Mythbusting the Cult of Confucius

Prologue: Tantalising China

Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s trendy pedestrian mall: probably Asia’s most famous and interesting street. Ground level is mostly boutique specialty stores inside historic brownstone and Art-Deco buildings. Skyscrapers loom over the scene, which at night glitters with neon illuminating the mist.

Street-hawkers pester anyone looking vaguely English-speaking with, Hello, baggses, watch? Lolex? Omega?. I got sick of saying no thanks every time, so I adapted to the local rudeness by just ignoring them. It’s fair. I pondered whether if everyone did that the hawkers might quit and go home. Doubtful; Chinese merchants are at least optimistic.

During the day girls come up in pairs and start speaking passable English. Hello? Where you from? Maybe skimpily-dressed babes really do approach some people, but I’m not that lucky. Where you staying? They grab my arm as I go by. Hey, stop and talk! I ignore them too, they don’t really want to talk and neither do I.

At night, though, girls don’t work Nanjing Road. Then shifty guys in crumpled suits approach. Wanna lady? Sexy lady? Cheap!

I ponder the cost/benefit permutations of this, then keep going.

I make this trip for some out-of-the-way gems.

From DongChang Road metro station, one eventually emerges upward into the World Plaza building’s airy foyer. From there broad marble stairs descend to the footpath beside the eight-lane Pudong South Road. To the right rise monolithic Shanghai landmarks, including, side by side, two (for now) of the world’s five tallest buildings.

Shanghai’s footpaths are nearly always too narrow, especially since parked bikes and motor-scooters take up most of the available space. This, and the throngs waiting on the street for buses, funnel people into narrow lines; there cart-stall holders set up, blocking the remaining space. It’s the same at most major subway entrances.

I love the China-isms along this road: a pedestrian crossing where traffic never stops, a fence down the middle of the road forcing you to cross at designated places. Absent, though, the common traffic-safety assistants telling people when to cross: perhaps too dangerous here.

The footpath on the side opposite World Plaza is wider thanks to concrete garden boxes along the whole strip. Always a few food-stalls here, on good days this spot sizzles with the colours, sounds and aromas of all the food. Right on the street stall-holders will cook for you all kinds of delectable dishes; favourites are fried chicken, Xinjiang-style mutton kebabs, and folded savoury crepe-like things with an egg/coriander filling.

People selling and buying it always have much to discuss in loud exchanges. "Nong xiang chi sha?", one vendor squawks at the world in general: Would you like to eat? Ken ding si-moo se-le, yells another: Must be very hungry! Most Chinese can’t understand Shanghainese either, but everyone’s smiling. Another vendor sells stinky tofu, deep fried tofu topped in special brown spicy sauce, which thankfully tastes better than it smells.

At every opportunity I get my favourite. The wrinkled, brown-skinned woman preparing it starts with a small flat-bottomed metal ladle, dips it in a batter to coat the bottom, piles in a mixture of shredded turnip, spring-onion and shredded carrot, dollops on more batter to soak in and make a top, packs it down, and deep-fries it inside the ladle. One at a time, she tips the patties out of the ladle, drains, and serves in plastic bags. The oil’s probably weeks old, but these fried snacks are the yummiest thing I’ve had in China. She’s not there every day, but when she is I usually go back several times for more. Yi you lai le? I suspect she’s making some amused comment about my tastes.

Another I often go to is a tray-back tricycle. Up front it’s a bike, behind, the flat tray nearly as big as a pool table converts into a mobile kitchen. The proprietor serves a variety of simple dishes, fried noodles and fried rice the most popular. He keeps several wide plastic basins on the bike tray: one full of cold noodles, another of cold cooked rice. Turning a knob on a gas cylinder like a beer keg, with a cigarette lighter he lights one of two heavy-duty wok burners.

He starts with a pre-rinsed single-handled wok, sets it on the burner for a minute, and with a broad ladle scoops in some oil. He indicates the eggs in an old paint bucket behind him, asking if I want any. I indicate yes. He selects two and one-handedly cracks them into the ladle, carelessly tossing the shells into another wok resting on another bucket on the ground. He misses often and a mess of discarded eggshells rings the bucket. Then he pours the raw eggs into the hot oil and breaks them up with the ladle’s edge. He scoops up about a tablespoon of finely chopped spring-onion leaves, so thin they might be almost be chives. I indicate more, more; Chinese don’t like oniony tastes. He adds more, then grabs a handful of roughly chopped bok choi leaves, or sometimes cabbage, from another plastic paint bucket behind him, throws that in, and asks me if I want the bean sprouts from yet another bucket.

With his left hand he expertly flicks the wok-mixture almost a foot into the air, stirring with the ladle in his right hand. Then with a disposable plastic teaspoon in a green compartmented box, he tosses in what is probably salt, perhaps MSG, sprinkling some brown spice powder into the mixture from a converted jam-jar with holes poked in the lid. Using the spoon he also sprinkles in a bit of dried chilli flakes. Shanghainese usually put too much of that into almost everything, but a little is okay and he already knows how much I want (about one quarter the usual quantity). Previously he’d asked if I wanted beef or pork but I said no (vegetables out in the sun all day is one thing, meat: no way) so now he no longer asks. Then in goes a ladleful of cold, cooked rice; he stirs that up then packs it down against the wok bottom, and finally adds a glug of soy sauce and gives it another stir. He lines a styrofoam bowl with a flimsy plastic bag, dumps in the fried rice, covers it up with the bag, then puts the bowl into another plastic bag for carrying.

