Lionel Jensen on China's Sticky One-Child Policy

Lionel Jensen
Notre Dame

An old UC Berkeley friend of mine got quoted in a recent Letter from China column by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, "'One Child' Culture is Entrenched in China" (New York Times, November 4, 2015):

"China has succeeded in creating a single-child culture," said Lionel Jensen, a professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame[, explaining that s]ince the mid-1980s and then again more emphatically after 1992, the highest organs of government," as well as the late leader Deng Xiaoping, "have urged the population to seek merit for self and nation in making money . . . . 'To get rich is glorious,' and 'Jump into the Sea of Commerce,' such slogans have convinced many individuals and families that making money is a key sign of success and a means of self-preservation and enrichment" . . . . Having one child "is patriotic, definitively Chinese, and economically rational" . . . . As a result, [only a small] . . . number of people . . . applied to have a second child once it was permitted in 2013 to couples where one partner was a single child . . . . "The very understanding of the family has changed," said Mr. Jensen, adding that economics were likely to be a powerful factor in decision-making for a while to come.

In other words, kids are expensive, and China's one-child policy accustomed people to having just one, so Chinese couples generally decide to have only one anyway despite the change in policy. That, by the way, is a pattern emerging throughout the world.

Though I can just hear Lionel's distinctive voice in these quoted words above, I've not actually heard from him for several years.

As Mattie Ross said, time just gets away from us . . .

Ronald J. Granieri on a True Quote for the EU: Franz Josef Strauß

Franz Josef Strauß (1982)
(September 6, 1915 - October 3, 1988)
Wikipedia

I've just read Ronald J. Granieri's "Europe: What Went Wrong?" (E-Notes, January 2015), and amidst the problems that threaten the European project, Granieri notes at least one undeniable truth, a truth uttered by the German politician Franz Josef Strauß, who despite numerous brushes with scandal and despite his Bavarian provincialism, considered himself, above all, a European:

One hears the skeptics more, of course, especially in [the US] . . . , and especially among those who consider themselves to be practical realists. They dismiss Europe as a chimera and praise the nation-state, even as individual European nation-states obviously cannot stand up to the continental challenges of China, Russia, India, and even the United States - none of which are nation-states on the classical European model. We do not have any leaders of the practical stature of the great Bavarian conservative statesman Franz Josef Strauss, who rejected "the idea that any European state - no matter its name, no matter how glorious its history, no matter how impressive its traditions - will be recognized in Moscow as an equal partner. One cannot ignore the laws of mathematics."

I count myself among those who want the EU project to succeed - one of the reasons being the one noted above in the words of Franz Josef Strauß, that only Europe as a whole has sufficient weight for dealing not only with Russia, but also with China, India, and even the US - but I think that Islamist-driven Islamization (within and without Europe) is not taken seriously enough by Granieri. If the EU fails, we may be watching not merely the collapse of one, but rather of two intertwined civilizations, Western and Islamic . . .

Immersion in 'Superior' Chinese Education?

Congratulating a Student
Photo by Jane Peterson
New York Times

In "An American School Immerses Itself in All Things Chinese" (NYT, October 26, 2014), Jane A. Peterson publishes an informative article - though also something of a 'puff' piece - about a school in Minneapolis, Yinghua Academy, that immerses American students in Mandarin Chinese to teach all of its classes from from kindergarten to eighth grade, which is fine and dandy by my reckoning, but I have a few reservations about some of the praise:

Math results, which are particularly strong, are partly attributed to the Singapore Math curriculum and its eight-step approach to word problems, as well as the Chinese-educated teachers who move through material more quickly than their American peers.

Ms. Peterson is a journalist stationed in Singapore, so she should know something about its approach to math education, but she might also be wont to consider it more positively than if otherwise stationed. I note this only as a possibility - and one should always practice some skepticism about what one reads. Consider, for instance, these words of praise for Mandarin:

Mathematical terms in Mandarin are also clearer. The word for "triangle," for instance, "sanjiaoxing," means three-sided. And when counting to 100, the Chinese use only 10 numbers to build all others; 71, for instance, is written 7-10-1. "The number system is easier to work with," said Mary McDonald, a seventh-grader who takes an extra university math class once a week. "It's faster and more organized."

Hmmm . . . Let me just point out that "triangle" means "three-angled," which is no more difficult than "three-sided." Moreover, I can't see the Chinese number system as easier since the Western number system also uses only ten numbers - 0 through 9 - to compose all others. But who am I to argue with a seventh-grader?

And perhaps I've simply missed the point about how math is "clearer" and "easier" in Mandarin. Might somebody explain to me how?

A Near Miss . . .

Here's Looking at You, Kid!

Google Images

My cyber-friend Malcolm Pollack, who blogs at Waka Waka Waka, landed in Seoul last Friday morning at 4:00 a.m. and was delayed at the airport until 4:00 p.m. for his flight on to China:

We are here now. Our flight from JFK touched down at Incheon at about 4 a.m. (as I write, it's about 6 a.m. local time).

Our 9:40 flight to Guangzhou has now been delayed until 4 p.m. due to bad weather in Guangzhou. We will be weary travelers indeed by the time we get there . . .

Friday being a very busy day for me, I had no freedom to drop by the airport, so I wish his time in the airport had been on a Saturday:

Sorry to hear of the delay . . . though if today were Saturday, I'd come meet you at the airport for a drink.

Have a good trip!

In response to that, I received an email:

Thanks Jeff!

This flight on Korean Air, and visit to the airport, has made me more curious than ever about Korea, and I'm sure we'll be back. (As long as Kim Young 'Un) doesn't do anything too insane.

Speaking of which, what's the mood like in the South about all this saber-rattling? Are people seriously concerned about the possibility of an attack?

I replied to the full extent of my ignorance:

Noticeable about the rhetoric emanating from the North this time are its specificity and its dire character, so people have certainly taken note. But we are reassured -- and I agree -- that the North has no desire for a war that would bring down its system. Moreover, the North has continued to welcome Chinese tourists and has emphasized [to them] that there will be no war. The North is probably aiming much of its rhetoric at its domestic audience, trying to make the 'Young'un' look like a tough leader. The only danger is the possibility of a miscalculation.

Malcolm had flown on to China by then, so I heard no more. A near miss. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un's war rhetoric waxes ever more weird, but I'm hoping for nothing worse than a "near miss" there, too . . .

China's 'Policy' Toward North Korea

China

Wikipedia

Hanyang University law professor Lee Jae-min asks a good question in his Korea Herald column this week: "Why do we keep losing this game?" (March 20, 2013). By that, he means why does North Korea continue to have the advantage over South Korea in getting what it wants in its nuclear aims. Part of the answer is China, which is the North's ally, of course, and supports it for that reason, but more important than the alliance is China's fear that enforcing sanctions on the North could precipitate its collapse and destabilize Northeast Asia. Professor Lee knows all this, of course. But things have changed since the North's third nuclear test recently, he notes, and he offers a suggestion:

Perhaps one thing to consider in this regard is how to make Beijing fully aware that an unbridled, nuclear-armed North Korea would undermine its national interest. In light of this, it is interesting to watch the reportedly growing complaints in China against North Korea after its nuclear test.

