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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
I can't help but getting the impression you much prefer to attack opponents integrity to addressing their claims, which rather suggests you can't address their claims. Care to prove that impression wrong? |
Nice try, but I have addressed his claims in numerous posts and provided numerous examples that prove his claims are false. I'll provide more later, although there is really no need to do so.
Mindseye's argument can be summed up as: he has met some Chinese people who are greedy and selfish, therefore, he concludes that 1.3 billion Chinese are greedy and selfish. His claim is so self-evidently flawed that it should not require evidence to prove it is wrong.
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by  Smiley
Military headcounts aren't the whole story - the US Army relies on contractors to do stuff such as cook food and drive trucks that other militaries do in-house. |
I think that's absolutely correct. Headcount is a poor indicator of military power in China's case, because in China the military serves other important purposes than just defense. For example, the military is the primary organization for dealing with natural disasters, of which China sadly seems to have so many (major killer floods, for example, have been a near-annual occurance for centuries).
I think the military also serves as sort of a state-sponsored safety valve for offering poor rural kids a path off the peasant farm. For many out in the Chinese "sticks", the military might be the only real chance to get an education. I think this is a significant reason for the army's enormous size. And really, as I have mentioned before, when you see some of the provincial soldiers wearing their "high-water" pants and civilian woollen sweaters or flannel shirts under their uniform jackets, riding around in pontoon-fendered 1930's-style trucks, you have to wonder just how potent a fighting force they represent.
As for the recent hardware and technology build-up, I think China is just playing catch-up. Are there many nations of comparable population or economic strength who have an insignificant military? Most great powers have a substantial military for a number of reasons (including national pride & prestige). I don't think China is so different in that respect.
I used to think that wars of agression just didn't fit the Chinese psyche very well - it was hard for me to imagine Chinese caring enough about another country to want to attack it (Taiwan aside). However the recent growth of anti-Japanese sentiment has been a little worrying, and I am now re-assessing that opinion. In general, I still feel that there really aren't many likely targets within China's reach (or near-future reach) which could possibly be worth the price of war, excepting the potential wild card of Taiwan.
Chinese people like to claim they are peaceful and not given to wars of aggression. While that claim may not be exactly historically correct, I have to say I'm generally I'm inclined to think that this is more or less true. Chinese have seen so very much upheaval and turmoil in the last 150 or so years, and have only recently begun to taste the prosperity of peaceful development. I don't think it's hard to see why most Chinese feel that national stability is the paramount priority, more important than things like political reform.
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DaShi
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The Taste of Japan
Sep 2000
time: 05:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Great, this is degenerating into another Sinophobic thread.
I dislike many things that China does, but I'll be the first to admit that the welfare of individual Chinese has been greatly improved in the last 15 years. I also believe that a sudden democratic revolution would probably be a bad thing. Look at Russia for example. |
Again, where are you in China, Aggie? We should hook up sometime.
quote:
But that doesn't mean that it isn't painfully obvious that many people simply resent the growing power of China for their own nationalistic reasons. I think that's silly – it won't make a difference anyway. Better to be accepting of the Chinese. The fact is that they aren't particularly belligerent anyway. They get pissed over territories that they think are theirs, and they do have good cases in many of those. What they don't have is the British, American, French ideal of travelling thousands of miles to make war on people for no good reason.
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I don't see any claiming nationalism here at all. Could you please point it out, if it's so obvious.
As for the belligerent claim. I'd say China is about as belligerent as any other nation. I've provided quite a few examples the last time we discussed this. Here's something that didn't come out in the papers concerning those peaceful Japanese riots: Not a single Japanese person was harmed during the riots. However, there were multiple cases of beatings of Chinese and Koreans, including some instances of murder. It seemed that in their furor some protestors didn't even bother to check the identity of their victims. Shocking from the Chinese, who are so much better and more peaceful than us.
