You need to have a REALLY good reason to learn Chinese

[Beelzebro]

14 hours ago, 陳德聰 said:

But what I did not count on, was one guy who turned out to be a bit of a walking stereotype. He had learned some Mandarin in his youth and travelled to China before, was very into self-studying a range of topics including, apparently, Chinese politics. So here I am introducing someone new who is trying to learn English and the person who takes the most interest in talking to him, literally the first thing that he asks is “so how do you feel about Xi Jinping?”

 

The most awkward part is that after truthfully answering “I don’t have any feelings about him” the conversation moved on to comparisons to Hu Jintao and MAO ZEDONG. This is what I call a massive failure of tact

 

You're definitely right here. It's one thing to have one's opinions but it's another to try to shove them down peoples' throats. Personally I find it interesting discussing politics etc with Chinese people but I NEVER bring it up myself. I'm happy talking about whatever other topic comes up and if at some point my conversation partner brings up politics/other sensitive issues of their own accord, I can then engage them. So far this approach hasn't gone wrong for me. Nearly every Chinese person who has brought this stuff up with me has either been A) anti-CPC and in favour of democracy etc and wanting to vent their frustrations about their country or B) just curious and open-minded about my perspective on things or about how things are "in the West". 

 

To OP: China historically viewed itself as the centre of the world (it's in the name, 中国) and believed everywhere outside China was full of barbarians and not worth paying attention to. That's why they got beaten so hard in the 19th century by European powers. Obviously today China is a lot more engaged with the world but because it's such a massive country, both physically and in terms of population, and has such a long history, there is still a tendency for Chinese people to regard China as the most important and greatest country. Obviously there is an element of bias too, since it's their country, and another reason is that few Chinese have passports or the financial means to travel the world, so they aren't exposed much to other places and cultures. The result is that the average Chinese person has quite a limited perspective. They're also proud of their country (and in many ways they should be, such as the beautiful scenery etc). Therefore it's not at all surprising that when you post stuff that's not related to China, they will tend to draw comparisons with China (like your beach example). This doesn't mean you "can't talk about anything" with them.

 

Regarding your specific examples

 

- there are loads of people in China who are interested in football and will be happy to discuss it with you. They know their country sucks at football but that doesn't matter. Having said that, Basketball would perhaps be a better topic, just because it has a huge following. 

- not sure what you mean by "can't talk about culture". I've found cultural differences between my country and China have been an excellent source of conversation.

- history is fine to talk about but it depends what part of history. Chinese people know about Chinese history and know very little about the history of the rest of the world. You are presumably the opposite. Unless you have an audience that is specifically interested in the history of your country/region, or unless you are talking about the history of China, there's not going to be much common ground. And if you constantly talk about the great leap forward or the Japanese invasion it's kinda like someone talking to an Israeli and going on about the holocaust. 

- politics has been covered above.

[mouse]

27 minutes ago, Beelzebro said:

China historically viewed itself as the centre of the world (it's in the name, 中国) and believed everywhere outside China was full of barbarians and not worth paying attention to.

 

Some points:

Historically, China was not called 中國. And the word originally meant 'The Central States', not the middle kingdom, as you imply.

Your comment about China supposedly not paying attention to the outside world can be refuted with one word: Buddhism.

Even if you restrict 'historically' to the early modern era — ie the Qing dynasty — there's a very obvious reason why it's not so easy to draw a line between 'China' and 'barbarians'.

 

I don't think these over-simplifications are particularly helpful, unless you're planning on drawing some Polandball comics.

[Beelzebro]

15 minutes ago, mouse said:

Historically, China was not called 中國. And the word originally meant 'The Central States', not the middle kingdom, as you imply.

 

I'm not sure what distinction you are drawing here..?

 

Quote

Your comment about China supposedly not paying attention to the outside world can be refuted with one word: Buddhism.

Even if you restrict 'historically' to the early modern era — ie the Qing dynasty — there's a very obvious reason why it's not so easy to draw a line between 'China' and 'barbarians'

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianxia - they literally regarded the Emperor of China as the divine ruler of the entire mortal world.

 

Quote

I don't think these over-simplifications are particularly helpful, unless you're planning on drawing some Polandball comics.

 

I'm just giving my perspective to help OP understand the Chinese mindset. Of course it's extremely simplified (it's a forum post) but surely it's more helpful than nothing?

[mouse]

13 minutes ago, Beelzebro said:

I'm not sure what distinction you are drawing here..?

 

You said "hence the name". Does it matter that the name wasn't used for much of history, and when it was it meant something different?