This ought to be simple enough since a nuclear-armed North Korea is very destabilizing for Northeast Asia, but China should have recognized this twenty years ago, when we already knew that the North was pursuing a nuclear program. Individual Chinese did see the problem, and commented on it as against China's interests, but the Chinese government was less clear. Why has the Chinese leadership failed? Seton Hall University professor of international relations Zheng Wang asks a pertinent question in the New York Times: "Does China Have a Foreign Policy?" (March 18, 2013). Here's what he says:

While many Western analysts focus on the balance of reformers and conservatives in China's new leadership, most overlook the absence of career diplomats and foreign affairs experts at the highest level of power in Beijing . . . . [T]he position that foreign policy occupies in the Chinese political system is very low . . . . China watchers have a tendency to overstate the sophistication of Beijing's foreign policy and ambitions, but the truth is that China's foreign policy is highly deficient . . . . The absence of clear policy . . . partly explains why China lacks decisive influence even over strategic allies who depend most on its support, like North Korea . . . . North Korea's recent nuclear test and decision to nullify the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War is but the latest example. If a country [such as China] does not have a clear foreign policy, it will not know when, where and how to use its power. It cannot provide a road map for its allies to follow.

If Professor Wang is right, then helping Beijing see its national interests in the North Korean conundrum might prove difficult.

We can only try . . .

David Brooks on Learning Styles: Western vs. East Asian

David Brooks

NYT

David Brooks has an interesting NYT article published, "The Learning Virtues" (February 28, 2013), on the different attitudes toward learning between Western students and East Asian students, based on the research of Professor Jin Li:

Jin Li grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution . . . . [but] wound up marrying an American, moved to the States and became a teacher . . . . She has spent her career, first at Harvard and now at Brown, trying to understand how Asians and Westerners think about learning.

The simplest way to summarize her findings is that Westerners tend to define learning cognitively while Asians tend to define it morally. Westerners tend to see learning as something people do in order to understand and master the external world. Asians tend to see learning as an arduous process they undertake in order to cultivate virtues inside the self.

Consequently, Westerners and Asians talk in different terms about learning, as in this comparison of Americans and Chinese:

When Li asked Americans to randomly talk about learning they used words like: thinking, school, brain, discovery, understand and information. Chinese, on the other hand, tended to use phrases common in their culture: learn assiduously, study as if thirsting or hungering, be diligent in one's learning.

Conceptions of the student also differ:

In the Western understanding, students come to school with levels of innate intelligence and curiosity. Teachers try to further arouse that curiosity in specific subjects. There's a lot of active learning -- going on field trips, building things. There's great emphasis on questioning authority, critical inquiry and sharing ideas in classroom discussion.

In the Chinese understanding, there's less emphasis on innate curiosity or even on specific subject matter. Instead, the learning process itself is the crucial thing. The idea is to perfect the learning virtues in order to become, ultimately, a sage, which is equally a moral and intellectual state. These virtues include: sincerity (an authentic commitment to the task) as well as diligence, perseverance, concentration and respect for teachers.

These differences are said to have practical consequences:

Li argues that Westerners emphasize the Aha moment of sudden insight, while Chinese are more likely to emphasize the arduous accumulation of understanding. American high school students tease nerds, while there is no such concept in the Chinese vocabulary. Western schools want students to be proud of their achievements, while the Chinese emphasize that humility enables self-examination. Western students often work harder after you praise them, while Asian students sometimes work harder after you criticize them.

These are intriguing observations, but I wonder how well these really correspond to reality. Plagiarism is so widespread in Korean universities that I have to question the effectiveness of a moral conception of learning. Moral failings are easy to fall into, for one can be successful anyway, sometimes more so, but with conceptual failings comes failure in one's career. Cognitive failure corrects itself; moral failure requires an external critic.

Incidentally, I had my daughter read the article, and her response was to agree that there is a difference in the way that Koreans and Americans talk about learning, that the former do speak about the process in moral terms, but that Korean students don't actually take the moral talk seriously, so it has no practical significance on how they study, and that the one big aim is to score high on the nationwide university entrance exam.

I would add that while the cognitive approach might not be talked about in moral terms, an ethic is implicit, but this is an issue that itself deserves a blog post . . .

Deng Yuwen and China's Relations toward North Korea

Deng Yuwen
"'Give up on Pyongyang,' says China insider"

JoongAng Daily

According to Deng Yuwen, deputy editor of Study Times, journal of the Central Party School of China's Communist Party, in an article, "China should abandon North Korea," written for the Financial Times (February 27, 2013), China should cut North Korea loose, especially since the North's recent nuclear test. Why? Five reasons:

First, a relationship between states based on ideology is dangerous.

Ostensibly, China's foreign relations should be based on China's national interests.

Second, basing China's strategic security on North Korea's value as a geopolitical ally is outdated.

North Korea offers not security, but insecurity! Its provocative actions draw animosity toward China.

Third, North Korea will not reform and open up to the world.

If the North reforms, it will collapse. Why should China support a regime that will eventually fail?

Fourth, North Korea is pulling away from Beijing.

Why hold to close relations with a regime that shows no gratitude to China, a regime that has even excised from its history China's support during the Korean War?

Last, once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China.

The North shows actual animosity toward China, implicitly using its nuclear card against the Chinese. Deng's conclusion:

Considering these arguments, China should consider abandoning North Korea. The best way of giving up on Pyongyang is to take the initiative to facilitate North Korea's unification with South Korea. Bringing about the peninsula's unification would help undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul; ease the geopolitical pressure on China from northeast Asia; and be helpful to the resolution of the Taiwan question.

This would probably work for China only if US troops were withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, as Deng makes clear in an interview with the JoongAng Daily. That might be worth the result . . .

Vasiliy Mikheyev on a "Crucial Moment" with Respect to North Korea

Drunken Clown Kim Jong-un
Patrick Chappatte
February 13, 2013

New York Times

An interesting article, "If They Fire? The Nuclear Threat Emanating From North Korea Is Coming To Be Real," (Moskovskiye Novosti in Russian, 02/18/13 (translated and released 02/20/13)), has appeared in the Korea Open Source Digest, Volume VI, Issue 35, Thursday, February 21, 2013, a rather long article by Vasiliy Mikheyev, a Korea specialist and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also the deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences World Economy and International Relations Institute, so he appears to be a knowledgeable fellow, a man worth listening to when he suggests that we have entered a crucial moment with respect to North Korea. He offers a comparison:

The problem of Pyongyang is reminiscent of the problem of a hooligan terrorizing a crowd of the intelligentsia. They try to admonish, persuade, and educate him and to resolve the problem "only diplomatically" and so forth. But all this is until the time when the hooligan inflicts real bodily harm on one of the crowd. (page 5-17)

At that timely moment, I infer, the crowd would take collective action to beat the hooligan senseless and thereby knock sense into him. What does Mikheyev suggest? Let's see:

In regard to the DPRK the "time," it would seem, has come - this is a crucial moment in the development of the DPRK's nuclear program.

