Wednesday November 28, 2007
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Witness to my life
Wednesday November 28, 2007 What constitute civilization? What makes a society pleasant to be part of, or intolerable? What makes you shake your heads, or irate and want to punch someone? What make you thinking of not coming back to this area ever?
Small things. What Rudy Giuliani called "quality of life" factors. In China, they fall into two general categories: inconsideration to others and not picking up after self. These are the new "4 pests" China government want to eradicate before Olympics. And I am 100% behind it. I would like to add the 5th one (and everyone has their favorite 5th one too) of littering.
I am confident that China will become a pleasant place for everyone. The economy is driving it and nothing motivates a Chinese more than growth. As the economy turns more and more consumer oriented, those "one time get rich schemes" will disappear and reputation will prevail as the leading success factor. At business level, this means quality and services. At personal level, this means good social behaviors. I also believe, in general, individual wealth promotes nicer social protocols.
It will be a nice day for me to see someone walking 5 paces, clear his or her phelgm into a tissue, and throw that into a garbage can.
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Yes! There's a Jewish proverb which suggests: "you should not do to someone what you would hate for that someone to do to you". If you hate swimming in phlegm, if you hate being overrun in a queue, if you hate being cursed, and smoked on, make sure you don't do it either.
Also, someone did the research and found that it is practically impossible for everyone to make it to the front of the line at the same time. Also, another research backed fact is that people who only clear their throat twice a day live longer than those who do it ten times a minute... (not even talking about smoking, who is proven to be deadly).
My personal fifth is: please, no playing of two-hour-long Chinese opera at 3:00 AM. And most certainly, no singing along, if you can't carry a tune...
Posted by Amiram on November 28, 2007 at 03:23 PM CST #
My 5th for China would be:
Profit at any cost would sooner or later turn into a great loss (socially, politically, economically and inviromentally).
Posted by Leo PM on November 28, 2007 at 10:15 PM CST #
My 5th would be: no pictures of Santa Claus unless it's Christmas time. I get really tired of seeing Jolly Old Saint Nick when it's 100 degrees outside...
Posted by melanie gao on November 30, 2007 at 09:52 AM CST #
Chinese becomes civilized is something may or may not happen, even the economy keeps growing 12% p.a. forever. For example, look at Italy. Italian are not poor but their traffic is a mess. It is because the people have chosen that they will not take some law seriously.
So, I guess as long as the Chinese society keeps putting materialistic consumerism and political power above human value, I see little possibility that over time Chinese will become civilized.
Posted by A. Kong on December 07, 2007 at 07:36 PM CST #
@A. Kong
Wow. Racism at its best.
Posted by Sin-Yaw Wang on December 07, 2007 at 08:09 PM CST #
@Sin-Yaw Wang
You are quick to 'label' too :-)
And the label doesn't apply, because me and you are of same racial origin. (Unless you are not Han Chinese)
Don't wanna elaborate too much for I understand your bias. But take a look at some of the social sickness in China today: the level of violence in crime, the disregard of human lives in coal mines and workplace... it is really not a "get rich and it will be fixed" thing. The deeper root is in people's belief that individual are worth less than a "common good". Think about this one.
Posted by A. Kong on December 08, 2007 at 04:03 AM CST #
@A. Kong
It was prejudice of me to label you, an individual. I apologize.
Societies, or groups, can change for the better by the action of individuals in it. I learn to predict the future of an entire race only based on something innate, like their genetic heritage, linguistic limitation, or geographic elements, (e.g. Australians can never ... because they are too far away from ... Or Finland's population are so pure in genetics that they are subject to ...) but never based on other social elements (Chinese would never ... because they believe in ...). In the latter example, "belief" is really an individual choice and should not be applied to a whole race.
Posted by Sin-Yaw Wang on December 08, 2007 at 08:56 AM CST #