I know what you'll say: this happens everywhere. Which means that we should just ignore it and talk about homicide cases by nutjobs in America, because they represent all westerners. Afterall we're only here to promote our nationalist agendas. 
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:34
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Ok, Tingkai, this post is for YOU.
Since I put a lot of work into it, I hope I can expect a reasoned response, at least something a little more reasoned than "no evidence is required because mindseye's racist arguments are self-evidentally flawed".
Below are what some others have to say on the topic of "ma mu" ("indifference") in China. The various writers have slightly different takes: "selfishness", "indifference", "apathy", "numbness", "lack of empathy", "voyeurism" (i.e. watching but not helping others in trouble), but they are all writing about aspects of the phenomena I was referring to, i.e. Chinese treat people they know very well, but treat strangers with utter disregard. I don't think any of these writers could be fairly called a "racist". Most of them live in, or have lived in China. In fact, some of the quotes are from mainland Chinese themselves.
I don't necessarily agree with every last conclusion voiced below. Rather, my point is to show that I am far from the only person who has noticed this aspect of mainland Chinese culture, and that I am not, as you have claimed, making unfounded racist generalizations from a few personal encounters. As for my own observations, they are based on hundreds if not thousands of incidents great and small, personally witnessed on a near-daily basis over the course of 4.5 years of living in China and studying its culture first-hand.
As you are reading, I hope you will pay special attention to phrases such as "widely commented on by foreigners", "nearly every expat I have known in China has many stories that validate this point", "veteran expats in Shanghai", "media around the country have carried many reports", "pervasive throughout the entire public space". These phrases appear to pose a significant problem for your claim that I have just picked a few biased, personal anecdotes and generalized.
The quotes below are excerpts, I have provided links to the original texts.
The first piece is a great starting point, a lengthy and thoughtful essay on the topic. The author is a Chinese-speaking American who lives in Shanghai, and a well-respected blogger.
quote:
Andres Gentry
(blog)
http://www.andresgentry.com/thought...nt_gratifi.html
Me first and the gimmie gimmies
(...)
This inability to see past your own person is something widely commented on by foreigners in China. It takes different forms: crowds that gather around accidents but do absolutely nothing to help the injured people, the prevalence of "mei you" when asking for something from someone who knows perfectly well they have it or know where it is, corruption that is an in-your-face expression of selfishness, and confusing government bureaucracies which are essentially codified no-responsibility zones.
All of these situations share a basic characteristic: only the very narrowly defined interests of a single person are considered. We can go through examples of each to get a better idea of this.
Yesterday (almost like manna from heaven for the purposes of this essay), there was a fire in the apartment block across the street from mine. I was walking back from buying vegetables at a nearby market and saw a gathering crowd and the unmistakeable scent of ash. The fire engines hadn't arrived yet, but I could predict what was going to happen: people would come running to stare, point, and laugh, but certainly not to help. I ran upstairs to get my camera to document it.
And it all happened as I had expected: people on foot, on bike, and even on motorized bicycle came galloping to the scene. A crowd many hundreds strong surrounded the apartment and chattered away on someone else's misfortune. Children ran across the fire hose lines, laughing as they jumped across them. It had the air of a fair or a carnival: someone else's misfortune was cause for their merriment.
(...)
The fact that a café (named "Mei You", or "Don't have it" - mindseye) would bank on the prevalence of the phrase to draw in customers is an unflattering commentary on the unwillingness of many Chinese to help out their fellow humans.
(...)
And that, indeed, is the crux of matters: things are so fashioned in China that oftentimes narrow-minded selfishness is the most reasonable choice. In simple terms, the culture rewards immorality.
From birth to old-age, the lesson of base selfishness is reinforced again and again. Your physical needs should be taken care of as soon as possible (he is referring to public urination and defecation - mindseye). If you are at a train station, screw everyone else and jump the queue because you want your train ticket now. As a government bureaucrat, steal as much as money as you can as quickly as you can because you might not have another opportunity at the trough. If you see someone else in pain, stare, amuse yourself, but never ever do something to help because if you help someone then you become responsible for that person and that is completely against your narrow self-interests.