The present situation is a challenge to the principal world responsible nuclear powers (Russia, the United States, China) with common interests: preventing Pyongyang becoming the possessor of nuclear weapons. The concurrence of interests permits us to pose the issue of taking advantage of the situation for a breakthrough in the development of tripartite political and military cooperation of Russia, the United States, and China. (page 5-17)

Mikheyev even considers pinpoint missile strikes by the US and implies that Russia and China might agree to such strikes. Make of this what you will. Time will tell if he is right . . .

A Proverbial Saying on Wine?

Li Bai Chanting a Poem

Liang K'ai (13th Century)

Wikipedia

I came across a 'proverbial' saying yesterday, or it seemed, though I had my doubts as to the proverbial provenance of these words:

Such is the rapture of wine, that the sober shall never inherit.

I read it, did a double-take, then read it again, and again. And again. Something was wrong, and I don't mean the enthusiasm for drunken imbibing of the Dionysiac spirit. Something was wrong with the grammar. After a few moments' reflection, I managed to see the problem. The first clause sets up an expectation that the rapture of wine will do something in the second clause, that something will result from that rapture. Instead, we find the sober as subject, and the sober were not doing something! As if the rapture of wine somehow caused the sober not to inherit. An odd result, that!

I checked around on the internet and found this, the final two lines being what I sought, more or less:

A Vindication

If heaven loved not the wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not the wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on the earth.
Since heaven and earth love the wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?,
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture of the wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.

A bit more checking located the author, the great 8th century Chinese poet Li Bai (701-762), who often wrote verse in praise of wine. But who had provided what seemed to me an awkward translation? More searching uncovered the answer: Shigeyoshi Obata (1888-1971). Here's the book this Japanese man published in English of Li Bai's Chinese poetry, though the name is transliterated as "Li-Po":

The Works of Li-Po, The Chinese Poet: Done into English Verse by Shigeyoshi Obata, With an Introduction and Biographical and Critical Matter, Translated from the Chinese (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1923)

The use of the definite article before the first reference to wine seems odd, and would be awkward in prose, but it's not impossible, especially in a poem. I should also note that I don't know what "Wine Star" and "Wine Spring" refer to, though this is no fault of the translator, simply pure ignorance on my part (although some footnotes would be helpful). But what's this about "the sage" and "the wise"? Are they different? The two words "sage" and "wise" are synonyms. And "gods" and "goblins"? To seek peers among the gods would be an overweening ambition, but would anybody desire to seek peers among goblins? And should "turgid" be "turbid"? The word "turgid" is placed in contrast with the term "transparent" two lines above, but that better fits a contrast with "turbid." There must be some degree of inadequacy to this translation of what appears to be an intriguing poem. As for my initial puzzlement, I see the solution: Replace "That" with "Which," for the second clause is not an adverbial result clause but a nonrestrictive relative clause. The first clause now points not ahead but behind, to words that promise wine's ability to rapture the drinker to the heights of the universe, where one is lord of all one surveys! The word "Which" in the second clause would probably refer not to "the rapture of wine," but to possession of the universe (i.e., "the universe is yours"), a possession uninherited by the sober, who never "Take a jugful."

The title is nicely done, however, being a subtle pun on wine: "A Vindication."

NYT on China's 'Princeling' Network

Princeling Network?

Despite my recent blog entry on China's so-called 'Princelings,' in which I side with that disinterested venture capitalist in Shanghai, Mr. Eric X. Li, who assures us that the 'Princelings' are a myth, I see from this weekend's International Herald Tribune that David Barboza and Sharon LaFraniere are perpetuating the myth: "'Princelings' in China Use Family Ties to Gain Riches," which can be read online at the New York Times site. These two 'reporters' tell us:

[E]vidence is mounting that the relatives of . . . current and former senior officials have also amassed vast wealth, often playing central roles in businesses closely entwined with the state, including those involved in finance, energy, domestic security, telecommunications and entertainment. Many of these so-called princelings also serve as middlemen to a host of global companies and wealthy tycoons eager to do business in China.

Don't Mr. Barboza and Ms. LaFraniere know that the redoubtable Mr. Eric X. Li has stated that these "assumptions are disconnected from reality and need to be debunked"? Apparently not, for they cite him nowhere despite quoting his nemesis, Minxin Pei, whose disinterestedness I've already challenged in my blog entry on the so-called 'Princelings.' Here's what they quote from Mr. Pei:

"Whenever there is something profitable that emerges in the economy, they'll be at the front of the queue," said Minxin Pei, an expert on China's leadership and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. "They've gotten into private equity, state-owned enterprises, natural resources -- you name it."

But Mr. Eric X. Li has already shown that these so-called 'Princelings' are experts in the positions they hold, that they've worked hard for the money -- so hard for the money -- and you better treat them right!

Princelings, Princelings . . . Whom to Believe?

Bo Xilai

Wikipedia

Most of us who keep up with the news have read more than we even want to know about Bo Xilai and China's so-called 'princelings' . . . so let's read some more. Eric X. Li, a venture capitalist in Shanghai who often writes for the Korea Herald, tells us in "The myth of the princelings in China" (May 6, 2012) that there's nothing truly amiss in contemporary China:

The Bo Xilai saga of power, wealth, corruption and murder has brought the issue of China’s princelings (offspring of the Communist Party's former and current senior leaders) to the front and center of the international discourse on contemporary China . . . . Many commentators, including some leading political analysts on China, are framing the princelings as if they are . . . influencing policies in their favor and pushing for promotions of candidates who represent their interests. There is no empirical evidence to support such a conceptual framework . . . . [T]hey are nothing like . . . the oligarchs of post-Soviet Russia . . . . Among the ones who are successful, many have indeed excelled on merit [and some have] moved up the ladder through apparently only hard work and merit . . . . [U]pward mobility, both political and economic, is the underlying force of China's vitality. The current Politburo, the country’s highest ruling body, consists of 25 members. Only five of them come from backgrounds of power. The remaining 20, including the president and the premier, come from completely ordinary families. In the larger Central Committee, those with privileged backgrounds account for a much smaller percentage . . . . In economics, if one goes down the list of China’s richest, a vast majority of them are entrepreneurs who started with nothing . . . . Chinese society in general is rather sanguine about the privileges of princelings and the newly rich alike. Perhaps it is a sign of maturity . . . . A healthy society exercises moderation and tolerance towards privilege as long as mobility is sufficient, which is certainly the case for contemporary China.