He says that’ll be five yuan; a healthy, filling meal for less than a dollar.

The main reason I come down this way is the DVD shop in the alley. It’s the first permanent shop on the right: hardly more than a cupboard, not even four metres square. Inside it has small DVD-bin tables, larger tables outside, and both, as usual, fairly unsorted. Around the inside shelves the shop has hundreds of boxed sets of popular American, British and Chinese TV series. This is the shop’s strength, and the main thing I want there. I paid 245 RMB ($40) for the entirety of Deep Space Nine: 47 DVDs, four episodes each. Back home just one disc would cost almost that much. Avoiding that is the essence of what I love about the DVD industry in China. I’m addicted to BBC science, history and other documentaries.

I kept going to the DVD shop, long after I stopped working at a nearby school, mainly because the owner has hit upon a business model very few other Chinese understand. It works. Unlike at most shops, which I often go into once then boycott forever, here I keep going back to give him lots of money, and very happily. First, he speaks a bit of useful English, so for a change I can communicate in words instead of gestures. Second, he’s reasonable and polite, even including refunds. This simply doesn’t happen in China, normally everything is grudging and minimal. Third, he has stuff people actually want, at great prices. Also, he’s honest; if a movie is a poor-quality cinema version, he’ll just tell you. The shop’s always full of foreigners.

Finally, among the many ephemeral cart-stalls there’s another interesting type of DVD shop. Generally buying from street DVD stalls is a bad idea because of the poor quality; also one can’t check, plus the store won’t be there next time. So some have overcome this problem with portable DVD players smaller than a laptop computer.

One evening I was innocently browsing the many street carts for specific BBC DVDs I’d already seen and wanted additional copies of. One swarthy fellow approached and started tugging at my elbow. Hello, DVD? This alone is usually enough to make me move on. He started giggling, holding his left index finger and thumb in a circle, poking his right index finger through it. "Ribenren ... Jap-an-eeeze! He giggled again, waggling his eyebrows. Gooda, gooda. These discs don’t come in a packet, only a flimsy disc jacket, and looking around cautiously he withdrew a selection from his jacket pocket and fanned them out. DVD-nine. Verrra gooda."

Without asking, he whipped out his portable player, hooked my elbow with his arm and towed me into the alley. I don’t normally accompany leering Chinese nor any other men into dark alleys but, curious, I went. Looking around nervously, he inserted a disc into the DVD player, and together we watched. He wanted to turn it off after a few seconds but I said no, keep going a bit longer.

Technically this stuff is illegal, but technically all pirate DVDs are illegal anyway. Definitely the police are very sympathetic. No-one wants the industry shut down, everyone loses that way. Nevertheless the street vendor takes precautions. Though the police are on-side, Chinese society generally is still coy about some things. So you never know. Apart from the few in the vendor’s pocket, he has a sprinkling of others stashed inside the trays with all the normal DVDs. If you didn’t know exactly where to look you’d never find them. There’s a small enough quantity to quickly bin if necessary, plus even if the police saw them they’d still pass casual inspection (all you’d see on the disc is girls in unrevealing, G-rated bikinis). There’s no way to tell what’s on them without playing each one.

If there were any trouble, a case of quality Japanese merchandise should lubricate relations.

Introduction

I think travelling to China, or even just learning about it, are two of the best things one can do. If you get the opportunity, I advise you to grab it. You will not regret it. China is amazingly interesting, and many of its good things have become part of me. For the most part my years there were among the best of my life, and finally I left reluctantly. I still miss Shanghai every day, and it’s starting to look that I always may.

However, anyone contemplating any encounter with China or Chinese would definitely have a better time, or be more productive, if they start informed. Many of the upsetting things that happened to me in China may have been less upsetting had I known what to expect. Anyone unprepared will be disappointed, probably also tricked and hurt. That’s one reason I decided to share what I learned.

It’s always worthwhile studying other cultures, but never previously has the world so acutely needed to understand China. Its influence now extends far beyond its borders. Chinese people are streaming into western countries in unprecedented numbers; certain western economies and economic sectors are increasingly intertwined with China; and as we will see, Chinese values and priorities can strongly affect the health and freedoms of people everywhere. China also poses many consumer and environmental threats affecting the whole world. All this concerns me, not least because I believe few in government have much awareness of these important subjects.

What little thought western governments and organisations have given these grave matters, beyond short-term financial motives, has been based on myth and wishful thinking. Especially naïve are our assumptions of equivalence in Chinese education/skills, as we’ll cover. Yet our commonest and worst assumption is that Chinese are really just like us and compatible with us.¹ They’re not.

I’m not trying to demonise or dehumanise the Chinese, nor make them into an enemy. Actually I want to help them, and to help others help them. Chinese are what they are; I simply propose that we know the truth of that, as opposed to what many people prefer to believe about them. Global context aside, I feel it’s always better to know the truth than to accept myths. Though if this book were just a catalogue of Chinese traits, it would be less valuable and only of specialist interest. Therefore, most of all, this book is about reasons and consequences. It takes a hard look at the ideas forming the nucleus of Chinese culture, which hold very deep lessons for us about ourselves. For that reason, and just of itself, Chinese culture is very informative.

