3 ms·

Without passing judgement, is this not just measuring the desire not be lumbered with the negative connotations of their respective countries? And possibly also

by lsd5you 10y ago

Without passing judgement, is this not just measuring the desire not be lumbered with the negative connotations of their respective countries? And possibly also showing a desire and entitlement to be able to move to a better off country? We have something similar at a different level here. People in Salford (a not well thought of connurbation of Manchester, UK) are 'from Manchester', where as people from Didsbury are 'from Didsbury'. That said China being on that list does surprise me.

f_allwein 10y ago
Maybe, but even then the differences between the countries are interesting. As a German, I am unpleasantly surprised we rank so low here.
- kfk 10y ago
  You rank low because of your history. Germans are proud to be Germans, they just don't feel right to say it. An interesting and very good consequence of this feeling is that Germany has not only very open policies towards immigrants, but also an overall good attitude versus expats which you rarely find in Europe.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    The relatively small proportion of Germans willing to affirm support for intermarriage between ethnic groups suggests there's more than quiet national pride at play here. Although the country's history is almost certainly why Germans are more likely to answer "don't know" or "depends" than anyone else: even if much of the sample group is paranoid about immigrants and influence from other cultures following recent media coverage, there are still few people willing to commit to aligning themselves with the far right.
notahacker 10y ago
It's also highly likely that "global citizen" has been translated into terms which have subtly different connotations in different countries (that's the only real explanation I can think of for China).
- hartpuff 10y ago
  I'm surprised by the remarks (in both posts) about China. People in China cannot be unaware of the country's shortcomings (as a repressive totalitarian state) while also having a strong awareness of, and often direct family or business connections to the rest of the world, which China has influenced and been influenced by for centuries. Traditionally, Chinese people have had no objection to emigrating, working and settling in other countries, in Asia and beyond - exemplified by how many cities in the world have a Chinatown - and have never struck me as being particularly racist, nationalistic or xenophobic.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    I'm reminded of a time when somebody at my university wrote a piece critical of the Chinese government in a student newspaper, and the following weeks were filled by comments from Chinese students infuriated by this slur on their national character and threatened boycotts by student recruitment organizations. The same article written about any Western state - including the apparently highly non-internationalist Germans - would have passed without comment and certainly without the taking of offence. And that was highly-educated, middle class Chinese citizens studying in a foreign language overseas. So whilst Chinese people certainly may have reservations about shortcomings of their government, claims it makes and the people that work for it, I'm not inclined to believe that the vast majority of them are similarly sceptical about the importance of Chinese national and ethnic identity their government works so hard to promote. In particular, I don't perceive a country which rules dual nationality impossible to be likely to be more internationalist in public outlook than countries where large proportions of the population trace their ancestry to other continents, foreign languages are universally spoken, foreign media is consumed as often as domestic media, international travel is something most people actually do, immigrants are not novelties even in rural areas and the government couldn't give two shits about patriotism. Sure, there are plenty of people born in China who see things differently, but the survey implies that two thirds of Chinese people living in the People's Republic of China don't really see themselves as Chinese. You don't have to think that Chinese citizens are disproportionately racist, nationalistic or xenophobic (I don't) to find it quite hard to believe that they're substantially less attached to their national, ethnic and cultural identity than most of the rest of the world. Even the diasporas - which undoubtedly would give different survey results - are as good at preserving their cultural identity as they're economically successful.
vidarh 10y ago
Nigeria is one of them, and while Nigeria has a large diaspora and is still poor, the absolutely massive GDP growth over the last decade and a perception that people with Western educations can live much better in Nigeria on what they can make there than elsewhere has caused many Nigerians to return. My ex is Nigerian, and keeps complaining about how many of her friends are now moving back for this reason. In most of these cases these are people with dual citizenships (e.g. my ex has dual citizenship as her dad was born in the UK) or who have lived in the UK long enough to obtain indefinite leave to remain, so most of them are leaving entirely out of choice. I'm sure there's still a desire to move to the UK for a lot of Nigerians, but I'm also unconvinced that this is what drives the higher numbers that says global first. Perhaps in some cases at least it is more down to rapid growth actually giving them a sense of "joining the world stage" and e.g. actually getting the opportunity to travel and work elsewhere that was limited to very small proportions before.

