Interesting. I think it’s mutual. Chinese are also very biased against the west and their allies. I am Chinese and according to my observation, rich Chinese people love Japan and Japanese culture even though most average Chinese are so sensitive about Japan and America under years’ anti-west and anti-Japanese propaganda. If you wear a kimono in a Chinese park, you risk getting criticized for “forgetting history” and “not loving your country”. It’s not just that Chinese culture is neglected by the West, it also has a lot to do with our cultural education which is so political that there isn’t much room for Chinese culture to develop and grow, let alone spreading the influence outside China. Free creativity is severely limited due to censorship in movies, music and literature. (I myself risk getting reported for writing this post.)
I admire your appreciation for Chinese culture, but there are a lot of factors that are limiting Chinese cultural influence in the world. When most Chinese have no access to foreign apps, they don’t know how to make their voice heard or interact with foreigners.
And yes, many Chinese become rich and I live in one of the richer cities in China. But the majority of the people are still quite poor. Many farmers (such as my uncle snd aunty) in the country live off 20 to 50 dollars’ monthly government allowance. But to be fair, they grow their own vegetables and their children help take care of them, so their lives aren’t all that bad. It’s just the burden of taking care of the elderly falls on the children, who are already struggling with their own finances. We have a saying “养儿防老”, which means the purpose of having children is so they can take care of you when you get old. I am in my late thirties and get criticized all the time for not having any kids.
Besides, the deep-rooted patriarchal and hierarchical culture is really hard to like, especially for locals (women). People are divided into several social echelons based on their occultations and wealth and government positions. I know they have similar values in the west, but trust me, it’s nothing compared to our culture. Most foreigners think Chinese culture is all about respect and honor, but in essence, it’s submission. The submissive culture is very suffocating, but the good thing is the younger generation starts fighting against it now.
But otherwise, the food, the environment, the cost of living are all very favorable, especially to people from developed countries. They enjoy all the convenience and cheap service and products without having to succumb to the traditional Chinese culture (must buy a house to get married, must have kids before thirty, must have a stable job, must take care of their parents, must be submissive to their older family members and government leaders and supervisors etc.)
One more thing that marks China’s unique culture is, lack of critical thinking. Our education in schools is more like memorization, even for Maths. Anybody who ever teaches in Chinese schools will quickly discover this. The lack of basic logic and critical thinking among the students and teachers as well as the internet blockade ferment strong hostility and bias against the world.
Maybe I’m coming from a different perspective but I see plenty of pseudo-Chinese fantasy books on the shelves, White folks learning to cook Chinese, people reading Tang Dynasty poetry, etc.
I think the political conflict between the PRC and the West and Xi Jinping’s policies do a lot to weaken Chinese soft power, though.
Do westerners really "despise" Chinese art? To be sure, being under communism, their art was the worthless kitsch all communist countries produce, but that is despising communist art, not Chinese art.
Being under the Communist thumb all these years means people don't necessarily have an accurate view of Chinese culture. Increasingly, in literature at least, that is starting to change.
And the Chinese have better food than the Japanese...
I'm not the type to ever push my writing but this caught my eye. I wrote a small piece recently where I alluded to my perceived "spectrum behavior" in Chinese men. I thought it was just a random hot take, but the fact someone else said it...
I am married to a woman of Japanese descent; have been for 40 years.
I agree with most--and maybe all--of your observations regarding the source of most of east Asian conventions and cultural veneers. I cannot speak to Korean nuances, but three of the most important ones I'm aware of are Shinto-ism, the way of affixing group blame for an individual's short-comings, and the levels of life expectancies of the general run-of-the-mill common man.
Shinto is self-reverential worship in a sense. The notion that the past. current, and future emperor is a literal descendant of the sun, and that his native subjects are therefore in some diffuse way also related to the sun, causes them to set themselves apart simply on grounds of divine inspiration of race.
The convention, as in China and much of East Asia, of putting the family name first, with the given name in a subordinate position, shows the western observer that enduring family identity trumps individual identity and therefore the sins (and the successes) of the individual is shared by the family, fairly or unfairly.