Still, while difference of itself has no meaning, or for me is usually interesting, Chinese differences really matter. In many ways the foundations of their society are totally opposite and incompatible with those of the west.² As examples, Chinese place almost zero value on freedom (including free-enquiry), originality or individuality; instead they are very accepting of limitation, authority, and received wisdom.

There was always conflict in western dealings with Chinese but, historically, Chinese residents of western societies avoided it by keeping to themselves in separate enclaves. Western people in China long did the same in reverse. While many Chinese migrants today might prefer to maintain this separation, it is no longer possible. In these days of joint-venture companies, outsourcing, skilled migration, and vast populations of Chinese students at western institutions, western interaction with Chinese people has never been more direct and personal. Conflict is inevitable; how much depends on how well we come to understand them.

These themes, far from being of mere academic interest, are vital if the world is to finally understand and live with China. We don’t have a choice. In addition, China provides many opportunities for those who can learn its ways. Yet until now information making this possible has been largely unavailable. Hopefully, my long struggles to understand the Chinese may help others deal with them in informed ways. Understanding leads to choices.

I should make clear from the outset what I mean by Chinese. In this book it means people of Han culture³ (not race) raised in the PRC with the values of that culture, and still there. It’s an important distinction.

For starters, a lot of people from ethnic minorities around the rim of China’s borders may technically be PRC citizens, but many, particularly the Tibetans and Uighers,⁴ are not Chinese and never have been. These and many other minority groups in China have completely different cultures, no attachment to Chinese values, and were annexed unwillingly. In my experience, these people still don’t even like to speak Chinese.

Also many people may be of Chinese descent yet not Chinese the way I use the term. As Australian and American societies are indisputably of British heritage, yet not British, the same applies to societies of Chinese origin. The divergence of Taiwanese, Hong Kong and other societies of mostly-Chinese ancestry is not as obvious as the Japanese/Chinese split only because the period of separation has been much shorter; still, it’s the same process. Despite Chinese propaganda, neither Hong Kong nor Taiwan are culturally part of modern China and I don’t link those peoples as a group with the generalisations in this book.

In addition, it can be possible for people who were born Chinese, and who left China, to assume new national identities. Frankly, this doesn’t happen very often, especially among the modern type of migrants, but often enough to acknowledge. Though after very long periods living within foreign cultures, there must inevitably be some attenuation of Chineseness even for the most die-hard Chinese. For those communities, the differences from authentic Chinese culture can be quite pronounced in second and subsequent generations.

This makes redundant terms mainland China and mainland Chinese, since in this book there are no other kinds. Chinese throughout this book means PRC Han-Chinese.

A lot of people become disappointed with China because they seek a dream or, more accurately, a lie.

Judging from paintings and other traditional Chinese arts, one could easily imagine that ancient China was a serene, spiritual, contemplative society. Literature and philosophy from the period also strongly encourage this harmonious interpretation.

Modern representations, movies and television, repeat and extend these myths. I remember being awed by the television mini-series Marco Polo, broadcast in Australia in 1982. For me aged fourteen, surrounded by the overwhelming banality of suburban Australia, this and what little other material I could get made imperial China seem the pinnacle of civilisation.

I wasn’t alone in thinking so. When I studied TaiChi the first time, I learned about the collective genius of Chinese people which students were encouraged to imbibe through mimicking Chinese habits. China and Chinese are just innately civilised, their mere presence among us makes us better people, or so the stereotypes lead people to believe.

However, the plain fact is: these pervasive ideas are largely false. Perhaps except for the Tang Dynasty (0618-0907), ancient China was hardly as enlightened or harmonious as it is made to seem. A society cannot be harmonious and fiercely competitive at the same time. Given that the observed natural state of Chinese people is fighting each other, there must be something deeply false about this harmony idea. Indeed, harmony is the central euphemism of Confucianism, which, as we’ll see, conceals a deep, brutal, injustice. Chinese today don’t see this, and go to considerable lengths to sustain and promote the enlightened-China myth. We’ll investigate the reasons.

Myths are powerful and enduring things. They arise to fill some belief-need, then the strength of that belief sustains and cements the myth. With time myths become so true in people’s minds that they’re almost impervious to evidence or alternative interpretations. Western people have some very enduring myths too, but it’s unlikely any society mythologises its own origins and history as much as the Chinese. Now, the myths about ancient China are so strong they practically warp space around them.

Most Chinese can no longer think about themselves in any ways other than orthodox mythology, though the fact that they do doesn’t make any of it true. Foreigners often see how Chinese believe other things about themselves (polite, generous, tolerant, etc.) which most people who know them would agree are demonstrably ridiculous.

Historically, Chinese have not helped outsiders understand them. A Chinese friend says her people’s arrogance prevents them wanting foreigners to understand them. Also Chinese don’t admit it, but most are quite xenophobic. Even if Chinese views of themselves were reliable, even if they wanted outsiders to understand them, Chinese usually have difficulty making anything clear. So Chinese are probably the worst people to help others understand them.

Confused foreigners may be tempted to conclude that Chinese are mysterious and complex. It definitely seems so at first. They apparently know something we don’t, and vigorously promote this view of themselves. Along the same lines, many Chinese also believe foreigners are forever doomed to a superficial understanding of them because, so the myth goes, only Chinese can understand Chinese. This is also supposedly true for their native philosophies; Chinese believe that their understanding of such things, even if they have never studied or practiced them at all, will always exceed yours because western people just can’t grasp them as Chinese naturally do.

