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COVID has taught me a lot about the cultural differences between the west and China. A friend of mine worked in China for many years, but after several months

COVID has taught me a lot about the cultural differences between the west and China. A friend of mine worked in China for many years, but after several months of being locked in their apartment block and tested every 72 hours they chose to leave China. I honestly couldn't imagine people in the West putting up with that, however I'm yet to fully understand why Chinese people continue to suffer the rules without riot.

etherael 4y ago
Theres an extremely obvious difference that jumps out just from your description. You do know what it is, right?
rippercushions 4y ago
The vast majority of Chinese people have no option but to continue to suffer the rules, although not a few are speaking up despite the likely consequences: https://www.thestatesman.com/world/tibetans-march-on-streets-against-chinese-governments-severe-covid-restrictions-1503127198.html https://www.thestatesman.com/world/tibetans-march-on-streets... (note that the protestors are by and large Chinese, not Tibetan) Of the remaining privileged minority, many are choosing to GTFO.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Other than the money leaving the country, would those leaving essentially be the grease on the squeaky wheel? If they have the financial freedom to have the courage to speak out, but then use that financial position to GTFO, that essentially helps the CCP as there's a much lower volume of opposition.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    Such is the dilemma of living or leaving a dictatorship. Also, it's one thing to stand on the barricades and risk prison when you're young and single, but it's a whole different level when you have family and you know the CCP will not hesitate to use them as pawns. (In Xinjiang, it's all too common for parents to get sent to reeducation camps, and the children end up in orphanages.)
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    This will probably be an unpopular position, but I think some things are a matter of settled strategic win. The CCP has won. You shouldn't fight a battle which results in your meaningless destruction. The CCP can only have a semblance of vulnerability if it terribly mismanages China, and so far it seems to be rather competent.
pfortuny 4y ago
Totalitarianism. Just that. You do not know what uou are risking if you protest. It may be worse that death or jail… Your family… Edit: the ellipses are because there are other possible outcomes, just that. I am not blaming the Chinese people. I am blaming the present (well, last 70 years at least) mode of government. Read Soljenitsin or Ginzburg or Nadiezda Mandelstam and you wil see what totalitarian Communism is capable of. More edit: I would be totally scared as well, by the way.
- interpenetrate 4y ago
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    China's vaccine doesn't work. That's why they continue to lockdown. It's really not more complicated than that.
    - interpenetrate 4y ago
      Why are you responding to me with this?
      - remarkEon 4y ago
        You invented some weird strawman about how great China is and that's why they need to lockdown (1.2 Billion people or something). I'm pointing out that the reason they're locking down is because their science sucks and as a result the vaccine doesn't work, so Covid is still a thing there when it isn't in the West because we have working vaccines and also a lot of people with natural immunity.
        interpenetrate 4y ago
        Oh. Well more people died of COVID in the past two weeks in the U.S. (where COVID is no longer a thing) than have died of COVID in China ever.
wodenokoto 4y ago
People are not contempt with it.
underwater 4y ago
In a culture that values doing what's best for the people as a whole, I can imagine people seeing it as a duty rather than in infringment of their individual rights. I can also see those people struggling to understand the American style of fierce individualism that creates so much pain and interpersonal conflict for seemingly little gain.
- kiba 4y ago
  Individualism versus collective good seems to be mostly a false dichotomy. I can also see those people struggling to understand the American style of fierce individualism that creates so much pain and interpersonal conflict for seemingly little gain. Fierce individualism in some aspect, maybe. But don't forget that the state is extremely powerful in enforcing and reinforcing certain patterns of living.
theGeatZhopa 4y ago
The cultural differences wouldn't display by leaving of your friend :) there's so much more than "obedience". They do not riot, because they, too, understand, that the capacity of hospitals is quite low comparable to the density of people. The other points: You can't just leave the country without being a foreigner. Chinese people need a Visa for the countries they want to enter. The social score / if you participate in riots, you for sure will get identified. The fear being hurt. No other possibility, because the Chinese officials are really hard in that terms and they don't care if one get hurt. No other possibility, because the doors are locked by the officials. No one can go to riot. They use an app to track one's location and track whether one's in "red area". If so, you lose. Everyone have this app. Without app you can't even buy things on the market. And of course, the CCP. They have a high membership rate. You can't do some jobs like teacher/professor without being a CCP member. So, they're full on the line of party, because they really believe in that. My exgirlfriend entered the party on her 18th, because her father was a doctor at a military hospital. Being a non member gives you some disadvantages in some parts of live (indirectly, but there are some). So, you have to speak the language (me do) and have to have lived there for a while (me did) to understand why they're doing it and why they're is not much withstanding of the people. One of my girlfriends (haha) just arrived two weeks ago in europe. She says it's crazy over there. No end of the 0-covid in sight... Her flight was cancelled 8h before flight because of lockdown of the airport. She had to rebuy the tickets, go to Shanghai and start off there.. But she does not criticize or get angry when talking about this. Her family is still there. She is just happy to be in Europe, because of me and main purpose studying - not because of the measures. But, yes. It's crazy.