 

I'm not sure what the wikipedia link is supposed to tell me. Does the doctrine of the 'divine right of kings' make British people today chauvinistic? Or Brits of the past ignorant of the outside world? This is the level you're operating on.

 

I'm not trying to have an argument with you, I just don't see the point of making appeals to history if you're not interested in historical accuracy. 

[li3wei1]

more importantly to the OP's question, replying to something on a website is very different from engaging in a conversation with a human being. Anything political will be, they must assume, seen by everybody, for all time, and traceable to their home address.

[Beelzebro]

Hopefully we can both agree that there is a very clear difference in the mindset of Chinese people compared to Westerners. All I'm saying is I believe that the points I mentioned above go some way towards explaining why the Chinese mindset is the way it is. If you have some better or alternative analysis I'd be interested to hear it. 

 

Quote

Does the doctrine of the 'divine right of kings' make British people today chauvinistic? Or Brits of the past ignorant of the outside world? This is the level you're operating on.

 

They aren't the same concept, so no. European countries interacted with each other as sovereign equals whereas it wasn't until the 19th century after the opium wars that China was forced to accept that it did not have some kind of special divine status under which all other countries were subordinate. Obviously attitudes change over time so I'm not saying it necessarily follows that because something was some way 150 years ago means it has to be some way today, but my impression is very much that these attitudes still to this day, if not form the foundation of the Chinese worldview, at least *influence* it.

 

26 minutes ago, mouse said:

you're not interested in historical accuracy. 

 

This seems unfair. Even if my history is wrong I'd appreciate if you simply corrected it rather than accusing me of not seeking accuracy.

[Jim]

28 minutes ago, Beelzebro said:

Hopefully we can both agree that there is a very clear difference in the mindset of Chinese people compared to Westerners.

Must say I don't agree with this at all, it ignores all sorts of factors as or more important than mere nationality such as class and life experiences. At some general level there will of course be a shared context (and one that impacts those life experiences) but particularly in terms of 'Westerners' I'd say its a level so general as to be next to useless for anything bu the broadest statements. Certainly have plenty of Chinese friends whose mindset is far more similar to my own than people I grew up next to back home, because the things that shaped us were more than that bare accident of geography and time.

[Beelzebro]

Well yeah, nationality is of course not the only factor, but are you seriously of the opinion that no general statements can be made about the difference between the average British person and the average Chinese person...? Or for example, it's obvious to me that a French person and a Greek person tend to have far more similar ways of thinking than a French person and a Chinese person. Anyway I guess we should just agree to disagree on this.

[Jim]

8 minutes ago, Beelzebro said:

Or for example, it's obvious to me that a French person and a Greek person tend to have far more similar ways of thinking than a French person and a Chinese person.

See for me you'd have to look at their material circumstances, every chance a Cretan small farmer and a Hunanese counterpart think about things in ways far more similar than the Greek bloke does with a French futures trader from a wealthy Parisian family. Though as you say, we can disagree, not like I've conducted a full survey of both continents either.

[imron]

4 hours ago, i__forget said:

What are you asking me exactly are you still not convinced about the nationalism in China

I'm convinced of Chinese nationalism, not from your posts, but from living in China for a number of years.

 

I'm not convinced any of the topics you mentioned in your original post are particularly sensitive, and it's more the medium and audience that is causing you problems rather than the topics.  The exception is politics, which is more sensitive depending on the type of politics you're trying to discuss but is still ok to talk about (I've had plenty of political discussions with Chinese, including on sensitive political topics).  Just like the west though, politics is one of those things that people get very invested in and defensive about so it's more productive to discuss it among friends who are going to give you the benefit of the doubt if you say something stupid, rather than mere acquaintances or strangers who might not be so charitable.

[i__forget]

2 hours ago, Beelzebro said:

Chinese people know about Chinese history and know very little about the history of the rest of the world. You are presumably the opposite

I don't disagree with anything from the things you said. The problem is that it's hard to avoid Chinese nationalists. It's much harder to avoid them than it is to avoid nationalists from other countries. It's damn impossible! It's part of the culture. Is this the great achievement of the CPC? If that beach was full of Americans and I asked where it is, what are the possibilities anyone would have told me "come to America, it's beautiful here"? None. And we are talking about the country who's president is Donald Trump.

In the post about football I also got reactions such as "we suck at football haha" or "who cares about football when you have ping pong", these are "normal" posts to me, humorous as well. These are the people you want to hang out with, basketball would be your common interest. What's annoying is that you can't avoid this damn distinction between "us" and "them", it's ubiquitous, it comes up when you least expect it. And it's more like "us" vs the rest of the word not like "us" Palestinians vs "Israelis".