Some silly westerners echo this view, but let’s bust that myth first. If it were true people of one culture couldn’t understand another, the entire discipline of cultural anthropology would have to shut itself down. China is not a special exception. Also Chinese are not as complex as they think they are. Though their behaviour may be quite elaborate, simple rules drive it. Furthermore, I never subscribed to unknowability about anything. People who speak that way usually have some vested interest in preventing others from knowing; or they are lazy, don’t really look, and comfortable with ignorance.

To really understand the Chinese we must forget the stereotypes. Modern China very obviously isn’t remotely like the clichés and myths ancestor-worshipping Chinese people created about ancient China. It’s usually not the slightest bit harmonious, tranquil or enlightened. There’s no reason to suppose it ever really was.

Actually Chinese are not difficult to understand using the following radical new paradigm which cuts through the muddle. One of the keys is to ignore Chinese people’s words and focus on what they actually do.⁵

Instead of merely claiming correct understanding, or engaging in the pointless debate of how could I possibly understand Chinese people, it’s better to demonstrate what I know with predictions. Predictions are a vital test of whether someone really knows something. Readers can see for themselves whether my rules (see Rules of Behaviour) hold up. Actually they, and Case study 1, predict nearly all of China’s mysterious apparent complexity.

In physics, one exception disproves the theory but this is not true where people are concerned. Of course there are exceptions, in fact there are isolated exceptions to every statement I make in this book. However, the following generalisations are possible, actually robust and timeless, because by western standards China is a land of almost total conformity. Variation exists, but for every trait the bell-curves are extremely narrow compared to other societies. Chinese are guided to this by their philosophy and upbringing, happily suppressing individuality within themselves and among each other. So China is as close to an opinion-monoculture as human societies come; the lack of diversity is one of its most surprising aspects for foreigners. It’s probably not possible to generalise about people of any other culture as much as for the Chinese. However, since they are so alike, any accurate generalisation will be true for the vast majority of Chinese people.

Working out the principles guiding Chinese society was the difficult part, and for that I had a strong personal incentive.

My motivation was in full bloom by 1988. My first girlfriend was Chinese, also considerably older than me. Much of her behaviour made little sense at the time. Gaps in my understanding have always troubled me, so I couldn’t leave it alone. I continued puzzling about her alien ways and values long after any feeling ceased. Her family had been among the first PRC citizens to migrate to Australia, and back in 1985 when I first met her, and by 1988 when we became involved, I knew no other Chinese in Australia with whom I could compare. Later, I met more Chinese-Australians, and struggled to understand them too. I read a lot, observed a lot. I knew some American-Chinese in Hawaii and finally I became very close to some Chinese in China. Though many Chinese and Chinese-Australians praised me for how well I understood their culture, even when I moved to China I still didn’t fully.

However, now, after five years there, I really do.

Since this is a mythbusting book we’re going to face facts. With some cultures, one hears the same adjectives over and over: lovely, friendly, warm-hearted. Actually very few people speak that way about the Chinese, particularly not foreigners who’ve adopted China. The fact is, Chinese are unpopular pretty much everywhere they are known but especially in Asia where they are known best. The core reasons are the childish traits which clash with the values of more mature people. Even Ba’hai friends, apparently bound by their religion to seek the best in people, admit to having trouble doing that for Chinese.

Making such statements, some people are going to say I don’t like Chinese or that I’m racist, but neither is true. Of course I don’t like rude, selfish or closedminded Chinese, as I also don’t like those types from my own or any culture. Who does? Yet I get on fine with other types of Chinese not like that, including a number of Chinese people literally as family to me. Most of the women I have ever been very close to have been Chinese.

This book is not at all critical of Chinese as a race. I don’t accept race as a valid biological concept anyway. Besides, Chinese are not a separate race from other east Asian peoples yet there are tremendous differences between those societies in spite of the racial unity. To make the point personally, one of my friends is Australian-Chinese born in Malacca: same race as the people in this book, different everything. Instead, this book is critical of the subtype of Chinese who happen to be dominant, and their cultural values which are the root of all their problems. Expressing valid disagreements with certain cultural values doesn’t make one a racist: actually it’s proper that intellectuals do. Taoist Chinese also clashed with Confucianism for millennia; it would be quite stupid to twist their disagreement into racism since that would mean they were racist toward their own race. Intellectual disagreement with cultural values is not racism!

Actually I am in a similar position to the Taoists: theirs, the other Chinese philosophy, is as deeply part of me as it was of them. So I am truly a kind of Chinese too, and therefore no more racist than the ancient Taoists were. I am merely continuing the Taoist/Confucianist philosophical debate.

Living in China I saw many ugly truths needing to be faced — hardly a deep insight for anyone who has been there — but most importantly the process of writing about them revealed that Confucianism was always at the centre. I realised Confucianism, and Confucian belief, itself is the core problem with Chinese society. As far as I know, that’s a new idea.

