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The Chinese education system unfortunately seems to promote dishonesty to children. Plagiarism is endemic and sometimes students are taught to plagiarize. There

The Chinese education system unfortunately seems to promote dishonesty to children. Plagiarism is endemic and sometimes students are taught to plagiarize. There may be a decent reason - they think kids should model successful thinkers rather than come up with half-baked ideas themselves - but the result is that they are teaching kids to be dishonest. A classmate of mine from China turned in a rough draft of a paper that was copied from somewhere. The university gave her a standard punishment - she was forced to withdraw from the class and they put a "required to withdraw" mark on her transcript. She was unwilling to accept that she had done anything wrong and insisted that even though the teacher told her not to plagiarize they didn't tell her that she couldn't turn in a rough draft that had been copied. I've read that this dates back to the Chinese civil service exam system which is ancient by Western standards and has a long tradition of people coming up with clever ways to cheat.

tsotha 14y ago
The ancient Chinese civil service exam was, at least in part, designed to weed out independent thinkers - that's just not a valued commodity in a society based on Confucianism. So it doesn't surprise me plagiarism isn't viewed as a particularly serious offense even today.
westiseast 14y ago
I've seen this up close, and yes, true. By the time kids have left education, they've normally been exposed to (and probably practiced) all manner of cheating, whether it's faking a certificate, copying an essay, cheating in an exam or just straight up lieing. It's a vicious circle because it's valuable preparation for a society that often demands cheating (ie. if you don't cheat, you can't get anything) but it also produces people whose MO is "get anything you can by cheating, and just don't get caught". Like a society wholly made up of investment bankers :)

tsotha 14y ago

The ancient Chinese civil service exam was, at least in part, designed to weed out independent thinkers - that's just not a valued commodity in a society based on Confucianism. So it doesn't surprise me plagiarism isn't viewed as a particularly serious offense even today.

westiseast 14y ago

I've seen this up close, and yes, true. By the time kids have left education, they've normally been exposed to (and probably practiced) all manner of cheating, whether it's faking a certificate, copying an essay, cheating in an exam or just straight up lieing. It's a vicious circle because it's valuable preparation for a society that often demands cheating (ie. if you don't cheat, you can't get anything) but it also produces people whose MO is "get anything you can by cheating, and just don't get caught". Like a society wholly made up of investment bankers :)