Thusfar this seems pretty close in both China and Japan, but the Japanese take this to lengths that may not be paralleled in China, and most importantly, this group responsibility is what drives the individual Japanese to attempt near-perfection in crafts and smaller scale manufacturing, where the individual's contribution to the finished product is recognizable to culture as a whole.
I think also that part of the differences between Chinese and Japanese *general cultural sensibilities* is that, as I understand it, the Chinese emperor, and hence leadership, operates under "the mandate of heaven", which is a flowery way of saying leadership can remain so long as it's competent in governing the nation in general. In this sense the average Chinese expected that *something*, however little it might be, is theirs by the simple fact of existence, but in Japan, where the general populace was disarmed multiple times and left at the mercy of the armed classes of nobles and samurai, this deep belief in individual rights--however limited--is almost entirely absent. It was their primary duty in life to behave themselves in relation to their betters (in this sense they use Confuscian concepts to reinforce the reality of rigid social hierarchies, rather than see it as a useful system for a nation to adopt), and their betters were infallible, just as the emperor did not need the mandate of heaven, since he was in a sense, heaven itself.
Really, docility and default subservience are the primary differences in cultural sensibilities, for better or worse.
Good observations, all. One way (not necessarily the only way) to describe Japan would be as a land that was cultured and civilized by Chinese influence, adding local elements to the mix, and sublimated all of that into an unique thing that is very appealing for many because of its strangeness and effectiveness (as you well know, Japan is clean, safe and prosperous) and also because of other reasons that I discussed in the post. I wouldn't want to come across as a Japan-hater, I do appreciate Japanese people and their culture and their country, and wish there were more Japanese in the world.
This is interesting to think about. Please bear in mind that while I've know quite a few Chinese people, most of whom are Chinese nationals, I've not been around them enough to observe and evaluate the real essence of Chinese culture, so my observations are certainly incomplete and pretty superficial. But here goes...
Here in the US it's *very* easy to find Chinese businesses run by Chinese nationals or 1st gen offspring. They apparently (to me, at least) came here voluntarily, purposely looking for opportunity. I'm aware that the earliest Chinese were brought here for labor, as were the Japanese, but the Chinese seemed motivated to find individual opportunity, whereas it's very hard to find any such Japanese enterprises *except for those designed to sell to a Japanese client base*. I suspect that Chinese enterprises may have started this way, but they also made conscious efforts to optimize their businesses to sell to non-Chinese, as well.
Funny, though: both 2nd, 3rd, and beyond Chinese and Japanese tend to converge as professionals--their forebears may have been shop keepers, laborers, etc. but they very quickly entered the ranks of doctors, engineers, researchers, etc.
I'd also generalize somewhat by saying that any separate national group that is located close to the Chinese is bound to have something of a national inferiority complex. Chinese cultural accomplishments are many , diverse, and happened early and have continued. Japanese leadership has always been quick to recognize practical advantages and to adopt them so far as they did not threaten the leadership's authority.
I'll close with a sort of funny, ethnocentric observation, and since you're married to an Asian woman, you'll know that these observations are not considered unwarranted or rude in conversation, at least as far as I can see. The observation is that:
The Chinese can make *anything*, to any level of quality, from very low to superb, but it's going to be up to the buyer to figure out which is which. The Japanese, on the other hand, can make *almost* anything, but personally fear to make it less than at least generally acceptable, so as not to shame the family--symbolically if not in actuality. So mediocre is the worst you're likely to get from Japanese manufacture, and if it's a hand-craft it'll be very, very high indeed, but the Chinese will cheerfully make anything that a buyer will accept, and this will be anywhere from absolute junk to the finest quality; it'll be up to the buyer to discern, and in that sense it's a kind of a test of the buyer.
Yup, excellent stuff indeed. Then there's, for Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc, the other side of the coin: you may be in Haiti or in Peru, but people will look at you and they will call you "Chinese."