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  I appreciate the perspective. Maybe it's just something about being an American, but even while I was in the Army I had a "fuck you" attitude about most everything that the brass (i.e. the leadership, if "brass" doesn't translate) made us do. Now that I'm a "civilian" again I still retain this attitude. A lot of important business leaders do too. I'm not really sure if this is a feature of American culture or not, but it's certainly a truism that has existed for a loooooong time.
squokko 4y ago
Americans riot because their protected right to riot is so inculcated in them since birth that they do not really even think that it's a matter of perspective.
- chii 4y ago
  There's a difference between protesting and rioting tho.
  - squokko 4y ago
    Americans empirically do have the right to riot. Almost nobody involved in the 2020 BLM riots suffered any legal consequence from it, and short of the people who actually did things like steal Nancy Pelosi's laptop, most of the Jan6 people will get off scot free as well.
sydd 4y ago
AFAIK they need to lock down because their vaccine is shit. It kinda works for the younger people (around 70% efficiency compared to 90++ of the MRNA ones), but it does really bad for the most vulnerable population (80+ year olds). They either lock down or have tens of millions of deaths. Xi said that they will end lockdowns in 2024, the same year they will come out with their MRNA vaccines. I dont know why they arent buying western vaccines though. Trade restrictions? Xi's pride?
- ninjin 4y ago
  Fosun (a company in the PRC) [1] has a license for manufacturing of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine [2], so I have been puzzled for well over a year as to why it is not deployed. The few channels I have into the PRC keeps telling me that there is also a general unwillingness to vaccinate among the population (but no clear reason as to why). In general, I remain perplexed as to how the PRC can enforce the strictest lockdowns in the world; yet apparently be completely inept at getting the population vaccinated, when countries such as Japan has never had any lockdowns and never mandated vaccinations and are now doing seemingly far better. I just want to know what piece of the puzzle I am missing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosun_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosun_International [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID%E2%80%9119_vaccine#Manufacturing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID%...
  - em500 4y ago
    Indeed, it's a bit puzzling. In Hong Kong, people could freely choose between Sinovac and Comirnaty ("Pfizer" for most in the West, but "Fosun-BioNTech" to those in Hong Kong), both were widely available during the main vaccination drive. Roughly half choose Sinovac, anecdotally due to scare stories on social media at the time about the "experimental, unproven" mRNA tech vs the "traditional, tried and tested" inactivated virus tech of Sinovac. The biggest COVID problem in Hong Kong (and also to a large extend in China) I gather is that the vaccination rate among the elderly was the lowest, which is a reversal from most other countries. That creates huge problems for hospitals, as the elderly are massively over-represented in COVID hospitalisations. It's not completely known why the elderly vaccination rate is relatively low, but I suspect misinformation and conspiracy stories (which proliferate just as much on the Chinese social media platforms as here on Facebook) is a significant contributor.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
philliphaydon 4y ago
> A friend of mine worked in China for many years, but after several months of being locked in their apartment block and tested every 72 hours they chose to leave China. Had a co-worker who also moved back to Singapore after spending many years living in Shanghai. They gave her 4 eggs and a bag of lettuce to last for 1 week, thankfully the apartment block she lived in had a person sneak in every few days with groceries for the building because the local authories didn't care. Being woken up at 5am daily for mandatory testing.
thinkingemote 4y ago
Another factor to understand is that China has a foundational myth which influences behaviour. Essentially the idea is not to rock the boat because history shows so much pain and bloodshed in the founding of the country. A demonstration risks not only destabilision of this myth, it risks bloodshed and massacres because stability was won after so much pain. To be Chinese in a certain way is to work against chaos. As much as to be British is to maintain the dignity of individual persons. It's kind of hard to find a western equivalent which uses the hard lessons of history. Maybe something like the rule of law?
mardifoufs 4y ago
Two years ago, I would have thought people here in Québec wouldn't put up with 7pm curfews and vaccination passes to access walmart, yet they did, and they even cheered for it. So I would be cautious about assuming an intrinsic difference in how resistant/tolerant we are to authoritarian hysteria. The government here even outwardly admitted that there was no scientific proof or support for curfews, and yet nothing happened, and they just got re-elected a month ago with a crushing majority.

