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To understand this phrase you have to remove the mask of stereotypes and clichés that weigh it down. Let's look at something thats the complete opposite of this ambiguity of this phrase: Marina Abramovic's: The Artist is Present.
It appears to be a woman sitting in a large clunky dress staring at a member of the public across a table. Once a viewer is done, the person leaves and another sits staring at Abramovic. Nothing special. But Marina Abromovic has sat on this chair during museum hours for 3 months! She's not spacing off either. If the viewer on the other chair is open to the present, she stares straight into you with full concentration. Both are defenseless, the viewer senses emotion in it's purest form without hiding behind ego or pretext.
The general perception Chinese culture is the complete opposite. Culture is old, traditional, full of symbolism. It's 5000 years old and Confucius preaches it's morals. But is is meaningful?
I forgot which survey, but there's always talk that China surpasses the entire world in math and science. Was this due to "Chinese culture" ? I doubt it. The first line of the Analects quotes, "If there is the practice of learning, is there not joy?" Were these kids happy when they were bubbling their multiple choice answers? Both Chinese and non-Chinese have this preconceived notion that education will equate to success, but rarely do people question if the test itself is meaningful. Barely after 100 years after the civil service exam during the Han Dynasty, it was riddled with corruption and bribery. I doubt Confucius envisioned his predecessors to strive for perfects on the SAT.
Like a viewer looking into Marina's eyes, we have to let go of our own ego and prejudice when trying to find meaning behind culture. Chinese culture isn't meaningful because of it's traits, it's meaningful through the values we can sense and intuit. I hope that as I continue writing my blog, my viewers will find joy in learning.
very nice entry :)
ReplyDeleteI suspect all cultural stereotypes are based on a normed average and that means the largest segment of a cultural population. With that said, there will always be exceptions to any cultural average.
ReplyDeleteFor example: In the United States the largest segment of parents raise his or her children to have a (false) high sense of self esteem but there are still exceptions on both sides of that averaged norm. The only reason this parental behavior becomes a stereotype is because so many parents fall in this category.
The exceptions would be parenting styles outside the average norm.
Maybe this helps:
permissive do your own thing extreme = 27 - 30%
normed self-esteem driven average = 40 - 45%
strict tough-love extreme = 27 - 30%
Then there would be variations within each of the three sectors.
I wonder if cultural stereotypes can fit on a Gaussian curve? Haha, my physics side is curious.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was learning about the civil service exam in Chinese history, the psychology major in me had to question the content validity of the test; would being able to regurgitate Confucian lines equate to success as a government official? When I learned about IQ tests, we always had to question how one would measure intelligence. There's always the issue of whether the test is truly measuring what it's suppose to. It becomes obvious later on though that the civil service exams were more about style (eight-legged essays) than content.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to note how the culture of China shifts. During the late Qing, Confucian morals and values were judged by everyone to be holding China back. Yet now, everyone seems to think that those same values contributed to China's success.
P.S. I'm going to enjoy reading your blog; it's making use of the stuff I learned in my Chinese history class. Great brain exercise.
I think it would work. In fact, I suspect that if you were to create historical Gaussian curves for each cultural-nation state going back, let's say, two thousand years by tracking cultural changes in each nation/empire, etc., you might be able to create a program that would analyze this date from curve to curve and bring it all together to predict future shifts and changes in the cultural behavior patterns of a nation's population in addition to stating the odds that certain shifts would take place.
ReplyDeleteUsing that already known, historical behavior patterns might allow the program to predict the future and the odds of dramatic cultural changes taking place within the population of a nation--sort of like how Nate Silver predicts the outcome of political elections in the United States.
I suspect that it doesn't matter what is studied in higher education as much as demonstrating success in the system---any challenging system that develops the mind.
ReplyDeleteSuccess in higher education, be it in an imperial Confucian higher education system or the university system in the United States, offers an indication of the quality of the individual and his or her value to society.
For a comparison, in the US, earning a college degree is a sign of someone demonstrating discipline and the ability to succeed and this probably explains why the unemployment rate in the US for college educated Americans is about 3.9% when the current national average is 7.8%.
And it doesn't matter what the degree is because many employers seem more willing to hire a college educated individual over a high school graduate and then train them. In fact, only half of college graduates in the US work in the fields they earned a degree in.
The reason is that college graduates have already proven they are lifelong learners with the ability to be educated in other skill sets.
For a comparison, high school graduates in the US with no college have an unemployment rate of 8% while the rate for high school drop outs is 11.7% and the unemployment rate for someone with some college is 6.9%.
Even if one were to never work in the field he or she earned a degree in, what unemployment rate would you want to face for your education level?
A. 3.9%
B. 6.9%
C. 8%
D. 11.7%