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Smith, Christopher J. (1991). China; People and Places in the Land of One Billion. Westview Press: Bolder, CO.

Chapter 3: The Changing Shape of Chinese Cultural Values

I. Introduction

Obsession with controlling emotions, suppression of individualism

Will consider:

1) Behavior to one another, their homes, country, & world

2) Are Chinese values changing especially between us and them

II. Fundamental Confucian Values of Chinese

Confucius (Kung Fuzi) (551-479BC)

1. Confucianism -- basis of pre-modern Chinese education & government

a. defined meaning of being human in Chinese society

2. CARDINAL RELATIONS

• hierarchical, harmony results from acceptance
• unequal
• emperor over subjects, father over son, husband over wife,...
• responsibility flows from relationship
• harmony is when all honor their multiple positions
• key group orientated with family as core group

3. CONSTANT VIRTUES

a) REN -- true personhood -- relations between people

• find true self
• achieve by following the hierarchical rules

b) LI -- rules of conduct -- conditions for social harmony

• however only elite subject to LI
• Peasants governed by penal law FA

c) I -- righteousness, justice,... standards against which proper behavior could be measured, tempered LI to particular circumstances

4. Confucian Legacy

a) consensus -- social order based on excessively dependent person, rarely encouraged to think for self

• nail that sticks our gets hammered
• Western style "human rights" not considered

b) some Western psychologists suggest that people might not fully mature under these circumstances sexual immaturity & oral fixations may result

c) government based on stoic loyalty and submission even in harshest times

d) speculation on legitimacy of confucian scholars -- staked their claim on ability to interpret the "signs of nature" and advise the rulers on LI, or how to respond to maintain balance of nature

III. Locating the Chinese Cross-Culturally

1. Empirical Studies of Chinese Personality -- Five themes in literature

• overriding sense of duty to family
• maintenance of close bonds between children and parents
• importance of group over individual
• repressing emotions and cultivating high moral standards
• emphasis on education and achievement of children

2. Geography of National Character

Hofestede (1980) found two clusters of values typifying Chinese

a) power-distance -- willingness to accept power distributed unequally in society

b) individualism -- prefer collective over individual behavior

-Smith suggests that these factors are important in recent Economic Boom of East and Southeast Asia, suggests that by mapping Confucianism, can map development

aside -- given the events of summer 1997 Paul Krugman of MIT has questioned the longterm growth potential of such a hierarchical approach

3. Geographical Implications of Confucianism

• Smith speculates on ability of Chinese to live in crowded conditions and in an environment with limited natural adornments

IV. Modernization, Cultural Change, And the Politics of Personal Relationships

1. Yang, Kuo-Shu speculates on what lead to the development of the Chinese personality & how it is changing with modernization (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2)

2. Speculation on changing social & spatial relations under the PRC

a) Gaunxi -- ancient system of influence, cultivation of personal relationships to ease the flow of activities -- economic, political,...

b) Post Liberation Era (1949- early 1960s) -- shift from friendship to comradeship

• supposed to overcome old Gaunxi and family networks where all are the same
• real result was on of fear and isolation, socially and physically

c) Cultural Revolution (mid 1960s to late 1970s) -- back towards instrumentality

• social breakdown as Mao & other CCP leaders wreek battle royale
• again it becomes a question of who you know (gaunxi) to maintain oneself when normal lines of communication disappear
• however, familial and friendship ties can be seen as liabilities and many were cut

d) Post Mao market-socialism era (late 1970s to present) -- commodification of personal relations

To Get Rich is Glorious -- maximize relationships (gaunxi) to assure economic growth

• cash based relations
• family re-emerges as important economic base, marriage commodified
• Aside - with Hong Kong reversion social events to build gaunxi replace older British events in colony

V. Conclusion

1. Some of worst aspects of Confucianism have returned:

hierarchy, authoritarianism, commodification of relations..., but under the guise of business & profit not morality

2. Five decades of CCP rule has eroded old system but not provided anything stable in its place