Well, that's all good to know, i.e., that Chinese society is largely a meritocracy, the Communist Party, the Politburo, and the Central Committee included. Mr. Li is so persuasive -- and an expert, too, as one who has undoubtedly risen on merit alone as a venture capitalist in Shanghai -- that we probably need not venture beyond his expertise in asking questions . . . but let's do it anyway. Minzin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, tells us in "The myth of Chinese meritocracy" (JoongAng Daily, May 17, 2012) that much is amiss in contemporary China:

Political scandals sometimes perform a valuable function in . . . . debunk[ing] political myths central to the legitimacy of some regimes . . . . One enduring political myth that went down with Bo [Xilai], the former Communist Party boss of Chongqing municipality, is the notion that the Party's rule is based on meritocracy . . . . Bo personified the Chinese concept of "meritocracy" -- well-educated, intelligent, sophisticated and charming (mainly to Western executives). But, after his fall, a very different picture emerged. Aside from his alleged involvement in assorted crimes, Bo was said to be a ruthless apparatchik, endowed with an outsize ego but no real talent. His record as a local administrator was mediocre . . . . Unfortunately, Bo's case is not the exception in China, but the rule. Contrary to the prevailing perception in the West (especially among business leaders), the current Chinese government is riddled with clever apparatchiks like Bo who have acquired their positions through cheating, corruption, patronage and manipulation . . . . [M]any Chinese officials use fake or dubiously acquired academic credentials to burnish their resumes. Because educational attainment is considered a measure of merit, officials scramble to obtain advanced degrees in order to gain an advantage in the competition for power . . . . Of the 250 members of provincial Communist Party standing committees, an elite group including party chiefs and governors, 60 claim to have earned PhDs . . . . [O]nly 10 of them completed their doctoral studies before becoming government officials . . . . If so many senior Chinese officials openly flaunt fraudulent or dubious academic degrees without consequences, one can imagine how widespread other forms of corruption must be . . . . [One] common measure used to judge a Chinese official's "merit" is his ability to deliver economic growth. On the surface, this may appear to be an objective yardstick. In reality, GDP growth is as malleable as an official's academic credentials [and i]nflating local growth numbers is so endemic that reported provincial GDP growth data, when added up, are always higher than the national growth data, a mathematical impossibility . . . . [A]s competition for promotion within the Chinese bureaucracy has escalated, even fake academic credentials and GDP growth records have become insufficient to advance one's career. What increasingly determines an official's prospects for promotion is his guanxi, or connections . . . . [P]atronage, not merit, has become the most critical factor in the appointment process. For those without guanxi, the only recourse is to purchase appointments and promotions through bribes . . . . [a] practice . . . called maiguan, literally "buying office" . . . . Given such systemic debasement of merit, few Chinese citizens believe that they are governed by the best and the brightest. But astonishingly, the myth of a Chinese meritocracy remains very much alive among Westerners who have encountered impressively credentialed officials like Bo. The time has come to bury it.

Whom to believe? Personally, I trust the venture capitalist in Shanghai, Mr. Eric X. Li, who's living, working, and investing in what Alan Greenspan might call China's 'exuberant' economy, rather than some elite fellow like Professor Minxin Pei, who's living, teaching, and writing columns in the United States, a corrupt country where, as Mr. Li notes, "advantages are even institutionalized, such as legacy admission programs at U.S. Ivy League universities"

An easy call . . .

Thomas Boutonnet and Douglas Howland on Civilization and Wenming

"Be Civilized Residents"

Thomas Boutonnet

In light of yesterday's query concerning the differences between "civilization" and "wenming," I want to post some material from a couple of scholars whose views on the issue I found through a bit of research online. First a passage on "civilization" from an apparently recent article by China expert Thomas Boutonnet, "From Local Control to Globalised Citizenship: The Civilising Concept of Wenming in Official Chinese Rhetoric":

The first step in understanding the relation between wenming and civilisation necessarily involves a discussion of the meaning of the English word civilisation. In terms of etymology, words such as civilisation, civilised, citizen, civilian, civic, civil, and civility, which are related to social and political standards and urbanity, all originate from the Latin word civis (citizen) and its derivatives civilis or civitas (the city). While citizen refers to a member of a community who is entitled to participate, through his/her rights and duties, in the political organisation of said community, civil can refer both to what is associated with ordinary citizens as distinct from military men, and to a courteous or polite person. As for civility, definitions point to politeness, or individual acts and manners of behaving which conform to social conventions of propriety. Last but not least, the word civilised is generally used to describe someone who is well-mannered and polite, well-bred and educated. In this etymological perspective, civilisation can be interpreted as the process of making someone civil, and therefore polite (polite comes from the Latin politus, which means polished or made smoothed), or of bringing someone to civility or politeness. But of course, an etymological approach detached from contemporary and common usage is in itself irrelevant, since a word is mostly defined by how it is used rather than by what root words it originates from.

This information about the meaning of "civilization" sounds remarkably similar to the meaning that Professor Gu Zhengkun attributed to wenming, and rather unlike his etymological statement that "the English word 'civilization' derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology." Or so Dr. Thorsten Pattberg informs us Professor Gu says. Anyway, let's see what Boutonnet has to say about "wenming":

The standard definition of wenming that can be found in Chinese dictionaries remains rather vague. Wenming is defined as: 1. Culture, and 2. A relatively high stage of development and high cultural achievement. Such definition, however, remains problematic because the word culture is as vague as it is polysemic, and does not bring particular insights into the meaning of wenming. The dictionary further mentions that the term, when applied to a person, implies good manners, which is close to the connotation of the word civilised in English. An etymological approach provides additional -- though limited -- elements to understand the meaning of wenming. Wenming is made of two characters: wen 文, which refers, among other meanings, to writing, language and to what is literary, refined or elegant; and ming 明, which is associated with brightness, clarity and obviousness. In classical Chinese language, wenming meant clear-sightedness and talent. Borrowed by Japanese intellectuals during the nineteenth century as a translation for the word civilisation, the word wenming became associated with westernisation and modernisation, before being used in China at the end of nineteenth century. Wenming was then used to refer to someone civilised, enlightened, in opposition to barbarism and in association with the Western world and modernity. It is therefore essential to understand that the term wenming contains several historical layers of meaning, including a clear interaction with -- in fact the addition of -- connotations coming from the English word civilisation. Wenming should therefore not be regarded as an autonomous concept, but rather as a palimpsest that carries several layers of meanings which overlap and at times contradict one another. Its meaning evolved throughout the twentieth century in China, but kept revolving around notions of excellence and high standards of culture, social practices and morality. Since the 1980s and the launch of the "two wenming" program, however, the concept of wenming has been substantially exposed and deployed in social and public spaces through all kinds of manifestations and items related to "spiritual civilisation". Wenming has become synonymous with righteous, correct, appropriate and high standard, and its meaning is closely associated with the "two civilisations" campaign and ideological perspective which has been in force since then.

This sounds rather different from Professor Gu's remarks on the term "wenming" and its meaning, though I again emphasize that my knowledge of his veiws comes mediated by Dr. Pattberg. Moreover, any 'mistranslation' would appear to have originated with the Japanese rather than with Westerners, given what Boutonnet says. Indeed, this receives support from a book by China scholar Douglas Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire's End (Duke University Press, 1996) :

Zhang Zhidong, as leader of the conservative reform movement that proceeded cautiously after the aborted Hundred Days of Reform in 1898, urged Chinese students to go to Japan to study the new Western learning that would bring China wealth and power. Since the Japanese language shared Chinese characters, Zhang felt that Chinese students would have an easier time studying there. Many did, like Dai Jitao, and among the new terminology they brought back to China was Fukuzawa Yukichi's Japanese translation for the English word "civilization," wenming (J: bunmei), which he had used to refer to that universal civilization grounded in Western learning and toward which the entire world was progressing. Such a usage of wenming gained a youthful currency in the first decade of this century in China, where it served to indicate Western phenomena that differed from their Chinese counterparts. (page 246)

Given what Boutonnet and Howland provide, I have to question Professor Gu's views, or at least Thorsten Pattberg's presentation of those views. Of course, I am -- I hasten to confess -- profoundly ignorant on this civilization/wenming issue, but I am, after all, a gypsy scholar and therefore range from topic to topic.

