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Adrastus posted:Is there? I myself have never perceived any aversion to homosexuality from mainlanders, though granted its been a while since I was last there. It was just a thing that nobody knows or cares about. In a discussion with some 23 year old interns at my office in China, several of them said if their best friend since childhood came out of the closet, they would completely cut off contact and cease being friends.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:05
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hitension posted:I think the system which produces adults that are creative/assertive and somewhat worse at math is better than the other way around. Gaokao (and the similar systems they have in Korea, Japan, etc) just seems to ruin childhoods somehow. I was just talking to another goon during beerfest the other day. He likes to lurk here but not so much post. We had an amusing discussion and conclude that China is not really creative bankrupt when you consider poo poo Chinese can do
And of course this recent fiasco involving a baijiu commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UogMVk7NWjM It's the opening scene in Game of Thrones Liquor is coming! In a perverted way, China is really environmentally friendly with number of substitutions and alternatives used to make a product. hitension posted:Reception of half black, half Chinese in China:  Modus Operandi posted:I don't recall very many high ranking ceos of major industry or politicians that are hapa. I think those doors tend to slam shut pretty quick but a lot of hapas become very successful in show biz in Asia. Dancing monkey/white god syndrome.. Well the most famous family of Eurasian descent in Hong Kong are the Ho Tungs. And the Portuguese encouraged settlement with the locals a la Latin America. wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hotung posted:
He also started the Chinese version of the local HK country club, because back in the day the HK club was "whites only". And funded Xinhai revolutions. I would not be surprised if he help fund the opening of Chinese University of Hong Kong as a counter institution to HKU. Nowadays though, his descendants just squabble over money and hook up with celebrities. Stanley Ho, one of his off shoots owns over half of Macau and is in cahoots with the CCP and thinks democracy is over rated  And you get random stories like this http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...fJY3W_blog.html ReindeerF posted:Are there any examples of foreigners starting and successfully running relatively large companies in China? He may not be in the news yet, but I propose Pro Prc Lao Wai. Or Xijingping's new nephew in law. Arglebargle III posted:China really needs to get on sexual education though because kids are getting their sexual education from internet forums and Japanese porn blows. It's programming girls to squeak like a creaky door and encourages insemination as a form of dominance and sexual gratification. And who else can we thank for the greatness of studio genki? Well porn in general is entertainment and not the greatest guide to sex ed. I think I mentioned about the influence of Japanese porn earlier in this thread or the other one. But here's a photo  It says "Diao Yu Island belongs to us. Aoi Sora belongs to all“
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Apr 14, 2013 06:24
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Chinese accounting
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ReindeerF posted:Still, let us never forget the examples of Bill Heinecke, Jim Thompson, Robert Rosenstein, Michael Kenny and others. Thailand will let you succeed on the economy side as a foreigner provided you manage not to upset the apple cart and plenty of Thais and Thai-Chinese get rich with you, one way or the other. quote:I'm surprised the half-breed thing is considered colonial, though. I don't know if I can agree with that here in never-really-colonized-except-by-Japan-sort-of-don't-mention-the-war-okay land. I think it's tied into some kind of largely urban affection for interrrrrr things. Like, how pretty your baby na ka, look very society! I want one!!! It's like having a chihuahua in your purse or using the latest iPad publicly or whatever. My fiance jokes that she's worried that by the time we have kids half-blood kids won't be popular anymore because of all the sex pensioners having kids with bargirls, heh. Jokes, half-jokes, not sure. Maybe right! I don't want to get too sociology 101 but it's not so much direct colonialism but a colonial class mentality based on racial attributes. Kind of like how black people have that "high yellow" favoritism going on and it's based on centuries of classism. Being hapa means higher class subconsciously in Asia. It's not merely a beauty thing but a whole bunch of other class stuff attached to it. This isn't necessarily true in places like Vietnam where G.I.s had a bunch of cast off kids with prostitutes or Korea back in the 50-60's but with today's media and culture it's become en vogue again. If you want to see a full blown example of this just see how Filipinos love to pump up their white European Spanish roots. The upper class Filipinos always like to claim they aren't asian or half white or something. I also heard some unhappy grumbling about Miss Thailand because she was a luk kreung and some people didn't think she represented real Thailand whatever that may be. So there's definitely an undercurrent there but yeah most asians just think mixed babies are cute. quote:Are there any examples of foreigners starting and successfully running relatively large companies in China? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashan
