48 CultureShock! China
systems is playing in breaking down senses of community
and personal security.
Nevertheless, there is a clear sense that China’s middle
class and elite audiences today, from a marketing perspective,
are more than less similar to their Western counterparts.
This represents a shift from earlier times, when Maslow’s
hierarchy was seen as to some degree reversed in China. In
the late 1970s and early 1980s, for instance, psychologist
Edwin C Nevis did research in China suggesting that China’s
intense group-orientation at the time (the tail-end of the Blue
Ant era) meant that self-esteem for Chinese came not from
individual but from group recognition. Even then, however,
Nevis predicted that economic reform might shift China
closer to the US in that regard, and that shift seems in fact
to have largely taken place.
Of course, beneath all these psychological and marketing
complexities are an even more fundamental layer of values
and philosophical ideals handed down from China’s very
long and complex past.and Their Modern Fate Some Chinese Traditions
MODERN FATE
Despite the centuries of war, revolution, economic reform and
other transformations and dislocations that have changed
so much about China, many traditional Chinese values still
persist. This is unsurprising, of course; deep cultural values
tend to be resilient.
Both ancient Chinese traditions like Confucianism and
Buddhism, and more modern traditions like socialist ethics,
behave within China in similar ways to the Judeo-Christian
tradition in Western societies.
Some people are true believers, purposely organising their
lives around these traditions. Others are ‘lapsed’, or perhaps
never really believed at all. Still, these values affect most
Chinese to some degree, just as Judeo-Christian values affect
most Americans (including Muslim and Pagan Americans).
They may believe, they may scoff, they may accept or not,
but they are affected, for these values are part of the air they
grow up breathing.