Again, I welcome any comments from knowledgeable individuals.

Civilization Cessation, Wenming Winning?

Forum Romanum

Photo by Foeke Noppert
May 2005

Wikipedia

In an article titled "Western translations distort China's reality" (Korea Herald, May 1, 2012), Thorsten Pattberg informs fellow Westerners of how seriously they have misunderstood Chinese terms by mistranslating them into Western languages, e.g., the use of "civilization" to translate the Chinese term "wenming":

Wenming is often translated as "civilization," but that is misleading. In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that "wenming" describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology. Think about rockets and architecture.

The implication here seems to be that the Chinese term "wenming" is intrinsically more refined than the English term "civilization." I suppose there are a number of points to make in response.

First, etymology is a never-ending game. There's always a deeper hole to dig excavating the past, where the deeper roots of "wenming" might appear less refined than Professor Gu notes. Everything depends upon where one stops digging.

Second, no word is limited by its etymology, and the term "civilization" does not refers only, or even centrally, to "a city people's mastery over materials and technology."

Third, I have not yet found evidence that Professor Gu is correct about his etymology of "civilization." From various dictionaries, one can learn that the word derives from the Latin civilis, meaning "civil," related to civis, meaning "citizen," and civitas, meaning "city." Let's at least check the Online Etymological Dictionary on the term "civil":

late 14c., "relating to civil law or life," from Fr. civil (13c.) and directly from L. civilis "relating to a citizen, relating to public life, befitting a citizen," hence "popular, affable, courteous;" alternative adj. derivation of civis "townsman" . . . . The sense of "polite" was in the Latin, from the courteous manners of citizens, as opposed to those of soldiers.

I see no hint of "mastery over materials and technology." Rather, I see evidence of refined courtesy. This doesn't mean that Professor Gu is wrong. He is, after all, a "renowned linguist."

Are any knowledgeable readers willing to add to this search?

Critical Thinking in China

Lei Feng
CCP Hero

Wikipedia

I don't know much about China despite living so close to that enormous country that would border a united Korea if the North and South ever join again, but I do realize how important it is, so I try to keep up with developments over there. Some readers may recall that I even included China in my paper on the necessity for a culture of discussion in East Asia and that I noted the possibility for the rise of critical thinking there, citing the public's skeptical response to the Chinese government's official version of a terrible accident on one of the nation's high-speed railways.

My faith in the Chinese people's potential for critical thought has not been misplaced, for one of the Communist Party's propaganda heros, Lei Feng, is currently being widely ridiculed on the internet in China, according to Andrew Jacobs, "Poking holes in the tale of a propaganda hero" (International Herald Tribune, March 5, 2012):

[T]he Internet has given rise to a legion of Lei Feng deniers who have been merrily poking holes in his story. Using simple math, they have questioned how a poor orphan living on a tiny army stipend could donate so much money to the needy or how he collected 150 kilograms, or about 330 pounds, of cow dung on a single day during Chinese New Year.

Others have questioned the flawless script of his diary and wondered how it is that there are hundreds of photographs recording his every good deed. Liu Yi, a designer in Shanghai, pointed out the absurdity of one famous image that shows Lei Feng in bed reading Mao's collected works by flashlight. In the photo, he notes, the flashlight is off but the room is fully illuminated. "And there just happened to be a photojournalist passing by to capture the moment," he wrote. (page 3, columns c-f)

Unfortunately, many of these examples of critical thinking still available for others to read online might soon become less prevalent, for beginning March 16, 2012, the Chinese government will require real-name registration on the internet, and the anonymous critiques will end, which may force a lot of individuals to fall silent. Moreover, any online post considered 'detrimental' to national interests, always rather vaguely defined, will have to be deleted within five minutes!

Oddly, I haven't yet managed to locate a copy of this critical article on the internet . . .

UPDATE: It's now online.

Revisiting Liu Xiaobo's "Experiencing Death"

Yu Jie

Wikipedia

A little over a year ago, I posted a blog entry openly wondering about Liu Xiaobo's choice of Christian martyrdom imagery in a poem written on an anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, "Experiencing Death," from which I excerpted the first two stanzas:

I had imagined being there beneath sunlight
with the procession of martyrs
using just the one thin bone
to uphold a true conviction
And yet, the heavenly void
will not plate the sacrificed in gold
A pack of wolves well-fed full of corpses
celebrate in the warm noon air
aflood with joy

Faraway place
I've exiled my life to
this place without sun
to flee the era of Christ's birth
I cannot face the blinding vision on the cross
From a wisp of smoke to a little heap of ash
I've drained the drink of the martyrs, sense spring's
about to break into the brocade-brilliance of myriad flowers

I borrowed these from an article in the New York Times ("Words a Cell Can't Hold," December 8, 2010), translated by Jeffrey Yang (who reads the entire poem on this website), and I asked a number of interpretive questions, culminating in these final two:

Why the use of Christian imagery? I've found nothing to link Liu directly to Christianity, so how are we to read these allusions?

Well, I may now have a bit more insight through a recent NYT article by Edward Wong, "From Virginia Suburb, a Dissident Chinese Writer Continues His Mission" (February 25, 2012), which tells of the dissident Yu Jie, who has just this year gone into exile from China and moved to the United States. From this article, I learned that Yu is a Christian and a friend of Liu:

"I said multiple times before that as long as my life was not threatened, I would not leave China," he said in the two-story house where he and his family live, which belongs to a church friend. "But after Liu Xiaobo's arrest, I was tortured by the government and almost lost my life."

Mr. Liu, one of Mr. Yu's closest friends, wrote Charter 08, a manifesto calling for gradual political reforms, and was sentenced in 2009 to 11 years in prison, a move that contributed to Mr. Liu's being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the next year. Mr. Yu, 38, was placed under house arrest in Beijing in October 2010, five days after the Nobel committee announced Mr. Liu's award, and then, in December, was detained. He was tortured for three hours.

Yu has not been a Christian so long, only since 2003, but he's been friends with Liu since around the turn of the millennium, so they've surely discussed Yu's spiritual views, especially since they've worked on religious issues together:

The two wrote together and led the Independent Chinese PEN Center. Their relationship extended through the writing of Charter 08, when Mr. Yu discussed drafts with Mr. Liu. Mr. Yu, who converted to Christianity in 2003, said he had extensive input on the part about religious freedom.

"Christianity gives me a very strong basis for my faith," he said. "I don't think that democracy can be a faith. Only a more ultimate goal would allow me to withstand all the difficulties I've gone through."

I think that this remark by Yu offers some insight into the martyrdom lines in Liu's poem above, for both are speaking of a Christian meaning in dying for one's beliefs, though they seem to stand upon different sides of the religious divide between Christian and non-Christian.

One problem is that I'm not certain when Liu's poem was written. One website says 1990, but Jeffrey Yang tells us in remarks before his reading of the poem that it is the fourth written on the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, which would put it in 1993.

Either way, neither date would have prevented Liu from revisiting the poem and reworking parts of it later, after becoming friends with Yu, but I am merely guessing, and the question of a Christian influence still remains.

