Frustrations & Analyzations

This post is inspired by a recent report by China Daily newspaper about the disproportionate representation of modern and traditional culture. Unfortunately, I think the issue goes deeper than that. Here is an excerpt but you can read more about the report here.

"We have emphasized our traditional culture to an extreme extent in the past decade, but we don't have a strong voice in international dialogues," Yi Junqing, director of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, said during a press conference for the release of the Annual Report on China's Cultural Soft Power Research (2010).

I can attest by saying that since my stay here I really do not know more than maybe two liberal-minded young people. This is not to say that they don't have fun, but just that their goals and beliefs are traditional.  I think this is the biggest difference between Chinese and American youth. Chinese have a very ingrained sense of following and obedience and they lack a diverse life experience.  Therefore if I may boldly conclude, Chinese then develop a provincial outlook on life because that's all they know.

In fact if I can go on a bit of an interesting tangent: the word for problem or trouble; wenti 问题, is the same as the word for question.
The word for learn; xue 学, is also the same as the word for imitate.


It may just be a coincidence, but it's particularly frustrating because, my Mandarin is far from perfect, so either I can't find someone who's English is good enough for me to chat with; or I find someone's who's English is good enough but there's nothing to talk about.  I love old things, but you can only talk about it so much before you feel dull, bored, and like you've aged 10 years during the conversation.  

  Along with many other things, China has yet to develop a current culture embracing it's new international standing as a power-player.   China is still observing, imitating, and reproducing foreign ideas. In a recent post called "From Communitsts to Consumerists" I also mentioned the obsession that the majority of Chinese have with brands. I suppose I could look deeper in to this as representing a desire for quality because there is a lack of quality control on the mainland---and so they look to foreign brands. But I hope, hope, hope that this will change and the country will look to establishing itself domestically.