[happy_hyaena]

6 hours ago, i__forget said:

I don't disagree with anything from the things you said. The problem is that it's hard to avoid Chinese nationalists. It's much harder to avoid them than it is to avoid nationalists from other countries. It's damn impossible! It's part of the culture. Is this the great achievement of the CPC? If that beach was full of Americans and I asked where it is, what are the possibilities anyone would have told me "come to America, it's beautiful here"? None. And we are talking about the country who's president is Donald Trump.

 

Outside of China I've only really met one person IRL who was a real 五毛党. Most people I've met are quite curious about the world and quite humble about China, and as someone who's fascinated by their country I usually end up hyping them up.

 

It's true that Americans, and the richer Westerners in general, might not be as outwardly nationalistic or braggart-y about their countries and it's because they know are at the top and that pushing it into other peoples' faces is just bad form. But there's certainly an undercurrent of smugness and, above all, general disinterest for other people and their cultures that are not as developed as theirs.

[li3wei1]

It's always a good idea to treat any person you meet as a person first, rather than as a representative of their country, or their race, or whatever other group they may be a part of.

[陳德聰]

9 hours ago, i__forget said:

It's much harder to avoid them than it is to avoid nationalists from other countries. It's damn impossible! It's part of the culture. 

And there it is: You have a serious and quite obvious case of confirmation bias.

 

It shows from the way you extrapolate your statistically insignificant examples onto the entire culture, and then work backwards from there to try to rationalise the conclusion.

 

@Beelzebro The mistake you are making is that the two-character combination “中國” has meant many different things in the history of Chinese texts and only in very recent history came to be the proper noun as we know it.

 

Once upon a time it was used to mean Central States (plural). We are talking pre-Qin. The term 中國  has meant things like “the capital,” “states physically located on the 中原,” “central (as in sovereign power) states,” as well as what you attribute to the center of 天下, though I’m not sure we’re even operating on the same understanding of the term 天下 and its historical applications.

 

Any claim that 中國 has been something like a common name of a particular country for longer than a few hundred years is specious, and by extension claiming that it being called that has contributed to or is evidence for an historically profound “we are the center of civilization” mindset is similarly specious and ignores the fact that it simply hasn’t meant that for at least a millennium.

 

Perhaps increasing understanding of Chinese terms and their history is one such “REALLY good reason” for learning Chinese.

[i__forget]

51 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

It shows from the way you extrapolate your statistically insignificant examples onto the entire culture, and then work backwards from there to try to rationalise the conclusion.

My statistically insignificant example is actually significant to my life as it represents a significant percentage of my interaction with Chinese people.

[陳德聰]

7 minutes ago, i__forget said:

My statistically insignificant example is actually significant to my life 

Yes and that’s why I used the word “extrapolate,” because you’re drawing a conclusion about Chinese people in general from those limited experiences, and then making a thinly veiled claim that it is therefore not really worth it to learn Chinese unless you have a “really good reason,” (which you have still not elected to clarify) because all you get is a bunch of people who are just like the annoying strangers you’ve met on the internet. Which is silly.

[i__forget]

OK ok I'll hold my horses for now ??

[Beelzebro]

23 hours ago, 陳德聰 said:

The mistake you are making is that the two-character combination “中國” has meant many different things in the history of Chinese texts and only in very recent history came to be the proper noun as we know it.

 

Fair enough, and I appreciate your explanation about it, but the crux of my argument didn't rest on the word 中国, it was just a random example. My apologies though for mentioning it (albeit unintentionally) in a misleading way.

 

On 6/1/2018 at 1:09 PM, i__forget said:

The problem is that it's hard to avoid Chinese nationalists. It's much harder to avoid them than it is to avoid nationalists from other countries.

 

I think that unfortunately you are correct here :(. But I agree with 陳德聰 that you shouldn't write off all Chinese because of it. I have made some awesome Chinese friends over the years and of course they individually hold different opinions on things like politics etc, but many of them don't fit the stereotype of "angry nationalist with a victim complex" at all, and are in fact very open minded and great to talk to. Don't be discouraged by a small number of idiots

 

Also it's worth mentioning, if the politics and communist party-influenced culture of China are what is putting you off, you can just ignore them completely and learn Taiwanese Mandarin, make Taiwanese friends, travel in Taiwan etc instead. The language is 99% the same as standard mainland 普通话.

[艾墨本]

Hugs for everyone!!!!!!

[AaronUK]

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