China must "break the tyrannical spell cast by Mao Zedong"

Robert Bellah

Home Page

I see that my old Berkeley advisor Robert Bellah was quoted in a New York Times column yesterday, or at least in my Thursday issue of the International Herald Tribune, but the online version of the Times posted the column on Wednesday.

In any case, the column, "Mao's Spell and the Need to Break It," by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, is recent, and I discovered that Bellah was in China, also recently, where he gave a talk based on his magnum opus that was published this past September, Religion in Human Evolution, which deals -- among various religious and moral systems -- with Confucianism and other Chinese systems of ethics and religion. I'm particularly interested because I saw much of the book in manuscript form, looking for typos and offering minor feedback. Anyway, Bellah's book was quite warmly received by the Chinese authorities:

The emphasis in his book on Chinese tradition as a contemporary guide was warmly welcomed in a recent essay in the state-run newspaper China Daily, in which the writer, Zhang Zhouxiang, argued, perhaps pointedly, that [Bellah's emphasis on manners or rituals, the concept] li[,] justifies the ruler's right to rule but that the ruler also has an obligation to treat his subjects well.

That's rather interesting, in light of Bellah's view that China "must break the tyrannical spell cast by Mao Zedong":

In the book, Mr. Bellah notes the parallels between Mao and [Emperor] Qin Shihuangdi, a follower of the Legalist philosophy, which taught that only harsh punishments could keep people in line and provide effective government. The Qin emperor silenced criticism, burned books and buried scholars alive, while Mao, who admired the emperor, once boasted that he had caused the death of more scholars than Qin Shihuangdi.

Mao's legacy, unfortunately, is inherited by China's Communist Party, which has yet to disavow Mao, and that poses a dilemma. Disavow Mao, and the party itself is disavowed, for it is Mao's creation. Don't disavow Mao, and the party is morally destitute, for it is Mao's creation. Bellah doesn't set forth a dilemma, but he notes a related problem:

"Turning away from Legalism and Mao is going to be a challenge, because they haven't worked their way through the Mao period," said Mr. Bellah . . . . "His picture is still there, and they want to separate the good from the bad part of Mao Thought. Well, sorry, you can't. You've got to break the spell . . . . I think China has to face the fact that Mao was a monster, one of the worst people in human history."

This is particularly a problem for China's leaders because they still emphasize the thought of Mao and Marxism as offering moral authority and guidance, as Bellah notes:

Chinese leaders, who are officially atheist, assume that they have a moral system in place already, he said. "The fact that Marx is taught at every level, from kindergarten to university, shows that they think they have a civil religion. The fact that to many Chinese it's a joke and they don't take it seriously shows they have a problem on their hands."

The Communist leadership's dawning recognition of that problem might explain that recent essay by Zhang Zhouxiang in the China Daily praising Bellah's emphasis upon li. Bellah's views are broader than that as to what constitutes the moral basis of a civilization, and in response to Tatlow's query on what China's future moral basis might be if that country is to step into its role as a legitimate world leader:

Mr. Bellah offered the traditional Chinese concepts of tian, or heaven; li, manners or rituals; and yi, justice, as some building blocks of morality.

To emphasize manners and rituals (le) without grounding them in something greater, justice (yi) confirmed by heaven (tian), would pose the danger of falling again into the Legalist philosophy by another name, with "the Communist Party rel[ying] . . . on people's fear of social chaos to justify its controls."

The Chinese people themselves seem to recognize the need for moral authority, for as Tatlow notes, "spiritual traditions are flourishing, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism and folk religions, as well as Christianity and even Bahai." The very search implies that people are "morally adrift, with the 'eviscerated' Marxism of the Communist Party failing to provide the framework for a functioning set of beliefs," writes Tatlow, summarizing Bellah. But perhaps we can expect more attention to these issues among thoughtful Chinese:

Mr. Bellah said he was deeply impressed by the forward-looking optimism and -- relatively -- free debate he saw in China among intellectuals and students.

If free debate grows into a culture of discussion, then the problem can be analyzed and addressed by the Chinese themselves, but the Communist Party will have to relinquish some controls on free speech for that to develop.

Distorted Learning Through Test-Taking Culture

Typical Test-Centric Student?

Free Dictionary

I read two articles this morning that note the distorted understanding of education encouraged by the rise of standardized testing as a measure of learning. The first article, "The China Conundrum: American colleges find the Chinese-student boom a tricky fit" (The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 3, 2011), written by Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer, describes the bewilderment of many Chinese students who head to America for higher education. The Chinese have long had a test-taking culture that emphasizes rote memorization, a practice deeply rooted in Confucian educational tradition, but they have adapted this tradition to fit the educational paradigm of standardized testing:

Students in China's test-centric culture spend most of their high-school years studying for the gao kao, the college entrance exam that is the sole determining factor in whether students win a coveted spot at one of China's oversubscribed universities. So it's not unusual for those who want to study in the United States to spend months cramming for the SAT and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl, which most campuses require for admission.

Patricia J. Parker, assistant director of admissions at Iowa State, which enrolls more than 1,200 Chinese undergraduates, says students have proudly told her about memorizing thousands of vocabulary words, studying scripted responses to verbal questions, and learning shortcuts that help them guess correct answers.

She has seen conditionally admitted students increase their Toefl scores by 30 or 40 points, out of a possible 120, after a summer break, despite no significant improvement in their ability to speak English. Her students, she says, don't see this intense test-prepping as problematic: "They think the goal is to pass the test. They're studying for the test, not studying English."

The American academic culture is not yet entirely dominated by 'test-centrism' because the professors teaching today were educated in an academic environment that had not yet become dominated by standardized testing. They therefore still try to teach students to think for themselves:

During this past September's orientation on the University of Delaware's Newark campus, Scott Stevens, director of the English Language Institute, stood on the stage in front of a mostly filled theater. Behind him, on a large screen, was a stock photo of two white college students seated at desks. The male student was leaning over to look at the female student's paper. "We are original, so that means we never cheat!" Mr. Stevens told the audience of primarily Chinese students, mixing compliments and warnings. "You are all very intelligent. Use that intelligence to write your own papers."

But these days, even American students are apparently less well equipped for education that does not focus on teaching toward an exam, a fact documented by Kaustuv Basu in "Socratic Backfire?" (Inside Higher Ed, October 31, 2011). Kaustuv writes about the experience of Professor Steven Maranville, who was recently denied tenure at Utah Valley University, partly due to student complaints about his teaching:

Some students didn't take well to Steven Maranville's teaching style at Utah Valley University. They complained that in the professor's "capstone" business course, he asked them questions in class even when they didn't raise their hands. They also didn't like it when he made them work in teams.

Maranville was doing nothing improper, so far as I can see. I'm particularly baffled by the complaint that he asked them questions when they hadn't raised their hands. Asking questions to get students to think is a proper part of teaching. Maranville is now in court over the university's decision to deny tenure, and he's having to defend his teaching style:

Maranville followed the Socratic teaching style and described his way of teaching as "engaged learning," according to court documents. Those records describe teaching approaches designed to go beyond lectures. He would ask questions to stimulate discussion. He divided his students into teams and gave them assignments outside class.

