Can foreigners ever understand Chinese culture?

[holyman]

Unless you can think of a new denomination for yourself that is equivalent to a new ethnicity, then very simply -- 'yes.'

please, chinese at present is not an ethnicity strictly speaking, just a differentiation in citizenship, ie, the passport u hold. therefore 'chinese' born and live outside china have no 'china=motherland' thingy with them. do u think any american, say, with british or irish descend take UK as their 'motherland'?

[Disenchant]

Han chinese is most definitely an ethnicity. Most Americans are usually not of one European descent or even two or three, so the only category they could definitively put themselves into is 'caucasian' or actually just 'European,' since caucasian anthropologically can mean a couple more things. And yes, they very much acknowledge that's their ancestral lands, especially the conservatives. The Chinese disapora is usually not riddled with inter-racial or even inter-ethnic marriages. ABCs usually marry other ABCs (Census bureau stats), because after all, the racial barrier (or even the subspecial barrier as some paleo-conservatives would like to deem it, though that's fallacious) is very real and visible.

[Green Pea]

all the characteristics imbedded with upbringing.

Such as?

With China's regional variations akin to the magnitude and variety of Europe, one must be a real arrogant sob to self-proclaim understanding of Chinese culture if not only on a super-watered down, superficial level.

So suddenly there are mulitple Chinese cultures due to regional variations? Are you are saying foreigners can't understand Chinese culture because there are so many, but Chinese can understand all these multiple cultures? Perhaps there really is no universal Chinese culture at all? Or perhaps Chinese don't understand Chinese culture either?

My position is: Foreigners and Chinese can understand Chinese culture. Most foreigners and Chinese do not understand Chinese culture.

lol...where can I find this ubermensch that can understand 1/5 of the world's culture in a matter of several weeks (and presumably all of the world's culture in several months)? Pipe dream.

If 1/5 of the world can get it, then how complicated can it really be?

Pipe dream? What if it is really possible? How would that change your concept of culture?

Han chinese is most definitely an ethnicity. Most Americans are usually not of one European descent or even two or three, so the only category they could definitively put themselves into is 'caucasian' or actually just 'European,' since caucasian anthropologically can mean a couple more things.

Categorising people is important to you, huh? How about categorising them as "earthlings", even though there are probably some exceptions.

[holyman]

Han chinese is most definitely an ethnicity. Most Americans are usually not of one European descent or even two or three, so the only category they could definitively put themselves into is 'caucasian' or actually just 'European,' since caucasian anthropologically can mean a couple more things. And yes, they very much acknowledge that's their ancestral lands, especially the conservatives.

'han' chinese? let's see, huangdi and yandi fought, assimilated the latter. then they chased away chi'you, a dong'yi leader, assimilated his clan, now that makes 3. the line goes down to xia and shang, shang and zhou, zhou is another add-on, then later on qin and chu joined, one is xi'rong and the other is nan'man... among qin, qin conquered ba and shu, present sichuan, another 2 add-on. then liu bang came along later on, whoala, 'han' chinese, an 'ethnicity'. so we go on han conquering the huns, koreans, oh yes, the yue below south. after 3 kingdoms, wei and jin, the five barbarians conquered northern china... dang'xiang, tongus, qiang, whatever, all came inside the great wall. then later on we had the mongols and the manchus. now tell me about han chinese...

so do u actually call an american a 'european' in ur daily life? what about a native american? what about a black american? u call them 'europeans' too? what about an american with asian descend? do they see europe as their 'motherland'? 'most' american? how 'most' is 'most'? percentage?

[ala]

Han chinese is most definitely an ethnicity. Most Americans are usually not of one European descent or even two or three, so the only category they could definitively put themselves into is 'caucasian' or actually just 'European,' since caucasian anthropologically can mean a couple more things.

No. Han Chinese is a general cultural identity, it has very little to do with descent and anthropological traits. A Han Chinese is quite similar to a white Western European. In other words, the fractionalism in Europe can be just as easily replicated in China given the right circumstances (CCP's greatest fear). There is a common saying in China, one who is a Han Chinese is one who has decided to abandon affirmative action policies of a minority, to assimilate with the dominant cultural flow.