The Confucian grip on Chinese thinking is very deep and ancient, though that’s not a good thing. These days it seems every second airport-book about China includes wisdom in the title, which repeats the Chinese mistake of assuming that anything old must also be good (and only old things can be good). As I will show, Confucianism is not wisdom. As far as moral philosophers go, Confucius was pretty simple. There are far better ways to look at the subject than he did. Confucianism is actually extremely harmful for a long list of reasons. Professor David Ho⁶ helps set the scene for us:

People endorsing Confucian filial attitudes tend to adopt a passive, uncritical and non-creative orientation towards learning; to hold fatalistic, superstitious, and stereotypic beliefs; to be authoritarian, dogmatic, and conformist. Parent’s attitudes rooted in filial piety tend to result in high rigidity and low cognitive complexity in their children. Thus the psychological consequences of filial piety would appear to be predominantly negative from the perspective of most contemporary psychologists.⁷

Chinese thinking is rigid and simple partly because, as we will see, the strict and inflexible Confucian culture totally defines their thinking and behaviour, and limitation is its central characteristic. We will also see that Confucian values directly cause a moral and intellectual stunting. In addition, Chinese people’s personal identities are totally bound to their cultural identity; they feel they cannot change that without becoming something other than Chinese, which most will not contemplate.

A society founded on Confucianism was always going to have the above problems — mental and social chains, essentially — built into its core. However, it need not always be so, and indeed Chinese once almost shed their Confucianist baggage. If that were to ever really happen, the solution would involve engaging them to start questioning their traditional values: another reason I decided to write this book.

Fundamentally, Chinese people are programmed.⁸ In part this means Chinese do and think what they’re told and only what they’re told. They need to be told. This idea generally disturbs western people, who may therefore reject it. Though discomforting, it is true; the only way to understand and deal with Chinese people is to know what the program is (as follows) and work within that. Westerners often mistakenly expect Chinese to venture beyond the boundaries of their culture. Most cannot. They are traditional people who value tradition, but very little else.

Anyone who understands that about Chinese people may be able to relate to them.

I also want to make clear that the superficially unpleasant kind of Chinese are so because Confucianism has made them that way. It’s totally inaccurate to say they are bad people, nor am I saying that. More precisely, most Chinese have been restricted to a simple stage of development, for reasons that are not their fault. I want to explore those reasons and offer solutions. We can’t blame disabled people for their disabilities, even less when their disabilities are created intentionally. Though, again, the root philosophical system and the people who enforce it have much to answer for.

That root philosophy is itself no more sophisticated than schoolyard bullying. That’s really Confucianism in a nutshell. As we’ll see, it’s a backward-looking, conservative philosophy which equates stagnation with wisdom, selfishness and obedience with morality. Its practitioners are themselves virtually incapable of forming new ideas, and highly value this trait in others. Far from being wisdom, Confucianism is a simplistic and mean spirited philosophy without value for modern people.

Some westerners, perhaps quite experienced with Chinese — I call them sinophiles — will say I’m wrong and that Chinese people are not as I describe. Alone, such assertions mean nothing.

I find that the western people possessing the strongest affinity for Chinese do so because they find within Chinese some kinship with themselves. Generally this means they are inclined towards simplistic moral and other modes of thinking. Essentially this means: strong on belief, particularly superstition and magic, but weak on critical thinking. There’s no way any such people can claim to know anything; they believe a lot, which is not the same.⁹ Their tendency towards unskeptical belief predisposes them to acceptance of the wise-Chinese myths. Chinese people appreciate and encourage that in foreigners; this type of foreigner then feels welcome in China, so they often visit regularly or stay. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are reliable sources, merely that they have an investment in Chinese values. I often spoke to such people and I was astounded by how little they really understand. They are numerous in the martial arts, especially TaiChi, but also show up a lot in Traditional Chinese Medicine and business. Their wishful acceptance of Chinese mythology blinds them, so in this sense they’re hardly different from Chinese people in their inability to see Chinese society for what it is. I do not consider them credible.

In any society ambitious people first mimic, and later wholeheartedly adopt, the traits and values of the dominant class. Since getting along with most Chinese depends on acceptance of their values, anyone wanting to be successful in China or within Chinese organisations must please Chinese people. That means doing things Chinese style. And, in reverse, acceptance by Chinese, or comfort with China,¹⁰ always indicates compatibility with Chinese values. These westerners are especially tolerant of limitation, childishness, superficiality, vagueness and everything else we’re going to investigate. Conservative¹¹ themselves, these insecure seekers are often drawn to myth, and to China’s unquestioning certainty their own cultures no longer provide. Above all, these people are uncritical because that’s the core Chinese trait. Generally speaking Chinese well, they start repeating Chinese propaganda and euphemisms as glibly as Chinese; eventually they become a species of Chinese. Therefore, the people most familiar with China are often those least able to say anything original or insightful about it.

Or, worse, sometimes they’re quite knowledgeable about China and its faults but they’re China-apologists, if not full propagandists, with an economic incentive for not rocking the boat.

Whereas, foreigners who question and demand robust logical explanations are usually dissatisfied with much of Chinese thinking and belief. Most of it is vague, nebulous and simplistic. Not counting authentic Taoism (which isn’t a religion, doesn’t require belief, and is opposed to Confucianism),¹² Chinese cosmology is far fetched and primitive (spirits, demons, ghosts, gods, vengeful heaven): not substantially different from other ancient peoples’. In a word: magic. Questioning foreigners tend to see without delusion (what critical really means), and once they start really looking at China they find ugliness, hollowness and hypocrisy everywhere.