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Apr 14, 2013 06:27
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The colonial thing doesn't explain Thailand, though. Whiteness being cool isn't a Western colonial holdover here, but the issue may be that I'm assuming you're using colonial as a Western/Eastern dichotomy. If you consider the Chinese colonial in Thailand (I do) then I can agree with you. If you google back to ads for THAI airways and other products in the 1970s you'll see darker-skinned (i.e. Thai) people in most of them. It's not until the last 20-30 years that everyone became light skinned. What else happened in the last 20-30 years? The rise of the Thai-Chinese in business and politics. Granted, immigration and intermarrying goes back centuries and touches all levels of society, but the mass exodus of Chinese in the mid-20th century changed the face of Thailand drastically. People no longer have a Chinese ancestor or surname, they have two Thai-Chinese parents born to 100% ethnically Chinese grandparents - they're 100% Chinese, basically, and largely live as such. The image of Thailand presented in the media is created by the companies that run and own the media and advertise therein and they're largely white-skinned Thai-Chinese playing on that skin-tone stereotype that's pervasive in Asia. It makes sense if you're selling consumer goods, right? Who has money? And if they don't have money, just create tension in their minds over the fact that they look different from the people who do have money and they'll buy too. Heinecke is the most interesting, I agree, but I know personal stories about the Planet Holiday/Agoda guys and all the booking empires that grew up. I've met some of the crowd personally as well. They were canny and in the right place at the right time due to some very peculiar business factors. Anyway, Thailand will let you make a bunch of money if you play ball and also are light years ahead in bringing in some new technology. Sounds from the replies like China's a mix of more guardedly xenophobic on the one hand and just a few decades behind in the development of capitalism on the other. Americans, by the way, can own 100% of a company here (I know you know this MO), but no other foreigner can, so that's how Heinecke and others get around it. You'll notice that the foreigners who make it are almost 100% American. No coincidence. Thailand and America have been strategic allies for about 150 years. Anyway, this is the China thread, but I guess there's some tangential connection to Chinese behaviors imported during emigration from the motherland.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:55
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caberham posted:Japanese porn blows. It's programming girls to squeak like a creaky door and encourages insemination as a form of dominance and sexual gratification. And who else can we thank for the greatness of studio genki? Well porn in general is entertainment and not the greatest guide to sex ed. Yeah absolutely it sucks, but when you compare it to people literally having no idea how their genitals are supposed to function... probably a little better. Yeah don't get me wrong, porn replacing sexual education is terrible. On Chinasmack a few weeks ago there was something about American porn stars before and after makeup, and as I expected the Chinese (male) posters got exactly the wrong lesson out of it. It was all "oh god there are no real beautiful women in the world, gently caress everything" when it should have been "hey maybe it's possible to have a gratifying sexual relationship with someone who isn't a movie star." The crazy fixation on girls' physical appearance -- that is visual appearance -- is hardly a Chinese thing but it's still nuts. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 07:26
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Dumb question, but what levels of unionization does china have for factory work and service work? I've been trying to google this, but haven't really come up with much?
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Apr 14, 2013 07:35
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Mister Fister posted:Dumb question, but what levels of unionization does china have for factory work and service work? I've been trying to google this, but haven't really come up with much? Given the absolute lack of security or adequate pay that your average shoestitcher makes, I'd hazard it's three fifths of poo poo all
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Apr 14, 2013 08:21
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Mister Fister posted:Dumb question, but what levels of unionization does china have for factory work and service work? I've been trying to google this, but haven't really come up with much? If you believe AFL-CIO, Chinese workers cannot form unions of their own with the only alternative being the official state-run union that AFL-CIO accuses of depressing workers' wages by 47~ 86 percent. And of course there's also the lack of safe working conditions, enforced minimum wage, and benefits. Doesn't seem like life's all that great for the underclass under 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'. Adrastus fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 11:48
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Ya, only state unions. As I understand it, they have informal groups based on workplace instead of anything wider than that. The Party tolerates no organization that it can't have it's hand in, especially from the poorfolks.