[holyman]

“当时之所谓胡人汉人，大抵以胡化汉化而不以胡种汉种为分别，即文化之关系较重而种族之关系较轻”

----陈寅恪

[Disenchant]

If 1/5 of the world can get it, then how complicated can it really be?

Pipe dream? What if it is really possible? How would that change your concept of culture?

What would happen if you realized the only argumentative foundations you have are arbitrary (nescient) notions and wishy-washy, rhetorical questions? You don't have to ask questions like "such as?" when the answer is directly in the passage before it.

As for the multiplicity of Chinese culture, that has always been present and visible -- it needs no further rationalization. Whether all Chinese people understand all regional niceties is really an unnecessary query. We're not all dedicated sociologists. Some of us don't care. We internalize the rudiments of our 本地文化 and acknowledge other areas has divergences, but there remains sufficient commonalties that the Han populace promotes solidarity as opposed to regional jingoism.

Foreigners (especially Americans used to cultural uniformity) usually go for the one-size-fits-all bit, or they take their simple observations of decadent, urban life of one or two cities and superimpose it over all of China. It happens even for people who have lived in China for years, of the journal/logs I've read. There's a subconscious impulse to apply occidental posturing to Chinese life (basically shoving a square peg through a circle hole), and the cultural chauvinism indoctrinated at youth is very hard to kill even for the best of us.

---

'han' chinese? let's see, huangdi and yandi fought, assimilated the latter. then they chased away chi'you, a dong'yi leader, assimilated his clan, now that makes 3.---snip

You really do you have a proclivity on not focusing on the point of matters. Everybody and their grandmother already knows that drivel. Distinguishing the sub-Han groups' ancestries is not important, as the terminology itself was only coined two hundred years ago. What matters are perceptions of what the Han denomination means right now. With the integration of China today, there exist almost no impetus for regional warlordism even if the CCP were to falter. No one cares if they might have 1/1024 Toba Turk blood or something. The Han ethnicity is acknowledged internally for the most part and worldwide (it’s even in foreign textbooks).

what about a native american? what about a black american? u call them 'europeans' too? what about an american with asian descend? do they see europe as their 'motherland'? 'most' american? how 'most' is 'most'? percentage?

Obfuscating a very simple concept isn't going to get you anywhere. The whites know they're from Europe; the blacks know they come from Africa. The Native Americans, for the most part, are also from Europe, since you could probably count the number of full-blooded Amerindians on one hand [i know for sure there's less than 5 for Cherokee, and zero Mohegans], and they only register themselves as Native American to receive benefits. But since you seem convinced that your mother/ancestral land isn't China, why don't you go tell a native (or white) citizen of [whatever nationality you're from] that you think [whatever country you're in] is your mother/ancestral land. Grab a stop watch, and tell me how many seconds it takes for you to get laughed out of the building.

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In other words, the fractionalism in Europe can be just as easily replicated in China given the right circumstances (CCP's greatest fear).

If you mean within the Han ethnicity and not to the separatist minorities, then no, not a chance in hell, with modern day integration.

[Green Pea]

You don't have to ask questions like "such as?" when the answer is directly in the passage before it.

Yes I do, because you still haven't answered the question. Punctilio and weltanschauung don't cut it.

As for the multiplicity of Chinese culture

No, I said multiple Chinese cultures. Nice try, though.

Some of us don't care. We internalize the rudiments of our 本地文化 and acknowledge other areas has divergences, but there remains sufficient commonalties that the Han populace promotes solidarity as opposed to regional jingoism.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. There is only one main Chinese culture and it's fine to have a "don't care" attitude to regional variances. For the sake of argument, I can go along with that. Foreigners therefore should only need to understand the rudiments of 本地文化 in order to understand Chinese culture. But again, no one has been able to tell me or otherwise explain what these rudiments are. Can you?

Foreigners (especially Americans used to cultural uniformity) usually go for the one-size-fits-all bit, or they take their simple observations of decadent, urban life of one or two cities and superimpose it over all of China. It happens even for people who have lived in China for years, of the journal/logs I've read. There's a subconscious impulse to apply occidental posturing to Chinese life (basically shoving a square peg through a circle hole), and the cultural chauvinism indoctrinated at youth is very hard to kill even for the best of us.

