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And yet there is outrage in Chinese social media when that happens. So "not all Chinese"?

by msie 8y ago

adventured 8y ago
I think that's certainly the case, China is a country of vast differences between people. To the extent China has seen arguably the fastest dash of economic development in history, imagine what the corresponding, linked cultural & educational development has looked like. In the span of several decades, half a billion people shifted from an almost zero traditional education environment in rural, very poor third-world style villages - to rapidly developing, modern, economically considerable, urban, very high density environments with intense competition and far higher education attainment. Then imagine how wild that must be as all of these different forces and cultures collide and meld in real time, and it's essentially a population group the size of the EU trying to make an epic adaptation leap in 20-30 years. I expect it produces at times a large gap between people in regards to their personal evolution.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  This isn’t true: at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. The potential of its people was already there and all that was needed was a peaceful environment with an enabling government.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    > at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. Do you have any further reading on this? It doesn't strike me as too crazy of a statement - but I'd be very interested in seeing how one would go about actually quantifying it.
    - lainga 8y ago
      First 3 chapters of Kissinger's On China do a good job, but I'm certain you could find better sources. ED: outside getting a book, the main characteristic to look at is China having the lion's share of historical world GDP, especially during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The Spanish Empire gained much of its early wealth from Ming China's seemingly insatiable demand for the silver it found in South America - like thousands of pounds at a time.
    - lgvln 8y ago
      I recommend Why the West Rules by Ian Morris. He has various comparison of “The West” vs China from the dawn of civilisation.
    - lhl 8y ago
      I did a quick search, this might not be a bad place to start (it references the primary source, raw data, and file usage: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_AD_to_2003_AD_Historical_Trends_in_global_distribution_of_GDP_China_India_Western_Europe_USA_Middle_East.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_AD_to_2003_AD_Hist... Wikipedia has a good summary both of the Economic history of China [1] and the Great Divergence [2] (really comes to a head with the collapse of the Qing dynasty). Although devestated by civil war and WW2, IMO China really doesn't descend into complete craziness until the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution [3] that devastated China economically, socially, and culturally (lost generation, send-down movement, red guards, etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_before_1912 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_befo... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#China [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(1949%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(194...
  - sumedh 8y ago
    > China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. I keep hearing the same line about India as well but that does not mean that the common people were rich and educated just the upper class. So were the common people in China rich and educated in the time period which you are talking about?
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      If you want to go there, the same was true in the rest of the world as well, including Western Europe if we are comparing European and Chinese peasants. And yes, India has similar potential to China.
  - ajross 8y ago
    That's true, but not in the 20th century. For lots of reasons, China broadly missed the industrial revolution. By the time of the communist revolution, they had... basically nothing indigenous. There was no export industry, most people were at a subsistence level, and essentially the entirety of the social elite were foreign-educated aristocracy simply living off of assets worked by a staggeringly large underclass. I mean, sure, "the potential of its people was already there", but you can say that about anyone. Objecvtively, it was a mess. And now their grandkids are almost as rich as Americans.
    - packrat8 8y ago
      > And now their grandkids are almost as rich as Americans. False. US: mean wealth $388,000. medium wealth $55,000. gdp per capita: $60000. China: mean wealth $26,000. medium wealth $6,000. gdp per capita: $8000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
      - ajross 8y ago
        Sigh. It was hyperbole. You took, the point, right? They were the poorest of the poor, and now their iPhones jiggle in their pockets as they dance on the world stage with the big kids. Also, "median".
        packrat8 8y ago
        Half their population, 700M people, can't afford the iphone. The annual income for rural residents averaged $1,797 last year https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2089654/china-rural-rich-get-richer-and-poor-get-poorer https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2089654/chin...
        vixen99 8y ago
        And what was it 20 years ago?
    - 8y ago
- MrLeap 8y ago
  Lets not forget the Meiji Restoration! When it started Samurai walked around the streets armed with katanas. Japan was extremely isolated and had little to no industry. No railroads, no exports.. In ~30 years they put down 11,000 KM of railroad track, built 1500 steamships, and basically upgraded from a feudal society to an industrial one. They increased their annual coal production from nearly nothing to 20~ million tons in that time. It would be like if the EU went from knights and castles to making fighter jets in half a generation.
throwb187 8y ago
There are also a lot of news reports in China about the opposite happening. Where groups of people will get together to save someone. There was even one incident where a group of people lifted a car up to save the girl that was run over. Or how a taxi driver jumps into a manhole to save a girl who fell in. Or how a group of delivery guys caught a child that was hanging on a several story perch. However, those news reports are rarely ever reported in Western media. All we see are the bad things.
- Canada 8y ago
  As witness to an accident in China I've seen how reluctant people are to help the injured. I've heard there can be liability for anyone who gets involved and that there's many scams, which could explain why people behave as they do. The default behavior in China seems to be "ignore and keep moving" while everywhere else usually at least one person will help immediately. I couldn't believe that so many people could look at someone so obviously in distress, bleeding on the street, and none willing to even call for help.
  - lancewiggs 8y ago
    And I've seen the same in the USA, and other places. It's a big city versus small town thing. In the remote wilderness everyone helps each other. In the city it's assumed you are gong to get help from someone else.
    - Canada 8y ago
      I've seen injuries in public in other countries big cities too, and I've just kept moving because someone else is helping. The way people act in China is something else. Giving any consideration to strangers doesn't even cross their minds and it shows in all kinds of little ways: refusal to yield any space, be it a lane on the road or part of an aisle in a store, public spitting, urination, and yes, defecation, refusal to queue or allow people to exit trains, elevators, or other vehicles before pushing in. Also, strangely, it's not the young punk kids annoying their neighbours with their load music, it's hordes of middle aged dancing aunties.