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Apr 14, 2013 14:51
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Mister Fister posted:Dumb question, but what levels of unionization does china have for factory work and service work? I've been trying to google this, but haven't really come up with much? Unions are outlawed. Technically there's the government union as other people have mentioned, but have no misunderstanding. Trade unions are outlawed in China.
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Apr 14, 2013 15:18
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Cool, thanks a lot guys
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Apr 14, 2013 15:29
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Arglebargle III posted:I can't stress enough the effect the internet has had in reversing attitudes about sex. Chinese sex education is virtually nonexistent and apparently people just don't talk to their kids about it; so the repressed attitude was the norm and passed down to kids. Now with the internet people have access to a huge variety of information and attitudes about sex, and naturally it is making them more confident and adventurous. Pretty soon talk about sex is going to come off the internet and the older generation is going to realize that 70+% of the under 30s cohort is having premarital sex. How do you know the bolded bit of information? It's one thing to make an easily verifiable claim about the educational system- it's quite another to claim that you know what goes on in the standard Chinese household. As to your larger point, it's very difficult for me to believe that Chinese culture, which contains a great deal of erotic poetry, art, and traditional beliefs and stories in regards to sexual matters, is "repressed" in the Western sense of the word, which seems to be what you're implying here. It's been my experience with East Asian cultures that taboos relating to sexual discussion are proprietary, that is, out a sense of etiquette-based decorum, rather than the moral standards common in European culture. Granted, I'm no expert on China specifically, but when you're writing a short essay that all but alleges a shadow God Hates Fags cabal is ready to break out the minute those poor ignorant Chinese realize that gay sex is a thing? Yeah, I'm gonna need citations on that.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:13
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Some Guy TT posted:How do you know the bolded bit of information? It's one thing to make an easily verifiable claim about the educational system- it's quite another to claim that you know what goes on in the standard Chinese household. As to your larger point, it's very difficult for me to believe that Chinese culture, which contains a great deal of erotic poetry, art, and traditional beliefs and stories in regards to sexual matters, is "repressed" in the Western sense of the word, which seems to be what you're implying here. I think you're pretty wrong about this. I don't know how easy it is to get material on this sort of thing in English, but you can look at the reaction to Shanghai Baby, or read some of Yu Hua's commentary on China to see this. Personally, I've talked to a lot of Chinese people from both generations and there is a huge difference at work here. All the erotic poetry, art, and traditional beliefs and stories were censored heavily through the 80's and early 90's.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:22
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What does it matter if the Chinese withhold education about sexuality out of decorum or ignorance? The point is that it's woefully lacking. It's not just China either. We had (still have in some places) similar issues in America. It's not some crazy racist belief, it's a common issue with traditional, conservative cultures. Oh, if we don't teach them about loving they won't do it! It's the same throughout developing Asia.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:29
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ReindeerF posted:What does it matter if the Chinese withhold education about sexuality out of decorum or ignorance? The point is that it's woefully lacking. It's not just China either. We had (still have in some places) similar issues in America. It's not some crazy racist belief, it's a common issue with traditional, conservative cultures. Oh, if we don't teach them about loving they won't do it! It's the same throughout developing Asia. That is very much an explanation of sexually conservative groups in the United States, who maintain that they have held an untarnished line of sexual purity before marriage for centuries. No Chinese traditionalist would make such a similar claim- at least not literally. Casual unmarried sex has been a Chinese tradition for millennia. What's new is literary expose a la Lady Chatterly's Lover- which very much goes against decorum but is no proof that the culture itself is sexually ignorant.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:38
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Some Guy TT posted:Casual unmarried sex has been a Chinese tradition for millennia. gently caress me, you're wrong. Look, casual unmarried sex was OK for literati MEN of a certain class in certain situations only. Normal people in China, aka peasants, have never had this view point.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:40
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Words are cheap. Give me a citation.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:41
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Some Guy TT posted:Words are cheap. Give me a citation. I gave you two upstairs. You're wrong, talk to some Chinese people, talk to a scholar, read a book, jesus. Or read one of Lewis' monographs on the Tang or Song dynasties.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:43
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One of the shocks after moving to Asia was that I always associated sexual repression with Christianity, but it's even worse here without any Jesus involved. Conservatives are surprisingly similar everywhere.