I can agree with most of this. And, then I can replace "foreigners" with "Chinese" and agree with that too. Your argument has nothing to do with Chinese/foreign issues, but everything to do with how cultures generalise. In order to "be Chinese" through my understanding of "Chinese culture", all I have to do is to start generalising as Chinese do. Specifically, then how do Chinese generalise?

[ala]

With the integration of China today' date=' there exist almost no impetus for regional warlordism even if the CCP were to falter.

If you mean within the Han ethnicity and not to the separatist minorities, then no, not a chance in hell, with modern day integration.[/quote']

I do mean within the Han ethnicity. No chance in hell? Who do you think the pro-independence Taiwanese are? Polynesians? Regionalism in China is growing stronger by the day, and will continue to grow as economic markets become localized by geographic and linguistic boundaries, and competition arises between these markets. With economic power comes political influence and independence. Go check out the Chinese forums, it's full of regionalist jingoism. Even Peking University's linguistics discussions are politically charged with regionalism and calls for greater sense of self-identity (check out the Shanghainese and Fujianese posters there).

The integration you see in China today is mostly superficial and strongly imposed, and can be erased in a few generations. There is a reason why nationalism in China is even today notoriously low (collective anti-Japanese sentiment does not make Chinese nationalism). If the CCP falls, the likelihood of China fractionalizing is very high, the best possible scenario would be a federal system, the worst would be massive secessions.

[Disenchant]

Punctilio and weltanschauung don't cut it.

They cut it just fine. Both are dictated by cultural upbringing and not idiosyncratic volition.

No, I said multiple Chinese cultures. Nice try, though.

Good job. You just made a completely void reply.

There is no one main Chinese culture; the parts make the whole. Even if there were one, it wouldn’t be visible to foreigners, because its prevalence would be in the rural villages.

This is becoming tedious, because you are arbitrarily interpreting and dismissing the points I raise. My abstraction for ‘understanding’ would go beyond basic inference. There must be the competency to trace causality all the way to the source. Ex: A man offers to pay the dinner bill even though he has little money. A simple reconstruction of motives and cultural cause (as you deemed sufficient) of the dinner bill ritual only presents routine ostentation. It’s observed; conjectures are made (probably erroneously), and in the end, you will still have little grasping for why it happened. The fostering of such values and traditions is missing – it’s difficult to even pretentiously empathize when you don’t have anything interchangeable to empathize with. To live it is to understand, and something I disagree with you unequivocally is – emotional contexts can’t be reconstructed. This lack of understanding isn’t exclusively rife in foreign/Chinese contexts, but also generation gaps. Younger generation Chinese kids wouldn’t understand why their parents haggle over who pays the dinner bills among their close friends (知己) either [they may even become embarrassed]. They didn’t live through the asperities of 大跃进 and 文革; they don’t understand the communal bonds.

A simple reconstruction yields a simple, half-assed window into Chinese culture. What many foreigners claim to understand of Chinese culture are only notations of cultural peculiarities. For the most part, I think that’s adequate…for foreigners.

Your argument has nothing to do with Chinese/foreign issues, but everything to do with how cultures generalise. In order to "be Chinese" through my understanding of "Chinese culture", all I have to do is to start generalising as Chinese do. Specifically, then how do Chinese generalise?

重庆人说话像男孩子；成都人说话像女孩子？ My argument has everything to do with foreign/Chinese issues. Generalizing is not understanding. It’s even weaker than attempted reconstruction. You know what -- I don’t care anymore. Redundancy grates on my nerves more than anything.

---

Regionalism in China is growing stronger by the day, and will continue to grow as economic markets become localized by geographic and linguistic boundaries, and competition arises between these markets.

This is all very much anticipated. As 共产党 liberalizes more and more, the suppressed regional cultures will spring back up more. A movement toward greater self-identity is reasonable, but forecasting market splits and consequently secession is just alarmist. It won’t happen, because the integration is real; it’s physical [物质] in the way of infrastructure between cities. The more accessible and greater facilitation intra-nation trade becomes, the less of an impetus there will be for secessionism. Businesses and industries are not secluded in regional vacuums, and linguistic boundaries are not really boundaries with migrant (and white-collared) worker movements acting as dilution. Today’s China retains nearly none of the isolation that provided the ripe environment for warlordism of the past. The railroad tracks are all the same sizes. You’re dealing with apples and oranges.