This idea is sometimes taken to its logical, but most grotesque end. At accidents that occur at places and times where there are no witnesses, but one of the drivers is injured, the other driver sometimes intentionally hits the other person again to kill him. Why? Because if he stayed alive the other driver would be responsible for his medical bills, but if he's dead then he doesn't have an impact on the other driver's life or pocketbook. Pause and consider the twistedness of that. Then pause again to consider that such stories are common enough to make it onto CCTV.
Self-interest is not immoral by definition, but I think it is fair to say that in the above situations it has sufficiently metamorphasized into an indefensible immorality and I think it is also fair to say that its commonness points at deep problems in the culture itself. |
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quote:
Peking Duck
(blog)
Excerpt from a comments thread, written by Richard, the site's author
http://pekingduck.org/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2223
Sorry,but the mentality described (i.e. ma mu - mindseye) was never prevalent in America. There may have been gangs, there may have been violence, but never the ma mu described above, never the crowd that would gather around an injured person and not offer to help. I'll never forget when my boss in Beijing during my first week on the job told me how in China, if a person was lying on the sidewalk bleeding just about everyone would walk right past him. Now, there may be a lot of reasons for this, like a population so huge that you can't take everyone's problems on your own shoulders.But it is something unique to China, and nearly every expat I have known in China has stories that validate this point. Usually many, many stories, especially about the driving etiquette, which is where it comes out in a very scary way.
It was from here that Lu Xun began to develop his famous theories related to the Chinese propensity for voyeurism (mamu). As an essayist and short story writer, his manifesto was far from being political - instead, his target was the general pleasure Chinese people took in watching other people's suffering. In one such short story, entitled "Medicine", Lu depicted an execution scene of a woman, believed to be based on Qiu Jin, editor of the Chinese Women's Journal and one of the country's first feminist scholars, who was executed for a failed uprising. "Craning their necks as far as they would go, they looked like so many ducks, held and lifted by some invisible hand," Lu writes, equating his fellow countrymen with senseless waterfowl. |
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quote:
Running Dog
(blog)
http://www.running-dog.co.uk/news.asp?NewsItem=0115
Does being Chinese mean never having to say you're sorry?
(excerpt)
VETERAN EXPATS in Shanghai have usually come to terms with the fact that things are different here. They have lost the sort of moral disgust they felt when they first arrived, when they noticed the way that everyone on the street seemed lost in their own private world, attending directly to their personal concerns and caring very little about anyone else around them, particularly when it came to forming queues. If someone is in distress or requires help, the People's people turn away. The People's people don't get involved. And generally, the People's people never say sorry for anything. |
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quote:
China Through A Lens
Interview of famous director, playwright and photographer Feng Xiaoning
http://big5.china.com.cn/english/2002/Jul/36837.htm
(...)
(Lu Xun) quit his profession as a doctor and became a professional writer after seeing a movie in which, when a Chinese farmer was killed cruelly by Japanese soldiers, many of the Chinese audience laughed. Deeply hurt by people's numbness and indifference, Lu Xun began to use his pen to wake up those Chinese people who were lacking in basic national feelings. |
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quote:
City Weekend Magazine
(Shanghai-based monthly print magazine)
From an article on Lu Xun
Laura Johnson-Hill
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/en/be..._skin=printable
(...)
A patriot determined to improve what he viewed to be a national flaw, Lu Xun's reputation rapidly became one of a critic who would offer to write searing insight into the nation's flaws. And in many ways, say scholars, he hit the mark. "The voyeurism he described is alive and well today," says Wang Ling, a Beijing-based journalist.
(...)
"Lu Xun wouldn't be shocked to see voyeurism is still an issue today," says Sun Yu, curator of the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing. (...)"People would watch, but not really care. The idea is to look out for yourself." |
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quote:
Shanghai Star
(blog)
December 15, 2003
http://www.tuur.be/internet/cruelty.html
Cruelty and Crowds
(...)
