54 CultureShock! China
With exposure to new ideas, such traditional ‘us-them’
attitudes are starting to shift in China. As present, though,
from the Western perspective, Chinese people are a little
over-involved and meddling in their relations with family and
friends, and surprisingly rude to strangers. Of course, from
the Chinese perspective, in a commonly repeated phrase,
Westerners ‘treat strangers like friends and their family like
strangers’.
There is no doubt some truth to both perspectives. There
is also some degree of ‘When in Rome, do as Romans do’.
If you ever hope to get into a crowded subway or elevator in
China, you too may need to learn to sharpen elbows—and
then may find yourself needing to tone down your behaviour
again once you arrive back home!
These are a few values from classical Chinese culture
that persist in some form. Another set of ideas, ideals and
worldviews emerged from the century of struggle against
foreign domination that forged modern China. These again
form part of the cultural background that shapes modern
Chinese thinking:Nationalism and Internationalism
As any Chinese 101 student knows, the Chinese call China
‘Zhongguo’, literally the ‘Middle Kingdom’, centre of the ancient
world. China had a few periods (such as the glory years of
the Tang dynasty) of cosmopolitan attitudes toward trade and
cultural exchange. But largely, in the days of the Mandarins,
China was seen as totally self-sufficient, and the outside world
as having nothing to offer. As shown from Chinese history, this
set of attitudes, leading to strong Chinese exports of silks and
teas and many other goods unbalanced by any imports due
to government bans, helped create some of the pressures that
eventually exploded into the Opium Wars.
Mao’s China made a strong break with that insular past.
In his earlier years, Mao deliberately sought to position China
as the leader of the developing world and to build global ties.
Yet in his later years, he too retreated to a more Mandarinate
position, and his Cultural Revolution cut China off from the
outside world as effectively as any imperial edict.