Taiwan, in my point view, is just pretentious when it *attempts* to pass off culture as an actual impediment for reunification. The political and economic concessions are the whole of the concerns with reunification. There is also some socio-economic chauvinism, but that is something ‘that can erased in a few generations.’

[roddy]

I don’t care anymore

Still doing an awful lot of typing for someone who doesn't care.

So, who DOES understand Chinese culture then?

Roddy

[Green Pea]

Quote:

Punctilio and weltanschauung don't cut it.

They cut it just fine. Both are dictated by cultural upbringing and not idiosyncratic volition.

So when your kids are born, you just say "Punctilio and weltanschauung" to them for 20 years, and they magically understand Chinese culture?

To live it is to understand, and something I disagree with you unequivocally is – emotional contexts can’t be reconstructed.

If emotional contexts can't be reconstructed, then Chinese culture wouldn't be able to perpetuate itself. Reconstruction has happened everyday for 5,000 years for 1/5th of the world's population. Parents reconstruct these contexts to instill their culture in their children.

A simple reconstruction yields a simple, half-assed window into Chinese culture. What many foreigners claim to understand of Chinese culture are only notations of cultural peculiarities. For the most part, I think that’s adequate…for foreigners.

This is partly true. Many foreigners just observe cultural peculiarities. I'm not looking for a simple reconstruction, but a very detailed one. You have yet to provide anything for these, but only hide behind "emotion" and "upbringing" believing I can't understand either. Maybe I can. You're beginning to sound like so many girlfriends past whining "You don't understand me!"

重庆人说话像男孩子；成都人说话像女孩子？ My argument has everything to do with foreign/Chinese issues. Generalizing is not understanding. It’s even weaker than attempted reconstruction. You know what -- I don’t care anymore. Redundancy grates on my nerves more than anything.

No, you made a sweeping generalisation about foreigners, accusing them of sweeping generalisations: "shoving a square peg through a circle". That's why I try to avoid generalising, because as you suggest, generalisation is not understanding. I am still waiting for you to be specific though.

Your nerves are getting grated already? Stop stating that foreigners can't understand Chinese culture.

[holyman]

Distinguishing the sub-Han groups' ancestries is not important, as the terminology itself was only coined two hundred years ago. What matters are perceptions of what the Han denomination means right now. With the integration of China today, there exist almost no impetus for regional warlordism even if the CCP were to falter. No one cares if they might have 1/1024 Toba Turk blood or something. The Han ethnicity is acknowledged internally for the most part and worldwide (it’s even in foreign textbooks).

so what's the meaning of the han denomination right now? if that's what u mean, why china still distinguish its 56 different 'races'? why not just call them 'han' as well?

[ala]

so what's the meaning of the han denomination right now? if that's what u mean, why china still distinguish its 56 different 'races'? why not just call them 'han' as well?

The 55 other ethnicities get token affirmative action, get to dance in traditional dresses on CCTV, and the women and children have photoops with the People's Daily. Oh yeah, they can have their own official writing, while the Han subgroups do not get such treatment.

It won’t happen, because the integration is real; it’s physical [物质'] in the way of infrastructure between cities.

You should be more aware that physical infrastructure in China is regionalized as well. In fact, in the next 5 years, massive expressways connecting Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai will be built on top of exising systems by the local governments. A local high-speed train will connect these cities as well. At the same time, Shanghai has just some very basic physical links with other cities besides Beijing. I'm not being alarmist, I'm just saying that a country as large as China will naturally tend toward a less bloated federal system under liberalized economics. Once that trend fully manifests, you and I cannot predict the outcome.

And linguistic boundaries are likely to remain for a long long time. If anything, they will become more sharply defined in the coming years when businesses try to more intimately appeal to their markets, abandoning the one-size-fits-all approach. Migrant workers are a temporary phenomenon, very few migrant workers have actually permanently settled in the large cities. In fact the presence of migrant workers have only served to raise the self-identity of the local population and that of the migrants.

