I understand what the author of this piece is saying, but the topic is more complex than that.

To learn more, I suggest you read the Investoralist, “Where Curious Minds Meet”. The Investorilist piece says that gambling is China’s Achilles heel.

I disagree.

I believe it is risk taking that brought China to greatness in the past.  It’s when most Chinese stopped taking risks that China lost its spot as a regional superpower. It’s all about Face.  Take a risk and win but make a mistake and get caught, you lose ‘Face’ and maybe your life too. Countries like China, Japan and Korea have a high suicide rate.

Return to Part 1 or discover Where Are the Parents

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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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Honor Chinese Style – Part 3

February 5, 2010

In 1935, Lin Yutang wrote, “Face cannot be translated or defined. It is like honor and is not honor. It cannot be purchased with money, and gives a man or a woman a material pride. It is hollow and is what men fight for and what many women die for.

“It is invisible and yet by definition exits by being shown to the public. It exists in the ether and yet can be heard, and sounds eminently respectable and solid. It is amenable, not to reason but to social convention.

“It protracts lawsuits, breaks up family fortunes, causes murders and suicides, and yet it often makes man out of a renegade who has been insulted by his fellow townsmen, and it is prized above all earthy possession.

“It is more powerful than fate and favor, and more respected than the constitution. It often decides a military victory or defeat, and can demolish a whole government ministry. It is that hollow thing which men in China live by.” (Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, Halcyon House, New York, NY, 1938, page 200)

Chinese like Yue Fei and Guan Yu were honorable men and gained much face because of their beliefs and behavior.

When anyone in China reacts to anything, politically or personally, honor plays a big role. It doesn’t matter if one is a member of the Communist Party, a farmer or a factory worker or one of the wealthiest members of the new capitalist elite.

Most Chinese measure what is important in life by a different standard than the rest of the world.

Discover Honor Chinese Style – Part 1

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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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Earthquakes, Spoiled Formula and Kidnappings – Part 2

February 3, 2010

Terrible things did happen under Stalin and Mao.  Tens of millions died due to the policies of these dictators.  However, that isn’t true today.

Most Chinese do not like to display their dirty laundry in public for the world to see.  I believe I talked about this on the The Dr. Pat Show, or one of the other radio talk shows I was a guest on in 2008.

The primary reason for the way the Chinese handle embarrassing situations like these is that most Chinese do not like to lose face. If one Chinese citizen does something wrong and gains the attention of the world’s media, most Chinese feel as if they are seen as guilty too. To learn more,  See what Lin Yutang wrote about face.

See Part 1

Further reading:
Time: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100121/wl_time/08599195464400

 Associated Press: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_hi_te/as_china_google

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of the award winning My Splendid Concubine and writes The Soulful Veteran and Crazy Normal.