The more complex and analytical you are, the less you will like Chinese values and the less the Chinese will like you. It’s a very firm relationship.

If it’s real oriental wisdom you want, skip China. Sophisticated people will no longer find anything of philosophical value or substance there. English books about Taoism and/or Zen are more authentic, complete and valuable.

I deliberately tried not to write an academic book. Concerning China, these tend to be dull; also they’re often very silly and naïve: no better than what Chinese write about themselves. Not all, but many China-scholars tend to be China apologists (often citizens of western countries of Chinese descent), or slightly more sophisticated versions of the magic-seeking martial artists. I don’t pretend to be a China-scholar. Actually it’s much more original not to be, as I explain later in terms of the value of outside perspectives. Thus I saw little point in adding to that ponderous pile of doorstoppers. Nor did I see much point duplicating those few areas of China-scholarship that are quite good: this book complements those without competition.

In most cases there are no studies I can refer to, no convincing data I can produce. It will be long before papers such as analysis of psycho-maturity distributions of Chinese populations or theories of learning disability in Chinese students will exist. Such research has not been done and Chinese authorities would probably never allow it anyway. Even flagging the questions is still completely outside the current paradigm. Changing that starts with one person telling things as they really are. That’s better than book-research anyway, because it’s original and direct. I realise I sometimes make assertions, or more usually, demonstrate a kind of qualitative research. Hopefully this will stimulate people to look at these topics in new ways, and to collect the data instead of relying on old assumptions.

Besides, much of what passes for research in the field is weak and avoids generalisation: certainly descriptive and anecdotal.¹³ Much is hardly more than oral history dressed up in academic language. If talking to people and writing about what they say counts as research, my observations are every bit as legitimate as any of that: actually far more rigorous.¹⁴

While I am an outsider to this topic, I may be the perfect outsider. A culture is really an ecosystem, which, as an ecologist, I have some insights about, especially in terms of complex systems and driving variables. Also, as a science writer, I can explain all of that.

What follows is either my own observation, or my analysis of what Chinese people told me of their culture. In some cases I interviewed experts in specific fields. This book is at times a strong form of gonzo journalism: I lived like a Chinese person,¹⁵ had Chinese neighbours, and made many Chinese friends, all of whom provided great discussions and arguments. As an English teacher I observed and talked to thousands of Chinese, of all ages, about everything I could.

So this is a book about what I really know. The generalisations have been tested and retested with direct experience. It wouldn’t matter if Chinese disagreed, and most surely will, but it’s also nice that all my generalisations have been confirmed by Chinese people themselves. The Chinese friends who helped this book take form complained only that its truths were too stark, never that they were untrue. I replied that if they agreed this was an accurate reflection, yet didn’t like what they saw in it, that would be their problem.

It’s also a book of conclusions. Its original title was What you need to know about Chinese and I’ve focused on that. I’ve provided evidence where necessary but in most cases I’ve deliberately left out details of experiences that led to me working out all this. I wanted the conclusions to apply generally without background context.

In part one I start with Confucianism and what harmony really means. Then we’ll look at ten of the main Chinese traits foreigners sometimes notice — many quite tragic too — with emphasis on how they usually emerge directly from Confucianism. This necessitates a slightly theoretical approach at first, but please bear with me. From part two onwards, we’ll examine these traits and their consequences in common contexts, and use the new understanding of Chinese traits to deal with and understand Chinese people in those practical situations. In most cases Chinese characteristics in one context will be equally applicable in another. For example, Chinese workers and migrants behave very much like Chinese students (and vice versa); Chinese students offer the same challenges for educators whether studying at English training centres in China or at universities abroad; problems Chinese managers of English schools create are typical of Chinese managers in other industries. Westerners also have consistent difficulties communicating with Chinese whether in relationship, work or educational settings. I put those sections where they are for ease of discussion, not to imply that work-issues (for example) are completely confined to that context. Actually most traits show up in most contexts.

I conclude with an examination of China’s Confucianist government, hardly different from its imperial predecessors, with emphasis on how Confucianism affects the rest of the world and what can be done about that. We certainly don’t have to just passively tolerate China taking over.

Chinese, also a lot of other people, think any kind of criticism must be negative; anything negative must be whining. However, this is incorrect. Actually such probing and frank acceptance is wholly positive, leading to much-needed deep new understanding. Its opposite is denial. Instead of looking at one culture through the bias of another, I will be rationally evaluating a culture’s core beliefs. The former is ignorant prejudice; the latter enables growth and freedom from the dead weight of tradition. Beneath the criticism is a new compassionate understanding that Chinese are actually victims of their own history.

Studying that is quite valuable. Looking at China — frequently the most extreme case for many situations one might imagine — helps us see more clearly within ourselves those same influences that have made China what it is. China’s docility and unconsciousness are greater versions of our own, different only by degree; examining that helps us recognise and combat those processes and their causes within our societies. If we do not study our similarity to Chinese people, and remove whatever sources of stagnation we have in common with them, we will hold ourselves back. In short, we can grow up a bit more by studying a culture of children. It’s a powerful thing to do.

Ultimately I also hope this book may help any Chinese ready to examine their own culture to take that first step. It has already started in a few individual cases, and I hope there will be more.