Very good article. Here's a probably wrong hypothesis: the issue is one of prestige. Japan and Korea export relatively high status, complex, or expensive goods to the West like Samsung smartphones, Sony Playstations, and Lexus automobiles. These products are strong rivals to anything made by their Western competitors. China on the other hand mainly exports a lot of inexpensive and low status goods like Socks or electrical parts, and they compete with many western companies based largely on lower labor costs. When China has its own Sony, Samsung, or Toyota, it will enjoy the same cultural status in the West.
Huawei got banned in the US for its shady practices, BYD doesn't export hardly any cars to the west so no one knows about them, Tiktok is a video sharing site for people who are too dumb even for youtube (which is saying something), and I don't know much of anything about the other two, so I would say no, they're not.
Oh I didn't realize you were talking literally only from your own narrow minded perspective. That makes sense then, given you think Youtube is only for dumb people. I mean if you don't know anything then maybe you shouldn't be commenting until you get more informed about the world around you..?
Well, my original point was about prestige, and prestige is at least in part about perception. BYD might make awesome cars, but I guarantee you 90% of Americans have never heard of them because they're not available here. People simply have no perspective on their products at all. Hard to garner prestige that way!
In a somewhat different vein, you sorta can't make something like TikTok prestigious, because it's literally open to everyone, and that necessarily means that a lot of the content is going to be kinda dumb. If you were to analogize this to something else, like a tv show, let's say, it'd be hard to convince people that liking this tv show was cool and showed off how smart and sophisticated you were if half the episodes were pure idiocy. That's my point.
Liked this piece and your work generally- very interesting. This topic reminds me of a talk by Colin Thubron given in Hong Kong : he spoke very amusingly on how the chinese were great at inventing stuff - he focused on paper , gunpowder, and the compass- but hopeless at capitalising on their inventiveness ! The Japanese seemed to find this aswell .
( I have lived and worked with Chinese people for 35 years and have nothing but respect for their talent and application to hard work.)
I’m familiar with this and I still prefer Japanese stuff…I can’t articulate why exactly because it varies from art style to art style. For example, interior decoration in Japanese vs. Chinese households tends to favor Japan because Japan is more about open spaces, airiness, and opening up the house to nature.
I like Chinese classical music a tad more, but I hate Chinese opera with a passion. So, I prefer Japanese theater. etc. etc.
I think it's because mainland Chinese culture is so insufferable these days. My brother lived in China 2005 to 2020 and learned fluent mandarin. The first half the culture was still depressingly CCP strangled but improving, with pockets of nascent civil society and interesting stuff going on in the big cities. Xi turned it all back. By the end he loved Taiwan, lamented Hong Kong, and really disliked the mainland. IOW, China has spent 100 years either fighting a civil war or having interesting culture actively crushed by the CCP. And in the modern era China's only not been desperately poor for the past 20-30 years. Seems unsurprising they haven't done much cultural exporting.
the paper one is interesting, it really took off when the technique was used with Indian cotton, somewhere in central Asia, and took the world by storm out of the middle east via Bagdad & Damascus. But you know, people still call our numbers Arabic numerals when they come from India originally.
What you’re saying might be true, but doesn’t account for a common truth. Japan is much more civilised than China. That seems to be changing with the generations but is still observable in a large amount of Chinese.
I don’t know the historical roots of this. Im not across it, but Ive interacted with a lot of both, and so have many others.
Between Chinese, Korean and Japanese societies, it is only the former that has a period of state-sponsored active suppression and destruction of it, from 1940s to 70s. It has created a very strange cultural environment in its wake. And a class of folks who your friends would deem “disheveled”.
It is very unfortunate, because aesthetics and depth of the mainland culture is of course fascinating and absolutely worth immersing ourselves into.
It will take a long time.
Not sure high-production CCP-funded movies help. Culture thrives organically.
