Z's Comments

Friends Started to Boycott French Products

To Warfarer and others who shows their understanding:

Thank you a lot and what you said help me calm down myself. I am a Chinese, I stayed in the US for 7 years and now I live in Singapore. After reading your words, I really want to express my appreciations.

To those who are against Chinese:

Actually at the very beginning, we were angry with CNN, BBC and other medias who use pictures, which show Nepal police repressed the Tibetans, to against China government to say that it was the Chinese Police who repressed the Tibetan protestor. At this stage, some overseas Chinese got angry, but not too many, for many of us not put much attention on it. We were used to so-called (we always called CNN BBS and etc. like this) western major medias that they seldom say anything good about China. Then the torch relay began, the media put all their attention on the Tibetan protestors pretending that all the common Chinese were not there although there were more Chinese in London and Paris to support China host for the games. And on the TV and internet, the Nepal police was still stated as Chinese police. Especially in Paris, when we watched that Jin Jing the girl on wheelchair was attacked by a protestor, the angry became a outrage among most Chinese. Paris said that there were how many police there, but we were so angry that they could not even protect a girl. So we doubted if they did their work properly or even on-purpose to let the protestor did what he did.

These brought back our bad memories. At these stage, the topic about Tibet is less important (In our oppinion, people outside China knew nothing or quite little about Tibet and entire China, but scold us for it, which is not only ridiculous but on bad purpose.), the topic in our eyes become a excuse for some western medias and governments to against all the Chinese.

It is time for both or more sides to calm down to think about it. The main problem is cultural difference between Chinese and western people.

Chinese is a race that hate wars for we have such enough wars during our too long history. We just hate wars. So after Tang Dynasty, people tend to be dove-oriented. That's why during the world war II, many Chinese chose only to tolerate, so a famouse Chinese writer said in a novel that only after ManNian (a kind, pure and innocent Chinese woman) knew the need to fight against the Japanese, the majority of Chinese peopel knew to stand up to fight, in the novel she got raped by Japanese soldiers and at last she got killed or committed suicide, which I forgot, but as to women in the past all the same, after getting raped she could not live with it.

And we are also a people that treat others better than ourselves. That is always a pity for us. For Chinese inside China, China goverment always treat its own people not so good, but sometimes gives in on foreign matters. That really has a deep cultural root. Many says Chinese like to save face, that is right. In fact, not only save face but to give our best to others "有朋自远方来，不亦悦乎�. In a poor family, even they cannot get enough food, they will offer the guest all their food. That is not a show, that is from their true heart. Now, China is not so hungry any more, in some part, some people are rich, they want to give others a big treat as the games. But people don't want to take the treat and even hit us in the face. Some westerners may think we are so stupid, yes, we are that stupid.

And on the other hand, westerners think we are so smart or even sneaky or furtive. That's also true. For example, We Chinese will bargain a lot and try to get something as low as possible. In China, if someone like me buy something without bargain, he/she will be scolded as fool. As my mom always say me "缺心眼". We live this way, like it or not, this is a part of our culture. But maybe it is strange enough for some westerners, that we bargain with dealors and at the same time we alway willing to lend money to our friends. That's why if some Chinese in the US have financial problem with their house loan, they seldom get bankrupt, they are easy to find friends to borrow money. Another example is we seldom speak out if we are angry with someone or our boss. We will murmur within our friends, we won't speak directly to the person. Our friends always say "忍了吧� means just tolerate it. We are afraid to offend others to make them unhappy, we also afraid of losing our job, so sometimes we look sneaky. This time, many Chinese stand up and speak out, that means they are really really really angry. "忍字心头一把刀�, tolerate (忍) means one(一 -> 、) knife(刀) on top of a heat(心). When we cannot bear the knife any more we will erupt a lot of power. But again we do not want war, we only want some understanding. Boycott is just a way that we learn from you and try to get your attention. So pity of us, right?

And for us, we need understand your culture, like we do not care much about our privacies like you do. So we need cherish your privacies. We do not quite understand your media and government only represent themselves not all the people. (Our sense of group can compare your sense of individual----that's one of the major culture difference between Chinese and Westerners.) So we tend to think the whole people against us.

Cultural difference is such a massive topic that nobody alone can handle it. I just want to point out there are differences, and hope everyone including me shows some understanding to others. No need to agree with us, and no need to make friends with us, but only some understanding.

Thanks a lot for your attention and patience or even toleration.

Posted by Z at 2008-04-17 18:12:18. More