The Socratic style of teaching that Maranville used is hardly novel. But experts say that while it remains popular in law schools, there are reasons many faculty members have never used it extensively with the current generation of students.

"When done well, you simply do not impose the teacher's idea, and try to come up with a solution through dialogue," said Michael Apple, a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "In general, it is a guided dialogue." Supporters of the method see it as "a process by which you try to make the best logical argument and you focus on process as much as content," Apple said. But he added that not that many faculty members use it these days. "The reason for its unpopularity sometimes is because we are in a test-based education system. Students can be increasingly impatient where the answer is not clear and when the professor is not giving it to them immediately."

A lot also depends, Apple said, on who the students are. "It is controversial to some people, for example, students who are deeply concerned that they have to learn a certain amount of content and then take a test at the end," he said. Students may also think that they are being treated as if they were not very smart.

What a baffling attitude students have! Socratic questioning presupposes student intelligence, the ability to think for oneself! Apparently, students these days look on learning as little more than the memorizing of class notes written down as the professor lectures, the aim being to pass a test, and any process that departs from the rapid conveyance of information is an inefficient waste of time. They don't see that genuine education means learning how to think, which entails slowing down to ask questions and look at an issue from various points of view as they learn to integrate facts and ideas on their own under the guidance of a good teacher.

I don't know, of course, that Professor Maranville is actually a good teacher. Students may have a reason to complain. But the remarks by Professor Michael Apple are very revealing about the assumptions held by the current generation of students about learning due to the prevalence of a test-based educational system.

Little wonder that my teaching style doesn't quite perfectly fit either East or West these days . . .

Blaming the Jews: Xin Yishan's 'Analysis'

Crystal Ball of China

(Image from Google Images)

As I've occasionally mentioned, I receive daily emails of the Korea Open Source Digest sent out by USFK J2, and I recently received Volume 4, Issue 114 (Friday, June 17, 2011), which had the following 'intriguing' analysis on the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, "Feeling Pulse of US Recent Actions," by Xin Yishan for the Guangming Wang (original Chinese 6/06/11; translated and released 6/16/11):

The situation in the Middle East is complicated. Many social psychologists in the United States never expected that the "butterfly effect" at the beginning of the incident could lead to such large-scale social unrest. However, the United States is skillful in availing itself of every opportunity. In the evolution of the series of volatile unrest, we can clearly see the black hand of the United States using media reports, political backing, rumors, training of saboteurs, pamphlets for action, and the instigating of discontent behind the scenes. Obviously, the United States "contributed" to the chaos in the Middle East. Although the chaotic situation in the Middle East has been the result of direct US meddling, the strategy is also not significant. Creating problems and fishing in troubled waters has been the advantage of the United Kingdom and the United States, which is also a traditional experience for their successes. The Americans have integrated the habits of the Britons of wishing to see others thrown into confusion whenever possible. When the Middle East was thrown into disorder, fanning flames and creating confusion were the rules of behavior of the Americans. When there was no unrest, the Americans would want to create confusion, to say nothing of the signs of unrest that already existed. Reaping profit amid turmoil was the good experience of the Americans during the First and Second World Wars. Naturally, the Americans are cherishing the dream of the unrest in the Middle East leading to turmoil in Europe.

In other words: I don't know why the US fomented chaos in the Middle East since this isn't really in American interests, though clearly and obviously, the Americans manipulated events, so I assume that they flubbed their multitasking strategy of fishing in troubled waters while fanning flames of confusion and didn't expect their meddling to backfire, but the US will surely attempt to turn the confusion to advantage -- and the Americans probably wanted to harm Europe, too, but I'm not sure why, so maybe it's the Jews since I know that they don't like the Europeans:

The Jews in the United States had enough weight to promote chaos in the Middle East. Jewish strategists believe that unrest in the Middle East will expedite exhaustion within the Arab World and be conducive to the existence of Israel. For this reason, the research institutions controlled by the Jews make use of every opportunity to appropriately propose plans for US economic recovery. With the examples of World War I and World War II, they presented a lot of good sounding ideas, reminding US policymakers to make full use of the Middle East unrest to obtain benefits for the United States, such as attacking the euro to restore the status of the greenback. Naturally, US policymakers who are used to benefiting at the expense of others have acknowledged these selfish tricks. Therefore, we have witnessed the unrest now in the Middle East. The Americans are anxious to see unrest and the more chaotic the better. In light of the current military strength of the United States, it is absolutely capable of protecting a few nations. The United States would like to see great disorder in other regions of the Middle East.

In other words: I realize that the Jews in Israel expressed dismay as the Obama Administration slowly sided with the protesters against Mubarak, but that apparent dismay was just for show because the Jews actually control things in the US and therefore manipulated US policy to turn it against Mubarak, but the Jews are too foolish to see what is obvious, as I shall show, and they will thus be hoist by their own petard when its fuse is lit as they play with the fire fanned by the American fishing expedition:

The policymakers of Jewish origin similarly do not understand the truth that he who plays with fire will eventually burn himself. The chaotic situation in the Middle East will burn Israel in the long run and all the pressure will then focus on Israel. The existence of Israel will then be a big question. Although Israel appears to be very strong, the exhaustion of the protracted wars will wear it down. Wars and huge military spending can bring about a collapse of any big power, to say nothing of Israel which is a small nation.

In other words: Same as what I said earlier, above -- the Jews are manipulating the chaos fanned into flames in the Middle East by the American fishing team -- but I can again restate the point, throwing in a tidbit of Chinese wisdom along with my canny economic analysis on how the Americans want to sabotage the euro:

The unrest in the Middle East will temporarily benefit the United States but it is hard to say whether it will be to the advantage of the United States in the long run. The United States will also be dragged into the wars if it insists on resolutely backing Israel. It will be like lifting a rock to drop on one's own feet. Germany, France, and the Netherlands have benefited from the euro so they will not easily give up the euro. Therefore, the task will be very arduous for the Yankees to adopt any means to crush the euro.

In other words: Rocks dropped to scare fish into nets can splash up and douse flames of chaos, or they can land on one's own foot, too, and there is no need to repeat myself on how the US has so clearly worked to crush the euro as it multitasks among fishing for fracas, fanning furious flames, and flattening fine finance, so let me just note that the US and the Jews are plotting together on this point:

The chaotic situation in the Middle East is created by the US habitual behavior and Jewish plotters for their common interests and the continuous shaping of its evolution and tactical ground is under way. In my opinion, however, the chaotic situation in the Middle East is like a muddy, turbulent current and anyone trying to cross this muddy current is likely to be drowned. The best is yet to come and there will be something good for the Americans and the Israeli Jews. The unrest in the Middle East will drastically change into another wave against Israel.

In other words: These Jewish and American plotters are inadvertently plotting their own destruction . . . I hope.

Commentary: The writer, Xin Yishan, presents a clueless analysis. Or is he being deliberately obtuse? He offers no facts, and he has nearly everything wrong in his analysis. Neither the Americans nor the 'Jews' fomented the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. The US and Israel were both surprised by the unrest, and both fear that Islamists might gain power, especially in Egypt, where they might, for instance, abrogate the Camp David Accords and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Is Xin Yishan actually so clueless? Or being deliberately obtuse? Or is he falling prey to antisemitic paranoia and beginning to see Jews as manipulating everything that goes against China's interests.