I think you don't quite come out and say this, but the lack of common knowledge in the west of the pre-modern Chinese origins of many Japanese cultural expression comes down to two key historical factors:
1) Westerners were often first exposed to these artistic traditions via contact with Japanese versions starting in the late 19th century. This is directly true of woodblock prints, and to a lesser degree true of
2) for much of the 20th century, the Chinese governments (plural) were concerned about projecting an image vitality and modernization, and so went out of their way NOT to promote many traditional Chinese arts to a foreign audience.
Contrary your claims of ongoing erasure of Chinese history and culture, I see rather the opposite happening. Since the around 2015 or so, there has been a significant rise in Chinese-flavored cultural productions that become popular with western audiences, or are even deliberately targeted at western audiences. In this respect, I wonder if genre fiction like "The Three Body Problem" may be a leading indicator of things to come, much as the arrival of early Japanese cultural imports in the mid-1970s (early arcade games, 'kung fu' films) presaged the later mainstream impact of Japanese popular and high culture in the 1990s and early 2000s.
I wish I could share your optimism, but the Netflix adaptation of the Three Body Problem rather goes in the opposite direction, making the Chinese the baddies
Yeah but Chinese people are gross. Tofu dreg construction, eating bags, using raw sewage as cooking oil, pissing anywhere/ everywhere (they're tourists have been banned from multiple cities for this). If they want to be treated like a respectable civilization, they need to act more like the Japanese.
Interesting. I think it’s mutual. Chinese are also very biased against the west and their allies. I am Chinese and according to my observation, rich Chinese people love Japan and Japanese culture even though most average Chinese are so sensitive about Japan and America under years’ anti-west and anti-Japanese propaganda. If you wear a kimono in a Chinese park, you risk getting criticized for “forgetting history” and “not loving your country”. It’s not just that Chinese culture is neglected by the West, it also has a lot to do with our cultural education which is so political that there isn’t much room for Chinese culture to develop and grow, let alone spreading the influence outside China. Free creativity is severely limited due to censorship in movies, music and literature. (I myself risk getting reported for writing this post.)
I admire your appreciation for Chinese culture, but there are a lot of factors that are limiting Chinese cultural influence in the world. When most Chinese have no access to foreign apps, they don’t know how to make their voice heard or interact with foreigners.
And yes, many Chinese become rich and I live in one of the richer cities in China. But the majority of the people are still quite poor. Many farmers (such as my uncle snd aunty) in the country live off 20 to 50 dollars’ monthly government allowance. But to be fair, they grow their own vegetables and their children help take care of them, so their lives aren’t all that bad. It’s just the burden of taking care of the elderly falls on the children, who are already struggling with their own finances. We have a saying “养儿防老”, which means the purpose of having children is so they can take care of you when you get old. I am in my late thirties and get criticized all the time for not having any kids.
Besides, the deep-rooted patriarchal and hierarchical culture is really hard to like, especially for locals (women). People are divided into several social echelons based on their occultations and wealth and government positions. I know they have similar values in the west, but trust me, it’s nothing compared to our culture. Most foreigners think Chinese culture is all about respect and honor, but in essence, it’s submission. The submissive culture is very suffocating, but the good thing is the younger generation starts fighting against it now.
But otherwise, the food, the environment, the cost of living are all very favorable, especially to people from developed countries. They enjoy all the convenience and cheap service and products without having to succumb to the traditional Chinese culture (must buy a house to get married, must have kids before thirty, must have a stable job, must take care of their parents, must be submissive to their older family members and government leaders and supervisors etc.)
One more thing that marks China’s unique culture is, lack of critical thinking. Our education in schools is more like memorization, even for Maths. Anybody who ever teaches in Chinese schools will quickly discover this. The lack of basic logic and critical thinking among the students and teachers as well as the internet blockade ferment strong hostility and bias against the world.
Maybe I’m coming from a different perspective but I see plenty of pseudo-Chinese fantasy books on the shelves, White folks learning to cook Chinese, people reading Tang Dynasty poetry, etc.
I think the political conflict between the PRC and the West and Xi Jinping’s policies do a lot to weaken Chinese soft power, though.