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Apr 14, 2013 16:44
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I have. Evidently different ones than you, which is why I was hoping for specifics. If I must explain why your initial response to me was flippant and useless:Barto posted:I think you're pretty wrong about this. I don't know how easy it is to get material on this sort of thing in English, but you can look at the reaction to Shanghai Baby, or read some of Yu Hua's commentary on China to see this. Personally, I've talked to a lot of Chinese people from both generations and there is a huge difference at work here. Shanghai Baby has a strong, westernized ideological vision of sex. You seem to think the sex is what got it banned. From what I've heard it was the context that made it offensive. What I've found about it through Google seems to back my interpretation up better than yours. Yu Hua has written a great deal about China and "sexuality" is not one of the ten words. So throwing his name out there with no more specific information is uselessly vague. quote:All the erotic poetry, art, and traditional beliefs and stories were censored heavily through the 80's and early 90's. Do you honestly believe people forgot this stuff existed because it was banned for twenty years? How many American books were banned for that long and are now an enshrined piece of the literary canon for that notoriety?
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Apr 14, 2013 16:48
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Some Guy TT posted:How do you know the bolded bit of information? It's one thing to make an easily verifiable claim about the educational system- it's quite another to claim that you know what goes on in the standard Chinese household. As to your larger point, it's very difficult for me to believe that Chinese culture, which contains a great deal of erotic poetry, art, and traditional beliefs and stories in regards to sexual matters, is "repressed" in the Western sense of the word, which seems to be what you're implying here. Okay first, this is unfair to an extent that's just silly. Poor ignorant Chinese? Shadow God Hates Fags cabal? Seriously? Second, you seem to be dragging a lot of baggage into the conversation. Care to state your opinion on the matter? I think it will eliminate a lot of talking past each other.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:03
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Arglebargle III posted:I expect there will be a backlash when whoever's in charge of sexual repression figures it out. Try unironically writing a sentence about what will happen when "whoever's in charge of the gay sex figures it out" somewhere else in D&D and see how respectfully you're treated. My "baggage" is that I hate broad uncited statements about large demographics and I don't give people the benefit of the doubt just because I happen to agree with them politically.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:10
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Some Guy TT posted:Do you honestly believe people forgot this stuff existed because it was banned for twenty years? How many American books were banned for that long and are now an enshrined piece of the literary canon for that notoriety? I can think of something else that was banned for twenty years and has been pretty much forgotten about by mainstream Chinese society...
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Apr 14, 2013 17:10
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Some Guy TT posted:I have. Evidently different ones than you, which is why I was hoping for specifics. If I must explain why your initial response to me was flippant and useless: Dude, there's no point engaging with you on this because you're wrong. 100% completely wrong. The very fact you said "but blablabla sex was always casual in China for thousands of years" without even knowing...for one half of 1% of the population with prostitutes... is just absurd. Do I really have to explain that the majority of people lived in rural farming communities and their viewpoint was quite a bit more conservative than the city dwellers (who are a minority in any case)? Or that the normal city dwellers didn't exactly have time/access to the pleasure quarters in the same way the literati from money did? Do I really have to point out that ancient and pre-modern sources are almost always about the 1% at the top because they're the ones writing it and it's not reflective the general population at large and this is repeated again and again by any historian you care to read? Do I? Because you brought up thousands of years and that's bullshit. So get over it. Hell, they used to have little dolls having sex in a box they'd give to kids as a hint on their wedding day back in the day because the parents didn't want to have the talk with them. I just don't know where to go next. The classic texts you're talking about, first, they weren't commonly read by the population at large because literacy was always an upper crust thing- especially in China right up to the Xinhai revolution in 1911. And then? Decades of war and communism in 1949. So when do you think all these literati day dreams drifted down to the normal people? The general population had never-ever-had it available to them generally until recently, and some things are still officially banned. That's why even in the early 2000's Chinese professors in the US would tell their students not to buy these texts, like Dream of Red Chambers, from the mainland, which were usually censored heavily but get them from Taiwan or Hong Kong instead. You know that Kangxi and Yongzheng and Qianlong et al commonly had book proscriptions targeting pornographic texts, ne? That's why they're not exactly easy to find. If you'd actually read Yu Hua's 10 words on China or, like, Brothers, you'd figure out pretty quickly just what we mean in this thread about repression, because I'm talking about the stories he tells. So you didn't read it (or understand it) that's fine too. Shanghai Baby caused a ruckus for a lot of reasons, and one of them was that the older generation didn't like confronting the new generation's sexual license. Isn't that what got you touched off? That's the point. Anyway, I'm sure the other people in here who live/work in China will chime in that people are pretty repressed there and that things are changing rapidly.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:11