Also, in a few key ways we need to learn from the Chinese and do things their way.

Finally, one could read a million books and still not know everything about China, nor can one book contain everything. Direct knowledge is the most valuable kind. I still encourage people to see for themselves. However, with this guide, dealings with Chinese people, in China or your own country, may be more positive and productive.

Wayne Deeker

September 2012

Part 1

Confucianism

Confucius’ dark legacy

If we want to understand the Chinese, we must start with Confucianism.

Confucianism is the number one influence defining Chinese culture. The Chinese often say that Buddhism and Taoism equally contributed to their character, and maybe that was true for a little while long ago, but today, as for most of the last 2200-odd years, Confucianism has an absolute stranglehold over China.¹⁶ Even if the Chinese don’t realise or accept it, actually Confucianism is central to everything about them; very little about the Chinese makes sense without that context. Most Chinese accept their Confucian heritage without question.

Many books and websites document the full details of Confucianist writings and teachings, so I won’t be doing that. Instead the real meaning and social effect of Confucian philosophy interest me far more. These are also the bits that explain nearly everything about China.

To understand Confucianism we have to know a bit about Confucius (Kung Fu-zi)¹⁷ and his world, particularly how his system became the official philosophy of China. He was born around 551 BCE during China’s Spring and Autumn era. Starting hundreds of years before Confucius’ birth, this was a tumultuous time of the gradual decline and breakup of an earlier, larger Chinese kingdom (Eastern Zhou: pronounced jo). The era’s heightened intra- and inter-state intrigues preluded the outright warfare of the later Warring States period.

Raised in privilege, the young Confucius had no real responsibilities and devoted his time to studying classics.¹⁸ As he considered the early Zhou period the pinnacle of government and society (for no better reason than it being his own native culture), he believed the Zhou moral system should apply to his own time. Though virtually alone in this view, he believed contemporary rulers were behaving immorally by Zhou standards.¹⁹ Hence Confucius made it his life’s work to systemise what the Zhou would have considered proper conduct: his famous rules of propriety.

Promoting himself as a learned scholar, Confucius gained his first government position (Chief of police)²⁰ at age fifty though his advice was not appreciated.²¹ A few years later he left on a roadshow of neighbouring states, offering his services as freelance counsel. Most rulers wouldn’t see him, and those who did were unimpressed. The Duke of Wei, for example, asked Confucius’ thoughts on military strategy; Confucius replied that his expertise was odes and ancient sacrificial rituals,²² not practical matters. Almost totally impotent and useless when it came to contemporary government, he spent most of his time teaching a band of followers.²³

I suppose that if Chinese today ever wonder about the general non-acceptance of Confucius’ philosophies during his life, they might reason that people of his time were too immoral or uncouth to understand. Chinese venerate Confucius as the quintessential wise man whose influence was wholly positive. If they ever think about how easily Confucius’ theories could have been lost to history, they might argue that we were lucky to have avoided that.

I will argue the opposite: that his legacy was anything but positive. Actually the substance and spirit of Confucius’ teachings²⁴ have retarded Chinese development ever since. It’s also an interesting, if sinister, story of how Confucianism went from almost total non-acceptance to the complete opposite we see today.

Yet it’s quite difficult for a modern person to access and judge Confucianism without being influenced by the Chinese reverence for it. The fact of it still being published and discussed suggests some worth. We also usually encounter Confucianism as selected tidbits of fortune-cookie wisdom. For example: Good people go inside and rest when the sun goes down,²⁵ Good people are careful about what they say and moderate in eating and drinking,²⁶ Good people forgive faults and pardon crimes.²⁷ It’s difficult to argue with such truisms.

Likewise, on the surface, other parts of Confucianism seem to suggest some simple value. Confucius warned of the abuses of power, and generally suggested an idealism where privileged people have an obligation to help the less privileged.²⁸ (Here he wasn’t really speaking of material assistance as we might assume, rather of moral guidance.) He maintained that educated men²⁹ should cultivate themselves towards higher morality. In enacting moral conduct, and serving as ministers and educators, the cultivated man positively influences the whole political/social framework.³⁰ Confucius further believed only the most qualified people should work in public office. All this sounds very reasonable and astute, as intended. A selected reading of standard Confucian quotes reinforces Chinese interpretations, and makes it easy for westerners to go along with their assumptions that all of Confucianism must have the same value.

Yet anyone who reads Confucianism in its entirety can see that the commonly-quoted lines are definitely the choice bits. The vast bulk of the rest is nebulous and apparently meaningless.³¹ This is why it’s difficult for the western person to get a critical hold on it, which again leaves us with the Chinese interpretation by default. However, for those who persevere, it becomes clear that most of Confucianism is confused, certainly disorganised, plus often self-contradictory or outright nonsensical. Being often difficult to understand may itself contribute to the general interpretation of Confucianism as wisdom.

I will be introducing a new interpretation: Confucianism is difficult to understand because it’s unclear and vague, thin and weak, not to mention tangled and illogical. Except for the well-known bits, its fundamental content has very little philosophical or literary value by our standards.