The spectators just gather as observers to enjoy the spectacle (of an accident or fight). But these on-lookers murmuring and even joking are often accused of selfishness and apathy. Recently, media around the country have carried many reports criticizing such spectators.
In May this year, a man with a mental disorder in Xiangtan, in Central China's Hunan Province, attempted to commit suicide and climbed to the top of a six-storey building. After the police and rescuers had managed to calm the man down, hundreds of viewers on the street below started to cry, "Jump, jump". The man finally jumped off the building after a three-hour stand-off with the police. Applause and cheers burst out from among the crowd.
Last month, China Central Television reported that last year in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a 15-year-old girl was forced by another three girls to take off all her clothes and stand naked in public as punishment for stepping on one of the girl's feet.
The three even compelled the naked girl to parade through the streets among whistles and screams from surrounding viewers, yet no one stepped forward to stop the cruel behaviour. Four young men under the age of 18 from among the on-lookers then grabbed the scared girl, led her away and raped her.
"I was frightened," the victim told CCTV. "Yet, I was not afraid of the villains insulting me. It was the complicated expression in the viewers' eyes that scared me. It was these people who made me helpless."
In yet another incident, last month, a thief jumped into a canal in Ningbo, of East China's Zhejiang Province, after he was cornered by his pursuers. Many people stood around the canal and watched the thief drown in water. A man finally went down into water to pull the thief out after being promised by the police that he would receive a reward of 500 yuan (US$60).
Such phenomena are not new in China. Rather, they have deeply-rooted cultural connections to the country's long social evolution over thousands of years.
Cai Keping, a columnist, wrote that the great curiosity among Chinese resulted from the nature of an agricultural society, with farmers usually living dull and uneventful lives without variation or entertainment.
He recalled that when he was a child, local villagers would flock onto the narrow road, sometimes with bowls and chop-sticks still in their hands, to watch passing trucks, which were mysterious to them.
"Such spectators revealed a mentality of lowliness and self-belittlement," he said. "The viewers had been accustomed to following blindly, yet were unaware of this. The syndrome is a major defect of the Chinese personality."
Lu Xun, a great man of letters in China, was famous for his sharp criticism of Chinese people's inherent weaknesses, such as fatuity and indifference. He wrote in one article that when he was studying in Japan, his compatriots even cheered when seeing pictures of Chinese people beheaded in a film. He said such morally benighted people could only be senseless viewers or objects for public discussion, no matter how physically strong they were.
(...)
Lin also attributed Chinese's indifference to the lack of legal protection. He cited the traditional parting instruction of Chinese mothers to their sons: "Don't meddle in public affairs."
"That is because, in a society where legal protection is not given to personal rights, indifference is always safe and has an attractive side to it difficult for Westerners to appreciate," (renowned writer Lin Yutang) wrote.
He said that the indifference was not a natural characteristic of the people, but rather a conscious product of Chinese culture.
"The Chinese people take to indifference as the English take to umbrellas, because the political weather always looks a little ominous for the individual who ventures a little too far alone. In other words, indifference has a distinct 'survival-value' in China," he argued. |
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quote:
Beijing Review
(online Chinese news magazine)
R. Scott Macintosh
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/En-2005/05-16-e/expateye.htm
I, Me, Mine
(...)
Sadly, the “me first” attitude is not relegated to cars. It seems pervasive through the entire public space, encompassing bikes and rickshaws to those who push onto subways or into the front of a line. And it consistently tops Westerners’ biggest complaints about China.
(...)
In my experience of living in Beijing I have come to know the Chinese as wonderful people: friendly, accommodating, and incredibly sweet. So why don’t people behave that way in public? In the public sphere the paradox couldn’t be more drastic.
(...)