Do westerners really "despise" Chinese art? To be sure, being under communism, their art was the worthless kitsch all communist countries produce, but that is despising communist art, not Chinese art.
Wrong.
Being under the Communist thumb all these years means people don't necessarily have an accurate view of Chinese culture. Increasingly, in literature at least, that is starting to change.
And the Chinese have better food than the Japanese...
Japan = democratic + rich + allied ≈ western
China = autoctstic + poor + rivalrous = nor western
China is autistic?
I'm not the type to ever push my writing but this caught my eye. I wrote a small piece recently where I alluded to my perceived "spectrum behavior" in Chinese men. I thought it was just a random hot take, but the fact someone else said it...
he obviously meant to write autocratic...
think of what the nazis did to german culture
for centuries the german speaking people were the cultural engine of europe
and the nazis burned it all to the ground
I think the ccp did something similar to chinese culture with only remnants surviving in hong kong
south korea and japan otoh never suffered this kind of cultural vandalism
Good point, yes. China was for a long time associated with crazy politics and people in identical suits. Not a great propaganda plan.
That’s about the most historically ignorant comment I’ve ever read.
I am married to a woman of Japanese descent; have been for 40 years.
I agree with most--and maybe all--of your observations regarding the source of most of east Asian conventions and cultural veneers. I cannot speak to Korean nuances, but three of the most important ones I'm aware of are Shinto-ism, the way of affixing group blame for an individual's short-comings, and the levels of life expectancies of the general run-of-the-mill common man.
Shinto is self-reverential worship in a sense. The notion that the past. current, and future emperor is a literal descendant of the sun, and that his native subjects are therefore in some diffuse way also related to the sun, causes them to set themselves apart simply on grounds of divine inspiration of race.
The convention, as in China and much of East Asia, of putting the family name first, with the given name in a subordinate position, shows the western observer that enduring family identity trumps individual identity and therefore the sins (and the successes) of the individual is shared by the family, fairly or unfairly.
Thusfar this seems pretty close in both China and Japan, but the Japanese take this to lengths that may not be paralleled in China, and most importantly, this group responsibility is what drives the individual Japanese to attempt near-perfection in crafts and smaller scale manufacturing, where the individual's contribution to the finished product is recognizable to culture as a whole.
I think also that part of the differences between Chinese and Japanese *general cultural sensibilities* is that, as I understand it, the Chinese emperor, and hence leadership, operates under "the mandate of heaven", which is a flowery way of saying leadership can remain so long as it's competent in governing the nation in general. In this sense the average Chinese expected that *something*, however little it might be, is theirs by the simple fact of existence, but in Japan, where the general populace was disarmed multiple times and left at the mercy of the armed classes of nobles and samurai, this deep belief in individual rights--however limited--is almost entirely absent. It was their primary duty in life to behave themselves in relation to their betters (in this sense they use Confuscian concepts to reinforce the reality of rigid social hierarchies, rather than see it as a useful system for a nation to adopt), and their betters were infallible, just as the emperor did not need the mandate of heaven, since he was in a sense, heaven itself.
Really, docility and default subservience are the primary differences in cultural sensibilities, for better or worse.
Good observations, all. One way (not necessarily the only way) to describe Japan would be as a land that was cultured and civilized by Chinese influence, adding local elements to the mix, and sublimated all of that into an unique thing that is very appealing for many because of its strangeness and effectiveness (as you well know, Japan is clean, safe and prosperous) and also because of other reasons that I discussed in the post. I wouldn't want to come across as a Japan-hater, I do appreciate Japanese people and their culture and their country, and wish there were more Japanese in the world.
This is interesting to think about. Please bear in mind that while I've know quite a few Chinese people, most of whom are Chinese nationals, I've not been around them enough to observe and evaluate the real essence of Chinese culture, so my observations are certainly incomplete and pretty superficial. But here goes...
