China and social norms

[GrahamB]

I was watching the excellent video by Byron (wushu tiger here) and serpentZA the YouTuber from China about why the whole Kung Fu vs MMA thing is happening in China. It's really good:

https://youtu.be/pEkyXowI5_A



But then it went on to his next video about " Are Chinese Women Heartless? "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJm0ZsvQuAI



and I'm like - Damn that's cold! But also it's Confucianism that's hard baked into society. We did a lot of episodes about this on my podcast, (Han dynasty stuff, the Xing Yi series) but it was always the historical stuff, it's interesting to see it in such a modern context.

Then it went onto this one, "Mainland China's worst Societal Problem!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz42BrlkBD8



....and I'm like - wow, just wow. This one relates diectly to the last episode we did on the Van Damme film Hard Target, where people don't help somebody in need and just ignore him as he dies. And there it is in reality.

What do people think about serpentZA? Is this the China you know? I've never been there. Of course, there are plenty of unpleasant aspects to Western culture too, which we're seeing play out on a global scale right now.

[Bao]

But then it went on to his next video about " Are Chinese Women Heartless? "

and I'm like - Damn that's cold! But also it's Confucianism that's hard baked into society. We did a lot of episodes about this on my podcast, (Han dynasty stuff, the Xing Yi series) but it was always the historical stuff, it's interesting to see it in such a modern context.

Lots of things I don’t really agree with. It’s way too generalized. How it works depends on where you live, what part of China and social class. Yes parents have a lot to say. There’s a saying in China: “parents are always right because they are parents”. Even if they are wrong you can not say against them just because they are parents. So sure, some can be very controlling. But I have many friends and relatives in China and I know absolutely no one who has been forced into marrying someone by parents.

That a foreigner is always a second choice is something I would call nothing else than bullshit. But maybe this is common where he has lived.

Also those legal obligations he touches is about a child’s obligation to take care and be responsible for their parents. However, this is something quite new. When the one child system was introduced, the government promised the people that the government would not put any responsibility to support older people on their children. Guess, what, but that is exactly what happened. There’s a whole lot more that could be said about the content in this video.

Then it went onto this one, "Mainland China's worst Societal Problem!"

....and I'm like - wow, just wow. This one relates diectly to the last episode we did on the Van Damme film Hard Target, where people don't help somebody in need and just ignore him as he dies. And there it is in reality.
.

Yup, a whole crowd watching someone dying on the streets, not all to uncommon. But I do think he generalize the problem a whole lot and he doesn’t really offer any good explanation. It’s not something from the communist times as he says and it’s not about selfishness. There has been all too many occasions where people, family and relatives have forced people who have tried to help to pay for medical care. This situation is also relatively new and it was not like this when my wife was a kid. Lots of things that was better in the society back then according to her. Medical care was free so there was no reason to not help out when others needed it. What he is speaking about was more common ten-twenty years ago. Now it’s starting to get better again as the healthcare system is continuously being improved.

Also, Taiwanese shows again. How many who reacted and try to do something we don’t know, if it was one or five out of ten. They only show people who didn’t react. Easy to lie and make false statements with a camera. And about the boy. Any bus driver will let a kid who can’t afford or lost his money take the bus. Most cities even have rules that if children are lost, they can follow the bus driver around and picked up by either another bus or get help by the police. Chinese are not so cruel or heartless that people believe. Now for instance, in corona times, even neighbors that hardly speak with each other stand up for each other, help to do errands, take care of kids when their parents are in hospitals and even adopt children who lost both their parents.

[Michael]

Serpentza, Winston Sterzel, is from South Africa, moved to Hong Kong with little money in his pocket, lived in Shenzhen for something like 13 years, was married and divorced to a woman from HK, then married a mainland Cantonese doctor and moved to Southern California, where they had their first child.

Over the years, I've always found him to be sincere as he grew the largest life-for-a-foreigner-in-China-vlog. Those days are over and not just for him. His viewpoint on China is well-informed, but he's usually holding back as much as possible on the negative stuff.

