i read about 1/8th of the article so far (which is still a damn lot lol) and plan to read the rest tomorrow - no matter your opinion, very fascinating read (so far at least)

so far my impression is that chinese modern day culture is like the u.s but with outrighly corrupt systems in place (rather than america's more...hidden...toned down corruption). However the whole materialism, "me" mentality aspects mirror the U.S exactly...as well as most nations on the come up.

there's a difference between the American "me" and the Chinese "me".
One is more altruistic and nationalistic, the other is selfish and nationalistic.

Good article, thanks for sharing

like i said, the chinese are realistic.
freedom of speech, creativity, whatever etc etc... are all GREAT... BUT

c'mon. when it comes down to it, whoever has the bigger gun wins. that's just fucking life in this physical world.

and guess what, they already have big guns. so now what's second on the list?

money.
they realise this, and to dominate, you must acquire wealth.
they instill that ideal in the people of their nation.

at the cost of whatever you can name (fine balance though, you must satisfy the majority at the level where no one will launch major assaults against you, start wars, or mass protests). so they maintain that balance, once in a while they fuck up and u get Tienanmen square type incidents. but they learn, they learn to give just enough to the colony so it doesnt fight itself.

the end result is, they have more money. the end result is money does shit. the end result is they can do more than you in this physical world. they got the bigger guns and more money. they will do what they want. doesn't matter what you think.

unless you have big guns to match them, and lots of money to match them, you cant do jack shit about it.

they're realistic.
money talks.
money does everything
MONEY MONEY MONEY IS EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD.

until humanity grows out of money, and matures more spiritually, or whatever, and humanity as a whole becomes less greedy and material goods are worth NOTHING.

thats when china will change.

they'll change and acquire whatever is power.

if money is power, then they will acquire that.

if freedom of speech, personal freedoms and all that stuff are power, then they will acquire that. but guess what. it's not real power. that's why the people at the top of america are still the richest, cuz money is power.

china sees that, and they know they can be richer.
program all your ants to acquire money.
and your colony will be richest.

leave the "innovation" and inventing to the west, they do it faster and better. just use it when they invent it, isn't that easier?

now you have more money, and their innovation lol. best of both worlds (for the nation).

The "me" culture in China is different from anywhere in the west. How often do you see videos from America where people watch as pregnant ladies get beat up, or toddlers get run over (more than once), or walk away when someone drowns saving their family?

Western culture is very much built on community - even today. Chinese culture seems to be the opposite. In Hong Kong, it tends to be somewhere in the middle, depending on where you are, from what I have experienced.

I haven't had a chance to read through that article, but looking through some of the posts here in this thread reminds me of this TED talk:

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China | Video on TED.com

this is the TL;DR generation sadly

if the article was a bunch of memes instead they would be all over it

Fuck, I would be talking about money money money/me me me if I experienced KMT/CCP civil war, the Japanese, Mao's retarded plan of backyard metal furnaces, famine and the cultural revolution. :lawl: jokes aside

I don't understand why China needs to offer the world to be Chinese? The british definitely didn't offer the world to be colonial better yet british. United States "offer" is just bargaining for assistance and grants so we can say you are democratic and put our bases in your land. US force their way economically and culturally to the world. When third world/second world asks for help or want to integrate themselves with western nations economically, the IMF fucks them over through SAPs and FDIs. In a sense these third world countries are still the colonies of MNCs and first world nations. What we think we are, in reality isn't what we think we are.

Do we really need a world leader anymore? Can't the western world not muster force to enforce a UN mandate against the east if need be?

The more I read it, this article is definitely insightful on modern day china customs and operations but at the same time I feel the author is fearing China because its so powerful yet operating so differently.

I don't understand why you would use those videos as sources of China's "me" culture? Those were just isolated incidents (I agree that shit happens more in China) that happened in a country with a population over 1 billion. I can find shit load of clips showing fucked up things happening around the world, but would I really use those videos as sources for my perception of the whole country?

The guys multi-million dollar magazine business got seized, yet just because he says that doesn't have an effect on what he thinks, do you really believe him? I'm not disagreeing with some of the points he made about China that pretty much EVERYONE already knows, but this article is as informative about China as spending 10 minutes on wikipedia.com/china.