Here in the US it's *very* easy to find Chinese businesses run by Chinese nationals or 1st gen offspring. They apparently (to me, at least) came here voluntarily, purposely looking for opportunity. I'm aware that the earliest Chinese were brought here for labor, as were the Japanese, but the Chinese seemed motivated to find individual opportunity, whereas it's very hard to find any such Japanese enterprises *except for those designed to sell to a Japanese client base*. I suspect that Chinese enterprises may have started this way, but they also made conscious efforts to optimize their businesses to sell to non-Chinese, as well.
Funny, though: both 2nd, 3rd, and beyond Chinese and Japanese tend to converge as professionals--their forebears may have been shop keepers, laborers, etc. but they very quickly entered the ranks of doctors, engineers, researchers, etc.
I'd also generalize somewhat by saying that any separate national group that is located close to the Chinese is bound to have something of a national inferiority complex. Chinese cultural accomplishments are many , diverse, and happened early and have continued. Japanese leadership has always been quick to recognize practical advantages and to adopt them so far as they did not threaten the leadership's authority.
I'll close with a sort of funny, ethnocentric observation, and since you're married to an Asian woman, you'll know that these observations are not considered unwarranted or rude in conversation, at least as far as I can see. The observation is that:
The Chinese can make *anything*, to any level of quality, from very low to superb, but it's going to be up to the buyer to figure out which is which. The Japanese, on the other hand, can make *almost* anything, but personally fear to make it less than at least generally acceptable, so as not to shame the family--symbolically if not in actuality. So mediocre is the worst you're likely to get from Japanese manufacture, and if it's a hand-craft it'll be very, very high indeed, but the Chinese will cheerfully make anything that a buyer will accept, and this will be anywhere from absolute junk to the finest quality; it'll be up to the buyer to discern, and in that sense it's a kind of a test of the buyer.
Yup, excellent stuff indeed. Then there's, for Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc, the other side of the coin: you may be in Haiti or in Peru, but people will look at you and they will call you "Chinese."
Hah, hah...yes, "la chinita" while vacationing in Mexico!
When did China come over and culture and civilize Japan? What period in history do you imagine this occurred in?
Very good article. Here's a probably wrong hypothesis: the issue is one of prestige. Japan and Korea export relatively high status, complex, or expensive goods to the West like Samsung smartphones, Sony Playstations, and Lexus automobiles. These products are strong rivals to anything made by their Western competitors. China on the other hand mainly exports a lot of inexpensive and low status goods like Socks or electrical parts, and they compete with many western companies based largely on lower labor costs. When China has its own Sony, Samsung, or Toyota, it will enjoy the same cultural status in the West.
Huawei, BYD, Tiktok, Genshin Impact, Haidilao - are they not the equivalent of a Sony or Toyota..?
Huawei got banned in the US for its shady practices, BYD doesn't export hardly any cars to the west so no one knows about them, Tiktok is a video sharing site for people who are too dumb even for youtube (which is saying something), and I don't know much of anything about the other two, so I would say no, they're not.
Oh I didn't realize you were talking literally only from your own narrow minded perspective. That makes sense then, given you think Youtube is only for dumb people. I mean if you don't know anything then maybe you shouldn't be commenting until you get more informed about the world around you..?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/business/genshin-impact-china-japan.html
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/the-economics-of/china-hot-pot-giant-has-its-own-boy-band-can-it-win-over-us-diners/308A0B8C-BF53-489E-AC23-1B40849C6BA7
Also Huawei's issues stem from politics, not 'shadiness', whatever that means.
Well, my original point was about prestige, and prestige is at least in part about perception. BYD might make awesome cars, but I guarantee you 90% of Americans have never heard of them because they're not available here. People simply have no perspective on their products at all. Hard to garner prestige that way!
In a somewhat different vein, you sorta can't make something like TikTok prestigious, because it's literally open to everyone, and that necessarily means that a lot of the content is going to be kinda dumb. If you were to analogize this to something else, like a tv show, let's say, it'd be hard to convince people that liking this tv show was cool and showed off how smart and sophisticated you were if half the episodes were pure idiocy. That's my point.