etherael 4y ago

Theres an extremely obvious difference that jumps out just from your description. You do know what it is, right?

rippercushions 4y ago

The vast majority of Chinese people have no option but to continue to suffer the rules, although not a few are speaking up despite the likely consequences: https://www.thestatesman.com/world/tibetans-march-on-streets-against-chinese-governments-severe-covid-restrictions-1503127198.html https://www.thestatesman.com/world/tibetans-march-on-streets... (note that the protestors are by and large Chinese, not Tibetan) Of the remaining privileged minority, many are choosing to GTFO.

dylan604 4y ago
Other than the money leaving the country, would those leaving essentially be the grease on the squeaky wheel? If they have the financial freedom to have the courage to speak out, but then use that financial position to GTFO, that essentially helps the CCP as there's a much lower volume of opposition.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Such is the dilemma of living or leaving a dictatorship. Also, it's one thing to stand on the barricades and risk prison when you're young and single, but it's a whole different level when you have family and you know the CCP will not hesitate to use them as pawns. (In Xinjiang, it's all too common for parents to get sent to reeducation camps, and the children end up in orphanages.)
- threatofrain 4y ago
  This will probably be an unpopular position, but I think some things are a matter of settled strategic win. The CCP has won. You shouldn't fight a battle which results in your meaningless destruction. The CCP can only have a semblance of vulnerability if it terribly mismanages China, and so far it seems to be rather competent.

pfortuny 4y ago

Totalitarianism. Just that. You do not know what uou are risking if you protest. It may be worse that death or jail… Your family… Edit: the ellipses are because there are other possible outcomes, just that. I am not blaming the Chinese people. I am blaming the present (well, last 70 years at least) mode of government. Read Soljenitsin or Ginzburg or Nadiezda Mandelstam and you wil see what totalitarian Communism is capable of. More edit: I would be totally scared as well, by the way.

interpenetrate 4y ago
- remarkEon 4y ago
  China's vaccine doesn't work. That's why they continue to lockdown. It's really not more complicated than that.
  - interpenetrate 4y ago
    Why are you responding to me with this?
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      You invented some weird strawman about how great China is and that's why they need to lockdown (1.2 Billion people or something). I'm pointing out that the reason they're locking down is because their science sucks and as a result the vaccine doesn't work, so Covid is still a thing there when it isn't in the West because we have working vaccines and also a lot of people with natural immunity.
      - interpenetrate 4y ago
        Oh. Well more people died of COVID in the past two weeks in the U.S. (where COVID is no longer a thing) than have died of COVID in China ever.

wodenokoto 4y ago

People are not contempt with it.

underwater 4y ago

In a culture that values doing what's best for the people as a whole, I can imagine people seeing it as a duty rather than in infringment of their individual rights. I can also see those people struggling to understand the American style of fierce individualism that creates so much pain and interpersonal conflict for seemingly little gain.

kiba 4y ago
Individualism versus collective good seems to be mostly a false dichotomy. I can also see those people struggling to understand the American style of fierce individualism that creates so much pain and interpersonal conflict for seemingly little gain. Fierce individualism in some aspect, maybe. But don't forget that the state is extremely powerful in enforcing and reinforcing certain patterns of living.

theGeatZhopa 4y ago

The cultural differences wouldn't display by leaving of your friend :) there's so much more than "obedience". They do not riot, because they, too, understand, that the capacity of hospitals is quite low comparable to the density of people. The other points: You can't just leave the country without being a foreigner. Chinese people need a Visa for the countries they want to enter. The social score / if you participate in riots, you for sure will get identified. The fear being hurt. No other possibility, because the Chinese officials are really hard in that terms and they don't care if one get hurt. No other possibility, because the doors are locked by the officials. No one can go to riot. They use an app to track one's location and track whether one's in "red area". If so, you lose. Everyone have this app. Without app you can't even buy things on the market. And of course, the CCP. They have a high membership rate. You can't do some jobs like teacher/professor without being a CCP member. So, they're full on the line of party, because they really believe in that. My exgirlfriend entered the party on her 18th, because her father was a doctor at a military hospital. Being a non member gives you some disadvantages in some parts of live (indirectly, but there are some). So, you have to speak the language (me do) and have to have lived there for a while (me did) to understand why they're doing it and why they're is not much withstanding of the people. One of my girlfriends (haha) just arrived two weeks ago in europe. She says it's crazy over there. No end of the 0-covid in sight... Her flight was cancelled 8h before flight because of lockdown of the airport. She had to rebuy the tickets, go to Shanghai and start off there.. But she does not criticize or get angry when talking about this. Her family is still there. She is just happy to be in Europe, because of me and main purpose studying - not because of the measures. But, yes. It's crazy.