Last two or three years in China, as anti-foreigner sentiment was rising during the Xi years, he and his wife came under more and more pressure and social media attacks, as well as in-person harassment at work, after the Chinese nationalist SJW's went after his "Are Chinese Girls Easy" video, which was a blunt title for a common topic that his foreign subscribers were asking him about.

[Trick]

his "Are Chinese Girls Easy" video,

Everything sounded so helylle up to that....And with that I think show the problem many laowai here has, the second problem they have is that they don’t understand what their problem was in the first place

[Trick]

But then it went on to his next video about " Are Chinese Women Heartless? "

and I'm like - Damn that's cold! But also it's Confucianism that's hard baked into society. We did a lot of episodes about this on my podcast, (Han dynasty stuff, the Xing Yi series) but it was always the historical stuff, it's interesting to see it in such a modern context.

Lots of things I don’t really agree with. It’s way too generalized. How it works depends on where you live, what part of China and social class. Yes parents have a lot to say. There’s a saying in China: “parents are always right because they are parents”. Even if they are wrong you can not say against them just because they are parents. So sure, some can be very controlling. But I have many friends and relatives in China and I know absolutely no one who has been forced into marrying someone by parents.

That a foreigner is always a second choice is something I would call nothing else than bullshit. But maybe this is common where he has lived.

Also those legal obligations he touches is about a child’s obligation to take care and be responsible for their parents. However, this is something quite new. When the one child system was introduced, the government promised the people that the government would not put any responsibility to support older people on their children. Guess, what, but that is exactly what happened. There’s a whole lot more that could be said about the content in this video.

Then it went onto this one, "Mainland China's worst Societal Problem!"

....and I'm like - wow, just wow. This one relates diectly to the last episode we did on the Van Damme film Hard Target, where people don't help somebody in need and just ignore him as he dies. And there it is in reality.
.

Yup, a whole crowd watching someone dying on the streets, not all to uncommon. But I do think he generalize the problem a whole lot and he doesn’t really offer any good explanation. It’s not something from the communist times as he says and it’s not about selfishness. There has been all too many occasions where people, family and relatives have forced people who have tried to help to pay for medical care. This situation is also relatively new and it was not like this when my wife was a kid. Lots of things that was better in the society back then according to her. Medical care was free so there was no reason to not help out when others needed it. What he is speaking about was more common ten-twenty years ago. Now it’s starting to get better again as the healthcare system is continuously being improved.

Also, Taiwanese shows again. How many who reacted and try to do something we don’t know, if it was one or five out of ten. They only show people who didn’t react. Easy to lie and make false statements with a camera. And about the boy. Any bus driver will let a kid who can’t afford or lost his money take the bus. Most cities even have rules that if children are lost, they can follow the bus driver around and picked up by either another bus or get help by the police. Chinese are not so cruel or heartless that people believe. Now for instance, in corona times, even neighbors that hardly speak with each other stand up for each other, help to do errands, take care of kids when their parents are in hospitals and even adopt children who lost both their parents.

thanks for that summary” as I can’t see the vids. Yes China is big things vary quite from region to region and also from regions within regions...If we just talk size wise,,ways in Denmark differ quite from ways in Morocco for example.

[Bao]

Yes China is big things vary quite from region to region and also from regions within regions...If we just talk size wise,,ways in Denmark differ quite from ways in Morocco for example.

Lol! Yeah, exactly. But difference between classes are maybe also greater in China than in Denmark. Morocco, I don't know.

I know that many girls, or her parents, wants or demands quite a lot of money from a husband to marry her. Usually big sums like $20,0000-$40,000 (USD). This is apparently also something that has become more usual in the last 20 years or so. But no one of my wife's relatives or friends have traded money for marriage. They don't have this tradition. They are all very relaxed and their thinking about most of things is just like westerners. Maybe some parents have much to say, but overall there's not much difference. Highly educated families in the bigger cities in China usually don't have too extreme habits or weird social norms. I usually stay in Yunnan, here people are maybe more open-minded, friendly and more relaxed than in some other places in China.