I don't really wanna get into the whole culture thing, because as you said, it really depends on where you live. The Western culture in Washington is a lot different than in Mississippi. Just like the Chinese Culture in Beijing is a lot different than XinJiang.

I used those examples because they are the most publicly exposed incidents that everyone here will be aware of that do an excellent job of portraying the 'me culture'. Anyone who has been to China for more than 5 minutes could give a million examples of day to day life that describes the 'me culture' that aren't violent. Everything from not holding the door open for people, to barging in front of others in lineups or to get on trains, to not calling the police when a neighbour's house is being burglarized, etc. Generally speaking, you won't witness such things in the west, whether it's in Washington or Mississippi.

Let's be realistic, we all know people shouting "world star, WORLD STAR" is synonymous to random fist fights, kick to the faces and people generally acting like animals.

There's shit everywhere in the world. The world has become apathetic, not just China.

article seems to be not working now, taken down? anyone have a working link or paste here?

500 error, it means server problems rather than the article being removed. For now, here's a link to Google's cached version

first of all, this article is not about that. It's about a socio-economic climate in a big economy and how it compares to other big economies. Also it's about the question of nationality and identity.

Secondly if we were to get back to YOUR point, you're saying NOW the world is getting apathetic? what about gladiators fighting to the death for entertainment in a big arena? what about people being guilitined in public for entertainment? what about slavery? yes, i agree with your point that the world is apathetic and it happens everywhere, but it's BEEN happening. But again that's not what this is about

THat's another thing when a person does something altruistic in china nobody cares. The woman who saved the run over kid. What's her name? I haven t heard it. Might be my fault.

How about this guy who stopped a rape?

Dude that saved the family from drowning and the family left him to die. They walked away saying it was non of their business...

I should've been more clear about responding specifically to SP's post on Videos...

I wasn't going to respond to this post since it defies logic, but how about find 50 more like that and post them here. Don't post any until you hit at least 50. If you can get to 10, then I'll post 50 showing people watching as people get raped and run over :troll:

If you post 50 I'll post 500 of altruistic acts. :troll:

From just one very altruistic citizen

Your turn


But yea I'm not going to be able to find that. Just trying to say that like usual there is a focus on the negative but yea I know, chinese aren't known for being helpful these days

It's eat or get eaten in China. This isn't what bothers the 1% there. It's the retarded amount of power the government has, they can take everything you have whenever they want. Housing there is similar to the UBC first nations land here, its a 100 year land lease.
I agree that the Chinese are very bad in terms of altruism,however, there's a lot of fucked up shit that goes on in other countries that's ignored because that's deemed the norm there. People enjoy scrutinizing China because of it's elevation to being a world power while having a society that embraces a lot less human compassion.
You guys have to realize China was a complete shit hole up until the early 90s. In the Mao era, pretty much everyone was dressed the same, fed the same, and essentially brain washed. My parents told me that authors weren't allowed to write romance novels., how fucked up is that. What I'm trying to say is that this dude is expecting way too much in such a short period of time. Do you guys think if North Korea experienced a relative amount of growth that they wouldn't have corruption and people not giving a shit about people they don't know?


Just my 2c

Ulic Qel-Droma your comments on this topic make me sad and angry. I want to fail you because of that, but everything you say is true and it is the reality. Money is everything. Can't do fuck all without money. Can't even live in the woods alone without money. Can you offer more words of wisdom for me to rage at?

The culture of a society is obviously derived from the people's beliefs, and largely out of their religion and ethics. In western societies with an Abrahamic religion background, people are taught to be brothers and sisters as equals in front of God. People gather on Sundays as a community.

On the other hand, many Asian cultures are strongly influenced by Taoism and Confucianism, family as a unit comes first. Far more respect for the elderly and stronger family values, one may argue.

Don't think one is necessarily right or wrong, or one is better than another with each having their issues.

Regarding the article, thanks for posting; for me, I see a bitter and angry man with a failed business hence the backslash against the world around him. If he crushed his competitors making his millions, I doubt he would bother writing the piece nor would he be leaving China.

Still a good read and completely understandable, the author's action. One has to vent and make peace.