remarkEon 4y ago
I appreciate the perspective. Maybe it's just something about being an American, but even while I was in the Army I had a "fuck you" attitude about most everything that the brass (i.e. the leadership, if "brass" doesn't translate) made us do. Now that I'm a "civilian" again I still retain this attitude. A lot of important business leaders do too. I'm not really sure if this is a feature of American culture or not, but it's certainly a truism that has existed for a loooooong time.

squokko 4y ago

Americans riot because their protected right to riot is so inculcated in them since birth that they do not really even think that it's a matter of perspective.

chii 4y ago
There's a difference between protesting and rioting tho.
- squokko 4y ago
  Americans empirically do have the right to riot. Almost nobody involved in the 2020 BLM riots suffered any legal consequence from it, and short of the people who actually did things like steal Nancy Pelosi's laptop, most of the Jan6 people will get off scot free as well.

sydd 4y ago

AFAIK they need to lock down because their vaccine is shit. It kinda works for the younger people (around 70% efficiency compared to 90++ of the MRNA ones), but it does really bad for the most vulnerable population (80+ year olds). They either lock down or have tens of millions of deaths. Xi said that they will end lockdowns in 2024, the same year they will come out with their MRNA vaccines. I dont know why they arent buying western vaccines though. Trade restrictions? Xi's pride?

ninjin 4y ago
Fosun (a company in the PRC) [1] has a license for manufacturing of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine [2], so I have been puzzled for well over a year as to why it is not deployed. The few channels I have into the PRC keeps telling me that there is also a general unwillingness to vaccinate among the population (but no clear reason as to why). In general, I remain perplexed as to how the PRC can enforce the strictest lockdowns in the world; yet apparently be completely inept at getting the population vaccinated, when countries such as Japan has never had any lockdowns and never mandated vaccinations and are now doing seemingly far better. I just want to know what piece of the puzzle I am missing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosun_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosun_International [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID%E2%80%9119_vaccine#Manufacturing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer%E2%80%93BioNTech_COVID%...
- em500 4y ago
  Indeed, it's a bit puzzling. In Hong Kong, people could freely choose between Sinovac and Comirnaty ("Pfizer" for most in the West, but "Fosun-BioNTech" to those in Hong Kong), both were widely available during the main vaccination drive. Roughly half choose Sinovac, anecdotally due to scare stories on social media at the time about the "experimental, unproven" mRNA tech vs the "traditional, tried and tested" inactivated virus tech of Sinovac. The biggest COVID problem in Hong Kong (and also to a large extend in China) I gather is that the vaccination rate among the elderly was the lowest, which is a reversal from most other countries. That creates huge problems for hospitals, as the elderly are massively over-represented in COVID hospitalisations. It's not completely known why the elderly vaccination rate is relatively low, but I suspect misinformation and conspiracy stories (which proliferate just as much on the Chinese social media platforms as here on Facebook) is a significant contributor.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

philliphaydon 4y ago

> A friend of mine worked in China for many years, but after several months of being locked in their apartment block and tested every 72 hours they chose to leave China. Had a co-worker who also moved back to Singapore after spending many years living in Shanghai. They gave her 4 eggs and a bag of lettuce to last for 1 week, thankfully the apartment block she lived in had a person sneak in every few days with groceries for the building because the local authories didn't care. Being woken up at 5am daily for mandatory testing.

thinkingemote 4y ago

Another factor to understand is that China has a foundational myth which influences behaviour. Essentially the idea is not to rock the boat because history shows so much pain and bloodshed in the founding of the country. A demonstration risks not only destabilision of this myth, it risks bloodshed and massacres because stability was won after so much pain. To be Chinese in a certain way is to work against chaos. As much as to be British is to maintain the dignity of individual persons. It's kind of hard to find a western equivalent which uses the hard lessons of history. Maybe something like the rule of law?

mardifoufs 4y ago

Two years ago, I would have thought people here in Québec wouldn't put up with 7pm curfews and vaccination passes to access walmart, yet they did, and they even cheered for it. So I would be cautious about assuming an intrinsic difference in how resistant/tolerant we are to authoritarian hysteria. The government here even outwardly admitted that there was no scientific proof or support for curfews, and yet nothing happened, and they just got re-elected a month ago with a crushing majority.