[Disenchant]

If emotional contexts can't be reconstructed, then Chinese culture wouldn't be able to perpetuate itself. Reconstruction has happened everyday for 5,000 years for 1/5th of the world's population. Parents reconstruct these contexts to instill their culture in their children.

I’m going to make this short and sweet. Children are blank slates at birth. Yes, there are genetic predispositions (I’m not going get into that nature/nurture percentage thing), but in terms of culture, they are wholly imprinted by their family and society. Once the child is imprinted, every other culture is secondary to the initial one, and perceptions revolve around it -- 先入为主. As children grow into the culture, they don’t need to have anything reconstructed for them to understand it, because they live in it.

No, you made a sweeping generalisation about foreigners, accusing them of sweeping generalisations: "shoving a square peg through a circle".

My generalizations are more anecdotal than anything.

Stop stating that foreigners can't understand Chinese culture.

Right, because you’ve convinced me. Other than playing devil’s advocate, your platform’s flimsy as hell.

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… in the next 5 years, massive expressways connecting Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai will be built on top of exising systems by the local governments. A local high-speed train will connect these cities as well.

这么彰明较著的事你还用的着指出来? 基础建设那方面自然是地方优先. 长沙 and 武汉 (我老家) are being connected by massive expressways as well, and I haven't been notified of any 复楚之心. But maybe I'm being kept out of the loop. 无论如何, 到达2010时, 公路总长度也延长到7万里左右了. 再过十年，距离加

倍. 我们是会越来越接近 -- 无法抵赖. 再说, 共产党现在挺稳定的.

If anything, they will become more sharply defined in the coming years when businesses try to more intimately appeal to their markets, abandoning the one-size-fits-all approach. Migrant workers are a temporary phenomenon, very few migrant workers have actually permanently settled in the large cities. In fact the presence of migrant workers have only served to raise the self-identity of the local population and that of the migrants.

Businesses are already appealing to regional markets. Not only domestic enterprises, but foreign MNCs as well. It’s not some newfangled phenomenon. How you get from market accommodation to market segregation takes a leap of logic. Migrant workers are a temporary phenomenon in the way…that they will always be there (whether or not the same ones is moot)? And in increasing numbers over the years? I’m going to have to disagree with you on the self-identity accentuation of the local population as a result, because that’s not what it is. 那是小市民瞧不起农转非. 若是真的会有分裂冲突, 是会由于城乡相差引起. Sound familiar? It’s historical déjà vu. Those internet dorks (middle-class city dwellers) at the university forums 是无风起浪. Middle-class and wealthy people don’t go out of their way to disrupt their lifestyles with unnecessary splittism.

[ala]

那是小市民瞧不起农转非. 若是真的会有分裂冲突, 是会由于城乡相差引起.

Give me a break.. It has far less to do with urban-rural disparity than cultural and linguistic barriers. More and more urban dwellers are in fact leaving cities and going to smaller neighboring towns and cities. Rural population from the same region are viewed as far closer and relatable than rural population from a more distant region. For example, more than 90% of Shanghai's population comes from Zhejiang and Jiangsu, these people do not view populations from those provinces (southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang) on the same level as they view migrant populations from Anhui, northern Jiangsu, Fujian, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, etc. Linguistic and cultural boundaries play a huge role in this (especially pertaining the 苏北/苏南 northern-southern Jiangsu split). 苏南's economy is heavily dependent on Shanghai and is the cultural parent of Shanghai, it is also far wealthier than 苏北. Even dialects in the 苏南 region are beginning to sound like 新派上海话.

To lump this into an urban-rural issue is vastly oversimplifying the reality.

[Disenchant]

Eh...okay. I guess I'll take your word for it. I don't go to Shanghai too often, and I've never cared to learn or even familiarize myself with the culture. But I have met more than enough 'characters' there that fit my reasoning. I see it in Wuhan and Chengdu too -- it's pervasively repulsive.