by lsd5you 10y ago

f_allwein 10y ago

Maybe, but even then the differences between the countries are interesting. As a German, I am unpleasantly surprised we rank so low here.

kfk 10y ago
You rank low because of your history. Germans are proud to be Germans, they just don't feel right to say it. An interesting and very good consequence of this feeling is that Germany has not only very open policies towards immigrants, but also an overall good attitude versus expats which you rarely find in Europe.
- notahacker 10y ago
  The relatively small proportion of Germans willing to affirm support for intermarriage between ethnic groups suggests there's more than quiet national pride at play here. Although the country's history is almost certainly why Germans are more likely to answer "don't know" or "depends" than anyone else: even if much of the sample group is paranoid about immigrants and influence from other cultures following recent media coverage, there are still few people willing to commit to aligning themselves with the far right.

notahacker 10y ago

It's also highly likely that "global citizen" has been translated into terms which have subtly different connotations in different countries (that's the only real explanation I can think of for China).

hartpuff 10y ago
I'm surprised by the remarks (in both posts) about China. People in China cannot be unaware of the country's shortcomings (as a repressive totalitarian state) while also having a strong awareness of, and often direct family or business connections to the rest of the world, which China has influenced and been influenced by for centuries. Traditionally, Chinese people have had no objection to emigrating, working and settling in other countries, in Asia and beyond - exemplified by how many cities in the world have a Chinatown - and have never struck me as being particularly racist, nationalistic or xenophobic.
- notahacker 10y ago
  I'm reminded of a time when somebody at my university wrote a piece critical of the Chinese government in a student newspaper, and the following weeks were filled by comments from Chinese students infuriated by this slur on their national character and threatened boycotts by student recruitment organizations. The same article written about any Western state - including the apparently highly non-internationalist Germans - would have passed without comment and certainly without the taking of offence. And that was highly-educated, middle class Chinese citizens studying in a foreign language overseas. So whilst Chinese people certainly may have reservations about shortcomings of their government, claims it makes and the people that work for it, I'm not inclined to believe that the vast majority of them are similarly sceptical about the importance of Chinese national and ethnic identity their government works so hard to promote. In particular, I don't perceive a country which rules dual nationality impossible to be likely to be more internationalist in public outlook than countries where large proportions of the population trace their ancestry to other continents, foreign languages are universally spoken, foreign media is consumed as often as domestic media, international travel is something most people actually do, immigrants are not novelties even in rural areas and the government couldn't give two shits about patriotism. Sure, there are plenty of people born in China who see things differently, but the survey implies that two thirds of Chinese people living in the People's Republic of China don't really see themselves as Chinese. You don't have to think that Chinese citizens are disproportionately racist, nationalistic or xenophobic (I don't) to find it quite hard to believe that they're substantially less attached to their national, ethnic and cultural identity than most of the rest of the world. Even the diasporas - which undoubtedly would give different survey results - are as good at preserving their cultural identity as they're economically successful.

vidarh 10y ago

Nigeria is one of them, and while Nigeria has a large diaspora and is still poor, the absolutely massive GDP growth over the last decade and a perception that people with Western educations can live much better in Nigeria on what they can make there than elsewhere has caused many Nigerians to return. My ex is Nigerian, and keeps complaining about how many of her friends are now moving back for this reason. In most of these cases these are people with dual citizenships (e.g. my ex has dual citizenship as her dad was born in the UK) or who have lived in the UK long enough to obtain indefinite leave to remain, so most of them are leaving entirely out of choice. I'm sure there's still a desire to move to the UK for a lot of Nigerians, but I'm also unconvinced that this is what drives the higher numbers that says global first. Perhaps in some cases at least it is more down to rapid growth actually giving them a sense of "joining the world stage" and e.g. actually getting the opportunity to travel and work elsewhere that was limited to very small proportions before.