Behind the wispiness, Confucianism is extraordinarily simple. Confucius believed that effective government maintains a smooth society. Obviously it does, but for him its mechanism was virtue: good rulers, acting properly, make the world good.³² Again, superficially, this idea is not without merit (depending on what virtue and goodness mean). However, for Confucius, virtue meant adherence to traditional rituals, roles and hierarchies.³³ Without unfair exaggeration, the most important things in Confucian thinking were prissy manners and empty rituals as these lead to good government:³⁴

He who understands the ceremonies and sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, and the meaning of the several sacrifices to ancestors, would find the government of a kingdom as easy as to look into his palm.

The Doctrine of the Mean³⁵

Reduced to its stark essence like this, Confucianism reveals a very naïve grasp of sociological principles. The world has long since moved on from where formalised ritual could be a sound basis for governing a complex society.

We will examine the reasoning behind this central Confucian idea, and why Confucianism’s other core beliefs are similarly limited.

For starters, Confucianism is old. While it’s not necessarily true that old philosophical systems must be simple, they usually are, and antiquity certainly is the biggest part of the reason Confucianism is.

It’s widely believed³⁶ that Confucius’ teachings merely revived Eastern Zhou values.³⁷ Superficially, indeed he did, though this story also has a deeper layer.

From the beginning, Confucianism was a deeply conservative philosophy and always valued conservatism. Confucius admitted, proudly, that he had nothing new to say.³⁸ He thought people should look to the past for answers and that life should be formulaic; not coincidentally, these attitudes excluded original ideas, individual goals, or deviation from established patterns. Confucius’ legacy amounts to developing the perfect recipe for stagnation. China certainly did stagnate as even the Chinese themselves eventually acknowledged. Towards the end of the imperial era it was almost petrified.

However, according to the renowned Asian-classics scholar Dr. Thomas Cleary, the origins of Zhou thought date back to the very beginning of Chinese civilisation.³⁹

This means that China’s stagnation under Confucianism was far worse than generally acknowledged, and didn’t merely start when the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 0220 CE), early in its reign, installed Legalist-Confucianism as the official state philosophy. Beyond the standard interpretation, where Confucius enshrined Zhou values, in fact those came from a culture that peaked nearly two thousand years before the Zhou. That means Confucianism today (and Chinese life) embodies values which have hardly changed since Stonehenge was new roughly 4500 years ago.

We will shortly examine the reasons for this backward focus, though one of its main effects is that Chinese truly believe they have already achieved perfection. The trouble with philosophies or belief systems claiming to have found some ultimate is that this belief stops people looking further. That’s what we see with Chinese: they expend no effort seeking higher understanding. Why bother? Chinese tend to wallow in the perfection they believe their ancestors achieved rather than strive towards any future ideas of it. So they’re smug and backward-looking. And since they started being backward-looking thousands of years ago, they really haven’t come very far since then.

Central to this book is the idea that the study of Confucianism is really the study of ancient cultural values.

Western people naturally interpret Chinese society as alien, though in fact there are strong similarities. To see them we have to look far back into our history.⁴⁰

Consider the ancient Romans. While clearly ancestral to most western peoples, many of their values — especially their pleasure in conquest, cruelty, and death — would seem barbaric and abhorrent to us were any ancient Romans alive today: so much have our values evolved. Yet the Chinese preserve ways of thinking even more ancient than the Romans’. So the gulf between us and the Chinese is similar to what it would be between us and our own peoples from 45 centuries ago. Confucianist thinking really is that primitive.

Imperial Chinese society was full of concepts common in the ancient world: absolute authority; association of authority with divinity; hierarchical, caste-based society; duty, obedience, conformity; ritual; blood-sacrifice. They came as a set in ancient societies. Everyone, including kings, had specific roles, and so structured that anything not compulsory was forbidden.⁴¹ This is one reason Chinese have so little idea of personal freedom today. In their continuing adherence to most of the above practices and attitudes (or very recent abandonment of, in cases of blood-sacrifice and caste-society), Chinese are still much more like ancient Egyptians than like any modern culture.

So modern Chinese are living, remnant Bronze-Age people. This is a startling but clarifying idea: once one realises it, examples pop out everywhere as we will see throughout this book. Furthermore, much of the blame lies with Confucius personally.

Though greater biographical accuracy about him would be highly desirable, historically he’s sketchy, and I don’t consider Chinese speculations about the missing details very reliable. Nevertheless, at least certain key facts about his life suggest a more realistic interpretation of his personality. Not only did he preach the values of a culture from two millennia before his own time, he did so during one of China’s very few creative eras (the hundred schools of thought period). Then, rulers were willing to consider any radical ideas that would secure advantage over their rivals. This put great strain on the traditional order; that was almost certainly the source of Confucius’ lament about immorality, and is the reason rulers of nearby Chinese states troubled him so. For Confucius, tradition and established patterns were good, everything else wanton and decadent: immoral really meant anything not traditional. We still know people who think this way. However, given the importance of conformity and ritual in ancient societies, one such as Confucius who completely identified with those ways would have found new styles of thinking especially threatening. While maybe we can understand his motivation, Confucius’ anachronistic slogans and proverbs would have sounded even more stale and trite to his contemporaries than they do to us. To find a modern parallel, we’d have to imagine some wiener preaching useth not fire on the sabbath at a hippie love-in.

Though an amusing image of the wannabe-prophet no-one would listen to, there’s actually a deep wrongness to Confucius’ actions. That possibility would never have occurred to him, which only shows how incompatible his morality is with ours (as we will see in other ways throughout this book). Today we might see the holding back of a culture trying to