Another writer, Lu Xun, felt the indifference in Chinese society amounted to a lack of empathy for others, as illustrated by the voyeuristic tendency to rubberneck.
(...)
Chinese indifference can be difficult for Westerners. I watched recently, with a dozen or so others, as a woman and a child took a spill from a bike into the middle of the road. I wondered if I should break from the group to help her. I realized that if we were in Europe, or Latin America, or the United States, or somewhere else, some chivalrous chap might have dashed out to her aid. I’ve never felt comfortable with being the one who is first to prove their heroics, especially if the situation is minor. I feel embarrassed. And it seems like I’m embarrassing the other persons as well. So I stood with the others and watched as the woman struggled to pick up the bike and laughed uncomfortably. The kid was wide-eyed and trembling like a Chihuahua. The light turned green and the group walked past her. It felt strange to think that one does right by doing nothing at all and for a moment I felt caught in the crossfire of cultural ethics. Should I have helped her even though she did not expect help? Was it my place to set some kind of example? Would it have helped at all or caused her a further loss of face? Would I have been injecting the values of the West into a situation where it was not welcome? Is it best to adopt the social norms of the place you’re living or act in a way that is more becoming of the society you’re from? What would you have done? |
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quote:
China Herald
(blog)
Fons Tuinstra
http://www.chinaherald.net/2005_06_...ld_archive.html
(...)
In the big cities I do see that the importance of the place where people come from might sometimes lose some of its importance, but are then replaced by other alliances, that divide the Chinese. That lack of feeling of belonging to each other makes it very hard to develop any cooperation that surpasses region, educational and other divides. |
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One final mention: I'm told that Jasper Becker's latest book, "The Chinese", treats this social phenomenon in detail. I cannot quote from it because my copy is currently in transit from Amazon.com. However, Becker is a highly regarded Chinese-speaking sinologist, his recent work "Hungry Ghosts" was a ground-breaking study of the famines during the Great Leap Forward. He was the first westerner to do on-the-ground interviews and research in some of the rural provinces worst affected.
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Okay, Tingkai, there's my evidence. Now, let's see yours.
I'm looking forward to your reply, and sincerely hoping that it will rise above the name-calling and "no evidence is required" level you have displayed so far in this thread.
- mindseye
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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I'm catching up on the posts. If I miss anything important I'm sure you'll let me know.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Doctors: In China, emergency room personnel often refuse any sort of assistance until they first see some cash. Before surgery, patients usually give the doctor a "hongbao" (red envelope filled with cash) to insure the doctor takes care in his work.
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Doctors asking for to be paid. How shocking! Why can't they be humanitarians and work for free, like doctors in the United States and Canada
Asking for in the ER! Well that never happens anywhere. If you walk into an ER in the US without insurance, will you get first class treatment.
Giving what I would call lai see to a doctor is simply a cultural specific method of paying a bill.
The fact that doctors ask to get paid does not mean they're only in it for the money. Given the intelligence required to be a doctor, if they were really greedy then they would be businessmen.
Why do people become doctors? Prestige, is probably the main reason. A willingness to help people is up there too, although admittedly I have met doctors who behave as if patients were unnecessary nucisence.
Still, this proves that Chinese people do not necessarily put personal profit primarily over public welfare.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Police: You must be joking! As one of my Chinese friends put it, "In China the only difference between police and criminals is their employer." (guess that Chinese friend is a racist, eh Tingkai?) That doesn't mean that all police are thugs, I've met some that seemed really nice.
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But that's exactly my point. As you mention, some cops are crocked, some become cops because they want to serve their community. They sign up to catch crooks for the betterment of the general welfare. Unfortunately in China, arresting crooks often means arresting peaceful protesters.
Still, this proves that Chinese people do not necessarily put personal profit primarily over public welfare.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Teachers: I often ask students about their career aspirations. Those who choose teaching are of particular interest to me. Unfortunately, I am dismayed by the number one stated reason for wanting to become a teacher: you get a long vacation. 