Liked this piece and your work generally- very interesting. This topic reminds me of a talk by Colin Thubron given in Hong Kong : he spoke very amusingly on how the chinese were great at inventing stuff - he focused on paper , gunpowder, and the compass- but hopeless at capitalising on their inventiveness ! The Japanese seemed to find this aswell .
( I have lived and worked with Chinese people for 35 years and have nothing but respect for their talent and application to hard work.)
I’m familiar with this and I still prefer Japanese stuff…I can’t articulate why exactly because it varies from art style to art style. For example, interior decoration in Japanese vs. Chinese households tends to favor Japan because Japan is more about open spaces, airiness, and opening up the house to nature.
I like Chinese classical music a tad more, but I hate Chinese opera with a passion. So, I prefer Japanese theater. etc. etc.
I think it's because mainland Chinese culture is so insufferable these days. My brother lived in China 2005 to 2020 and learned fluent mandarin. The first half the culture was still depressingly CCP strangled but improving, with pockets of nascent civil society and interesting stuff going on in the big cities. Xi turned it all back. By the end he loved Taiwan, lamented Hong Kong, and really disliked the mainland. IOW, China has spent 100 years either fighting a civil war or having interesting culture actively crushed by the CCP. And in the modern era China's only not been desperately poor for the past 20-30 years. Seems unsurprising they haven't done much cultural exporting.
the paper one is interesting, it really took off when the technique was used with Indian cotton, somewhere in central Asia, and took the world by storm out of the middle east via Bagdad & Damascus. But you know, people still call our numbers Arabic numerals when they come from India originally.
Absolutely. That's pretty common. Spanish flu (almost unknown in Spain) is another example.
What you’re saying might be true, but doesn’t account for a common truth. Japan is much more civilised than China. That seems to be changing with the generations but is still observable in a large amount of Chinese.
I don’t know the historical roots of this. Im not across it, but Ive interacted with a lot of both, and so have many others.
Manners are definitely superior in Japan, true. They were never Communist.
Between Chinese, Korean and Japanese societies, it is only the former that has a period of state-sponsored active suppression and destruction of it, from 1940s to 70s. It has created a very strange cultural environment in its wake. And a class of folks who your friends would deem “disheveled”.
It is very unfortunate, because aesthetics and depth of the mainland culture is of course fascinating and absolutely worth immersing ourselves into.
It will take a long time.
Not sure high-production CCP-funded movies help. Culture thrives organically.
Chinese and Americans are brothers in being chauvinistic, materialistic, and shallow cultures. I think they will learn to appreciate each other.
I think you don't quite come out and say this, but the lack of common knowledge in the west of the pre-modern Chinese origins of many Japanese cultural expression comes down to two key historical factors:
1) Westerners were often first exposed to these artistic traditions via contact with Japanese versions starting in the late 19th century. This is directly true of woodblock prints, and to a lesser degree true of
2) for much of the 20th century, the Chinese governments (plural) were concerned about projecting an image vitality and modernization, and so went out of their way NOT to promote many traditional Chinese arts to a foreign audience.
Contrary your claims of ongoing erasure of Chinese history and culture, I see rather the opposite happening. Since the around 2015 or so, there has been a significant rise in Chinese-flavored cultural productions that become popular with western audiences, or are even deliberately targeted at western audiences. In this respect, I wonder if genre fiction like "The Three Body Problem" may be a leading indicator of things to come, much as the arrival of early Japanese cultural imports in the mid-1970s (early arcade games, 'kung fu' films) presaged the later mainstream impact of Japanese popular and high culture in the 1990s and early 2000s.
I wish I could share your optimism, but the Netflix adaptation of the Three Body Problem rather goes in the opposite direction, making the Chinese the baddies
Yeah but Chinese people are gross. Tofu dreg construction, eating bags, using raw sewage as cooking oil, pissing anywhere/ everywhere (they're tourists have been banned from multiple cities for this). If they want to be treated like a respectable civilization, they need to act more like the Japanese.
Fair criticisms, I'm sure all Chinese will agree with them