And yet there is outrage in Chinese social media when that happens. So "not all Chinese"?

by msie 8y ago

And yet there is outrage in Chinese social media when that happens. So "not all Chinese"?

I think that's certainly the case, China is a country of vast differences between people. To the extent China has seen arguably the fastest dash of economic development in history, imagine what the corresponding, linked cultural & educational development has looked like. In the span of several decades, half a billion people shifted from an almost zero traditional education environment in rural, very poor third-world style villages - to rapidly developing, modern, economically considerable, urban, very high density environments with intense competition and far higher education attainment. Then imagine how wild that must be as all of these different forces and cultures collide and meld in real time, and it's essentially a population group the size of the EU trying to make an epic adaptation leap in 20-30 years. I expect it produces at times a large gap between people in regards to their personal evolution.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
This isn’t true: at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. The potential of its people was already there and all that was needed was a peaceful environment with an enabling government.
- GuiA 8y ago
  > at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. Do you have any further reading on this? It doesn't strike me as too crazy of a statement - but I'd be very interested in seeing how one would go about actually quantifying it.
  - lainga 8y ago
    First 3 chapters of Kissinger's On China do a good job, but I'm certain you could find better sources. ED: outside getting a book, the main characteristic to look at is China having the lion's share of historical world GDP, especially during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The Spanish Empire gained much of its early wealth from Ming China's seemingly insatiable demand for the silver it found in South America - like thousands of pounds at a time.
  - lgvln 8y ago
    I recommend Why the West Rules by Ian Morris. He has various comparison of “The West” vs China from the dawn of civilisation.
  - lhl 8y ago
    I did a quick search, this might not be a bad place to start (it references the primary source, raw data, and file usage: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_AD_to_2003_AD_Historical_Trends_in_global_distribution_of_GDP_China_India_Western_Europe_USA_Middle_East.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_AD_to_2003_AD_Hist... Wikipedia has a good summary both of the Economic history of China [1] and the Great Divergence [2] (really comes to a head with the collapse of the Qing dynasty). Although devestated by civil war and WW2, IMO China really doesn't descend into complete craziness until the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution [3] that devastated China economically, socially, and culturally (lost generation, send-down movement, red guards, etc). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_before_1912 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_befo... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#China [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(1949%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(194...
- sumedh 8y ago
  > China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. I keep hearing the same line about India as well but that does not mean that the common people were rich and educated just the upper class. So were the common people in China rich and educated in the time period which you are talking about?
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    If you want to go there, the same was true in the rest of the world as well, including Western Europe if we are comparing European and Chinese peasants. And yes, India has similar potential to China.
- ajross 8y ago
  That's true, but not in the 20th century. For lots of reasons, China broadly missed the industrial revolution. By the time of the communist revolution, they had... basically nothing indigenous. There was no export industry, most people were at a subsistence level, and essentially the entirety of the social elite were foreign-educated aristocracy simply living off of assets worked by a staggeringly large underclass. I mean, sure, "the potential of its people was already there", but you can say that about anyone. Objecvtively, it was a mess. And now their grandkids are almost as rich as Americans.
  - packrat8 8y ago
    > And now their grandkids are almost as rich as Americans. False. US: mean wealth $388,000. medium wealth $55,000. gdp per capita: $60000. China: mean wealth $26,000. medium wealth $6,000. gdp per capita: $8000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
    - ajross 8y ago
      Sigh. It was hyperbole. You took, the point, right? They were the poorest of the poor, and now their iPhones jiggle in their pockets as they dance on the world stage with the big kids. Also, "median".
      - packrat8 8y ago
        Half their population, 700M people, can't afford the iphone. The annual income for rural residents averaged $1,797 last year https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2089654/china-rural-rich-get-richer-and-poor-get-poorer https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2089654/chin...
        vixen99 8y ago
        And what was it 20 years ago?
  - 8y ago
MrLeap 8y ago
Lets not forget the Meiji Restoration! When it started Samurai walked around the streets armed with katanas. Japan was extremely isolated and had little to no industry. No railroads, no exports.. In ~30 years they put down 11,000 KM of railroad track, built 1500 steamships, and basically upgraded from a feudal society to an industrial one. They increased their annual coal production from nearly nothing to 20~ million tons in that time. It would be like if the EU went from knights and castles to making fighter jets in half a generation.

throwb187 8y ago

There are also a lot of news reports in China about the opposite happening. Where groups of people will get together to save someone. There was even one incident where a group of people lifted a car up to save the girl that was run over. Or how a taxi driver jumps into a manhole to save a girl who fell in. Or how a group of delivery guys caught a child that was hanging on a several story perch. However, those news reports are rarely ever reported in Western media. All we see are the bad things.

Canada 8y ago
As witness to an accident in China I've seen how reluctant people are to help the injured. I've heard there can be liability for anyone who gets involved and that there's many scams, which could explain why people behave as they do. The default behavior in China seems to be "ignore and keep moving" while everywhere else usually at least one person will help immediately. I couldn't believe that so many people could look at someone so obviously in distress, bleeding on the street, and none willing to even call for help.
- lancewiggs 8y ago
  And I've seen the same in the USA, and other places. It's a big city versus small town thing. In the remote wilderness everyone helps each other. In the city it's assumed you are gong to get help from someone else.
  - Canada 8y ago
    I've seen injuries in public in other countries big cities too, and I've just kept moving because someone else is helping. The way people act in China is something else. Giving any consideration to strangers doesn't even cross their minds and it shows in all kinds of little ways: refusal to yield any space, be it a lane on the road or part of an aisle in a store, public spitting, urination, and yes, defecation, refusal to queue or allow people to exit trains, elevators, or other vehicles before pushing in. Also, strangely, it's not the young punk kids annoying their neighbours with their load music, it's hordes of middle aged dancing aunties.