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It's called a joke.
In Chinese culture, are held in respect. In some cases this creates unfortunate problems.
See: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/21/news/china.php
Despite scumbags like the ones mentioned in that article, teachers in China would choose that profession because it garners respect, because they like teaching and probably for job security. But if they were interested primarily in profit, becoming a teacher in China is not the way to go.
Once again, this proves that Chinese people do not necessarily put personal profit primarily over public welfare.
We agree on one thing, the flooding of the school at Shalan was a terrible tragedy.
Where we differ is that you seem willing to judge the people there based on incomplete, conflicting information.
Some reports say that the town officials refused to do anything, and the cops could not be reached. Other reports say the town officials could not be reached and the cops refused to do anything.
Whoever refused, if that indeed happened, should be put in jail. But we don't know whether this actually happened.
The cops were reportedly slow to respond. Why? Maybe they were lazy and sleeping on the job. Or maybe they didn't have radios so they didn't know what was happening. Your guess is as good as mine, but for now it is just a guess.
The teachers had cellphones, apparently, but did the people who knew the flood was coming have the teacher's cell phone numbers?
The cop giving out tickets could have been a stupid bureaucrat, or maybe the cop didn't know about the disaster and simply saw cars speeding by.
One of parent complained about the police chief who stood watching. Well, he could have been lazy, but what is more likely is that as the officer in charge he was busy organizing the rescue. I've heard similar complaints while covering natural disasters as a reporter, and the person in charge is actually quite busy, although a passerby might think he's just standing there doing nothing.
As for the cops closing off the area, the same thing happens in a disaster in North America. It's called crowd control and it is used so that the crowds don't interfere with the rescue operations.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
quote:
What really shocked parents was that while some teachers risked their lives to help their students, others climbed to higher ground and abandoned the young. "There is only one little girl left in the first grade," said Sun Xiuqin, the mother of the 10-year-old boy who survived. "When we got there, we saw their teachers standing on the roof. Those were 7- and 8-year-olds. How could they have fended for themselves?" |
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It's perfectly understandable why the mother is angry, it's part of the grief process.
But imagine you are a teacher with a class of 20 Grade one kids. You're in your classroom when suddenly a flashflood hits. You try to get the kids out, but the water is pouring intrough the classroom door. How many kids can you save. The water rises, its swirling around, pulling kids under. How many kids can you save? Some of the kids can't swim. How may can you save? The water rises above the door. How do you save the kids.
Maybe you grab a couple of the kids and pull them to safety. You're probably exhausted, right? You're in shock. And what happens? Even though you save a couple of kids, some parent sees you and they think, that guy left the kids behind.
Or, maybe you panic. The water rushes in, you're scared, the water is pulling you this way and that way. You freak out and then you swim for safety. And for the rest of your life you live with the idea that you're a coward.
I'm not going to judge those teachers. You can if you want, but I won't.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Parents were given an offer of compensation (many were indignant over the amount), but they had to sign a waiver stating they would not hold authorities responsible for their children's deaths. The parents, mostly poor farmers, had little choice.
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They were offered 150,000 rmb, they want 400,000 rmb
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=3509
Is the government being cheap? Well, the offer is about 15 years worth of an average urban worker's salary, probably 30 year's income for a farmer.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/34367.htm
Are the parents being greedy? I suspect they're angry at the government for failing to protect their kids. But I don't know. I have never been in their situation.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
My point is this: in how many countries does stuff like this happen regularly?
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In developing countries, this happens, unfortunately, all too often. Thousands die every year from floods. In Bangladesh it seems to happen on an annual basis.
Last November, 300 people died in floods in the Philippines. The floods and landslides were made worse by illegal logging.
Almost every year, a typhoon will hit Hong Kong. Usually no one dies, because Hong Kong is a rich city and building here are well built, but when the typhoon reaches the Mainland, people are killed.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Well, I'm not terribly surprised you would sum up my argument that way, but I think anyone who bothered to read what I wrote might get a different take.