As if there weren't enough antisemitism in the world . . .

Tsang Tsou-choi: Art King of Kowloon

King of Kowloon

Photo by Joel Chung

(Image from New York Times)

Tsang Tsou-choi isn't comparable to Vivian Maier, I suppose, but I have a soft spot in my heart of hearts for noble failures, and since Tsang considered himself the King of Kowloon, he's even more than noble -- he's monarch! Or was, for he died in 2007 at age 85. He was just a teenager when he first arrived in Hong Kong in the 1930s, but he only began 'littering' the urban landscape of his city with graffiti some 20 years later:

He toiled under the delusion that he was the rightful heir and ruler of the Kowloon Peninsula, dismissing all political factions that had controlled the area: the Qing Dynasty until 1898, the British until 1997 and China today. In his thick scrawl, he marked his territory with "royal decrees" and a "family tree," using the names of his ancestors and eight children to build an imaginary web of princes and princesses.

For this entirely reasonable private activity -- though, admittedly, carried out in the public eye -- he was unjustifiably considered insane, even by his family!

His real-life wife and children shrank from attention when Mr. Tsang's art became known, and even held a decoy funeral when he died to divert fans and the news media.

"The way society saw him, as an insane person, caused his family to feel ashamed," said Joel Chung, a longtime friend of Mr. Tsang’s who lent hundreds of ink-on-paper works for the show. "He loved his family but, by figuring them so prominently in his work, he embarrassed them and, in their eyes, brought them down in society."

I wonder if they've altered their views now that society -- or at least high society -- has changed its view of the man. You can read about the attention that he's now receiving by clicking onto a New York Times article by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau, "King of Kowloon Finally Gets Respect" (May 4, 2011), from which the quotes above derive.

I first read this article in the International Herald Tribune, which offers more images of the King's art, though only in black and white. The New York Times usually provides a gallery, but not this time. Perhaps that's just as well, for the graffiti, while appealing to the eye, doesn't really differ much from one work of art to the next (unless they're telling different stories). Yet, that very unvarying quality makes his artwork instantly recognizable, which is part of its charm, I suspect. There's also some irony here, for Tsang's work is on display in the Artis Tree, a Hong Kong art space housed in a high glass tower known as Swire Properties' Island East complex, "a place of uniformed guards and immaculate lobbies, where nobody would dare litter, much less paint graffiti on a wall," prompting Lau to inquire what Swire thinks of Tsang:

Babby Fung, a spokeswoman for Swire, called Tsang a "cultural icon."

When asked how Swire would react to a modern-day King of Kowloon decorating its glass towers with ink, she replied, "We're not focusing just on his graffiti. Instead, we're seeing his [work] as a part of Hong Kong history."

Pressed further, she added, "We'd communicate with him first to ascertain if he was really an artist."

Right. And if they instead discovered that the would-be artist were merely an insane pretender to the King of Kowloon's throne, they'd judge him no artist at all and consign him to oblivion . . . until he's safely interred and the 'evil' that he's done is called "good" and sold to make somebody else some money . . .

Eric Li on "Modernism" and "Modernization"

Mapping West and East

(Image from Wikipedia)

I found this New York Times article by Eric Li, "Where the East Parts From the West" (April 27, 2011), to offer an interesting contrast between Western and Chinese concepts of the two related terms "modernism" and "modernization." Here's Li on the Western concept:

The product of the Enlightenment, modernism -- centered as it is on individualism, rights and science -- was a unique Western cultural experience.

To be sure, modernism had its illustrious intellectual ancestry. Platonism began the West's pursuit of abstract truth from the times of ancient Greece. The first division of Christianity and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire more than 1,500 years ago put the West on the road of separated political and religious authorities. The consolidation of power by the landed aristocracy, legalized by the Magna Carta, made balance of power a unique characteristic within Western political structure and philosophy.

The second division of Christianity, the Protestant Reformation, unintentionally contributed to making the individual the sovereign and basic unit of society. All of these historic and cultural developments culminated during the Enlightenment and created the unstoppable meta-narrative -- modernism. Modernism facilitated the development of science and the industrial revolution and led to the greatest advancement of material power in the history of man: modernization.

The individual, conceived as rational and endowed with God-given rights, sits at the center of the value system of modernism. These individuals, combined with the cultural traditions of their homelands, created the nation-state. Balance of power and electoral democracy became the defining political characteristics of these nation-states. The ownership of private property formed their social and economic foundation -- what we now call capitalism.

Note that Li is not simply offering a potted history of the Western terms "modernism" and "modernization." He's also binding these two concepts to their unique Western cultural heritage, with the implication that they possess their particular meanings only in the West and only for Westerners. By contrast, "here's what Li says concerning the Chinese words that the Chinese have turned to for translating the two Western terms:

No doubt China's modernization received enormous Western influence. Yet its essence is not and can not be modernism.

In today's China, the individual remains part of the collective and by no means the independent and basic unit of society. Political power is not divided and balanced but centralized under a single political authority.

A market economy adapted from the West is delivering efficient allocation of resources and high rates of growth and has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Yet, it is pointedly not capitalism. Ordinary Chinese people enjoy as wide a range of personal liberties as those anywhere in the Western world. But those with political aspirations contrary to the collective objectives of the state and society are severely constrained, even repressed.

Language is life. Words contextualize our world and lend it meaning. The word "modern" is translated into Chinese as Xiandai -- which simply means "the current generation." Xiandai does not and can not carry the rich meaning inherent to the word "modern." And Xiandaihua -- modernization -- carries only material meaning. Xiandaihua has been the overwhelming objective of the Chinese nation.

One of the founding fathers of the People's Republic, Premier Zhou Enlai, announced to the Chinese people at the end of the tragic Cultural Revolution that the four modernizations (Xiandaihua ) were China's national aspirations: modernizations of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. These by no means add up to modernism.

As noted, I found these differences interesting, even useful for my endeavor to understand cultural and civilizational differences. But I can think of two problems with Li's analysis, for it stops short in two ways.

First, nothing prevents a term in Chinese from expanding in meaning -- just as the terms "modernism" and "modernization" expanded in meaning over time -- such that Xiandai and Xiandaihua, respectively, could also take on the Western meanings of modernism and modernization.

Second, the implicit assumption is that China, by virtue of its historical difference, is a civilization with its own unique cultural traditions and that it does not need individualism, human rights, democracy, the rule of law, division of powers, and so on. A culture or civilization that rejects these as alien to its unique 'essence,' however, leaves itself open to decadence. These aren't merely concepts. These are also practical developments that have been proven to work. One cannot simply argue that China's government needs no division of powers among its executive, legislative, and judicial branches simply because a Confucian ethic of virtuous obligation on the part of a ruler for those over whom one rules will guide Chinese leaders to right action in governance -- assuming that this were to be an argument that Li might offer -- for the self-interest of a ruler will often override any ethic of virtuous obligation and lead to corrupt rule and the abuse of power.

I could go down the list, but I won't belabor the obvious and thereby insult the intelligence of my astute, erudite readers, who undoubtedly know these things already.

Okay, that's not the real reason. Going down the list would be useful for me, but I'm just too lazy this morning . . .