[shibo77]

'han' chinese? let's see, huangdi and yandi fought, assimilated the latter. then they chased away chi'you, a dong'yi leader, assimilated his clan, now that makes 3. the line goes down to xia and shang, shang and zhou, zhou is another add-on, then later on qin and chu joined, one is xi'rong and the other is nan'man... among qin, qin conquered ba and shu, present sichuan, another 2 add-on. then liu bang came along later on, whoala, 'han' chinese, an 'ethnicity'. so we go on han conquering the huns, koreans, oh yes, the yue below south. after 3 kingdoms, wei and jin, the five barbarians conquered northern china... dang'xiang, tongus, qiang, whatever, all came inside the great wall. then later on we had the mongols and the manchus. now tell me about han chinese...

And what would be an English person??

Is it an Indonesian immigrant living in England?

Is it a Norman?

Is it a Saxon?

Is it a Danish?

Is it a Roman?

Is it a Celt?

Is it of that mysterious race who built the Stonehenge?

All people at the present moment can trace back to a limited time period.

Just as the "Han" trace back to a certain time period.

China is a united nation, and there is a standard Chinese culture which a majority of the regions follow/ adhere to. Just as a certain European culture, a certain Islamic culture ...

Of course there are regional variations, but they are mostly similar, similar enough to be labeled into one group "(Han) Chinese".

To understand Chinese culture is understanding the diversity and the standard. Just as understanding European culture or Islamic culture.

Chinese, foreigners are all human, same brain, same understanding. Of course foreigners can understand Chinese culture just as a Chinese can understand a foreign culture like European or Islamic...

Chinese and the chinese culture is pretty conservative and xenophobic, and like to be kept mysterious(try reading 易经). With this regard, many would say that foreigners can't understand the Chinese culture.

-Shibo

[holyman]

that post is a little o.t..

reason i wrote that was becos Disenchant suggest that all chinese should take china as their motherland, therefore as an 'ethnic chinese' i shouldnt be speaking ill of the 'motherland'. so i told him nowadays the term 'chinese', like 'americans' or 'british', should only refer to the nationality of a person, meaning 'what passport he's holding', instead of ethnicity. later he add a new condition to 'chinese' to prove his point, 'han chinese' refers to an ethnicity, so again i tell him, han itself is also a collective term, not referring to a specific race.

u see, back to the time of han dynasty, the han emperor had quite a number of huns and koreans as his subjects, his officials, and even as his generals when waging campaigns against the huns. they are called han officials or han generals, as stated in history books. so 'han' doesnt say anything about their racial content. the same thing goes for terms like 'tang ren', 'song ren', 'ming ren'. they have no connection to racial content, just stating which dynasty/emperor these people served, or what culture they adopted. and 'yuan ren' or 'qing ren' doesnt mean all the chinese populace at that time are mongols or manchus.

[Green Pea]

I’m going to make this short and sweet. Children are blank slates at birth. Yes, there are genetic predispositions (I’m not going get into that nature/nurture percentage thing), but in terms of culture, they are wholly imprinted by their family and society. Once the child is imprinted, every other culture is secondary to the initial one, and perceptions revolve around it -- 先入为主. As children grow into the culture, they don’t need to have anything reconstructed for them to understand it, because they live in it.

Some people long exposed to different cultures can simply switch their protocol whenever the situation requires it. Like an actor, haven't you ever seen people just go from one operating culture to the next? To do this well, one has probably created emotional responses to amplify their ability. Their language and voice changes, expressions and posture even change. Primary culture is whatever one is needed at the moment, or put another way, some families and societies imprint the ability to understand and operate in different cultures.

Furthermore, what you are failing to grasp is that adults can be re-imprinted with a new culture. I realise you don't believe this is possible because you think that the emotional aspects of childhood cannot be reproduced as an adult but all that is required is cultural knowledge and a method to re-imprint. This is fairly easy to do and straight-forward. Look at any modern, sophisticated military indoctrination programme.

That said, I don't think it is a common thing for foreigners to understand Chinese culture and vice versa. At the same time, I think that cultures in general are not that different from each other. Differences tend to be highlighted while similarities disregarded. I find individual personality traits are more accurate determinants of behaviour than underlying culture, and these seem loosely correlated to culture, if at all. Understanding culture is therefore not nearly as important as understanding various personality profiles, yet most people try to understand behaviour first through respective culture.