By the way, have you ever - even once - set foot in mainland China? Just wondering. |
Then provide your own quick summary. I based my comments on your initial quote and on what you have posted. It's a fair summary.
As for visiting the mainland, I was first there in 1981. In 97-98 I was there on a regular basis as a journalist and as a traveller. So yes, I have set foot on the mainland many times.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
if a sample is small, it is necessarily unrepresentative? |
The sample size is small and unscientific. It a series of anecdotes based on what he wants to see.
And yes, the sample size is likely too small, even if it was done scientifically, for such a vast population and given the different sub-cultures that exist in China.
If you went to San Francisco and formed an opinion about that society, would that opinion be valid for Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Idaho, etc? Would it be correct to say that the majority of Americans accept gays without prejudice and believe that gays should be married?
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
News that I'm a racist may come as a surprise to the many Chinese I am honored to call my friends, co-workers, neighbors, students, clients, and dates, or to those who know what I gave up to come and voluntarily live here for 4-1/2 years and counting.
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So of all your many friends, do you say that all of them care about profit first, and are rude to strangers, and they would never help out a stranger who is trouble. That they would watch a person drown rather than get wet.
If you think like that, I wouldn't want you as a friend.
But I strongly suspect that you don't think that way. That your friends are good people and you believe them to be decent human beings, some more decent than others, but decent nonetheless.
In other words, take your statements and apply them to your friends. Are they really that uncaring?
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Last Conformist
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of Calakmul
Jul 2003
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
The sample size is small and unscientific. It a series of anecdotes based on what he wants to see.
And yes, the sample size is likely too small, even if it was done scientifically, for such a vast population and given the different sub-cultures that exist in China.
If you went to San Francisco and formed an opinion about that society, would that opinion be valid for Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Idaho, etc? Would it be correct to say that the majority of Americans accept gays without prejudice and believe that gays should be married? |
Are you purposefully missing the point or something?
Let me offer an analogy. Say you've got a sack of 100 glass beads of unknown colour. I pick a bead, and find it's green. Clearly, I would not be justified in saying that all or most of the beads are green. Equally clearly, you'd not be justified in saying that since the sample is too small, clearly most of the beads aren't green.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Example: many westerners have witnessed the sight of a huge crowd gathered around someone in distress, but no one helping. Someone struck by a car may lie bleeding in the street. 100 - 200 people may come running from blocks away to gather around and ogle (inevitably, there will be a few @ssholes laughing and joking). But not a soul will assist the victim. Because they are a stranger.
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So what did those westerners do? I imagine that they charged in, took control, and save the injured person.
Have you never been on a highway where there's a car accident. What do people do? They slow down and gawk to see what's happening. Maybe they'll pull over and go take a real close look.
If some one falls and hurts themselves on a city street, people stop to stare.
Some might laugh, it's humor to take the edge off of something horrible (cops and ambulances drivers do all the time, although in private, it's a coping mechanism).
Or how about homeless people on the street. People will walk by, averting their eyes, ignoring what they see.
What you describe happening in China, happens everywhere.
And why? Curiosity stops people, and then a lot of people don't know what to do.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
Are you purposefully missing the point or something?
Let me offer an analogy. Say you've got a sack of 100 glass beads of unknown colour. I pick a bead, and find it's green. Clearly, I would not be justified in saying that all or most of the beads are green. Equally clearly, you'd not be justified in saying that since the sample is too small, clearly most of the beads aren't green. |
Have I said that all Chinese are not greedy and that all Chinese do not care about their fellow men. NO!
To use your analogy, what I am saying is that you can't describe the contents of a bag based on a limited sample. Hell, there might be something other then glass beads in the bag.
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21-06-2005 11:14
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This was the same BS he gave me before he put me on his ignore list. I showed him how all his points were basically wrong and he still kept claiming he had presented evidence to support his case.
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