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Electro-Boogie Jack posted:I can think of something else that was banned for twenty years and has been pretty much forgotten about by mainstream Chinese society... I'm glad I'm not the only person who immediately thought of all his Chinese students who had never heard of Tiananmen. Half of them didn't believe me even after I showed them videos of it happening. Information control in China was very, very good for a long time. It's not so much anymore but it's still incredible compared to anything any of us in the west have experienced. There's also the whole don't talk about it or confront it and it'll go away thing that is so popular, especially when your paycheck is late. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 17:13
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Some Guy TT posted:Try unironically writing a sentence about what will happen when "whoever's in charge of the gay sex figures it out" somewhere else in D&D and see how respectfully you're treated. My "baggage" is that I hate broad uncited statements about large demographics and I don't give people the benefit of the doubt just because I happen to agree with them politically. Oh okay, you want to pick a fight. Cool. You know what I have wanted to use this image forever and I have nothing else to add so let's try it out:  Heh, look at that!
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Apr 14, 2013 17:17
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So your evidence that the Chinese peasantry is historically ignorant of sex is that there's no evidence because all the sources we have only describe the uppermost classes? That's not terribly persuasive. Arglebargle III posted:Oh okay, you want to pick a fight. Cool. Well, I'd also settle for someone providing evidence to back up their claims. But if this is going to be about unindented angry posts and gifs I guess that's what we're stuck with.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:33
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Some Guy TT posted:So your evidence that the Chinese peasantry is historically ignorant of sex is that there's no evidence because all the sources we have only describe the uppermost classes? That's not terribly persuasive. Didn't you say earlier you don't know much about China? Maybe you should have stopped there.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:34
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It may surprise you to learn that I come to this thread to learn about China, not circlejerk over how smart I am. I'm quite open to hearing new points of view, if you would consider giving me actual information instead of condescending to me for not already being a China expert.
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Apr 14, 2013 17:44
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Some Guy TT posted:It may surprise you to learn that I come to this thread to learn about China, not circlejerk over how smart I am. I'm quite open to hearing new points of view, if you would consider giving me actual information instead of condescending to me for not already being a China expert. Someone said that parents apparently don't talk to their kids about it- he said apparently and you started asking for citations and made a positive claim about sexuality in China for "thousands of years." First, he said apparently- his impression by definition. Frankly, that's also my impression, I've specifically asked lots of people about it at one time or another and families generally don't talk about it. I'm not being an rear end in a top hat when I say read some novels about the last 20-30 years in China, because you can really get the feeling for what's going on better that way as an outsider. I don't think there's any really good studies on it, because why would the government let someone poll kids on this topic? They won't. So deal with apparently and impressions because that's really all there is. Although I'd say the rising rate of STDs is pretty nice evidence of what's going on. When you brought up the thousands of years thing, I admit I got a little peeved. I understand where you're coming from, because at some point you leafed through some classic lit and said "Oh, China's not repressed like everyone thinks, look at this!" But like I said at length above, these things that you mentioned is not representative of Chinese sexuality. It's not even representative of sexuality for the entirety of Chinese history for the literati because their sexuality changes a lot from epoch to epoch too- nature of the game, my friend, things change. Zhuxi's doctrines codified Confucianism and made people A LOT more conservative than they had been previously and that's something that's still happening today. Now communism introduced a lot of western style conservative repression too, so it's a complicated question and worthy of discussion. But on the other hand, you seem a little strident- after all you were attacking the guy for saying something obviously true to any of us living here- and we can't cite everything. Mostly I read books not internet (the good stuff on China is all in print not net) so I can't really help you besides pointing you to texts. Barto fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 18:04
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Thank you for your considerate reply. I apologize for my combative tone earlier- I saw "apparently" being used in a much more absolutist context than you did, and without getting into a grammatical slapfight let's just agree to disagree on that. As you note, city-dwellers (and especially the ones likely to talk with foreigners) don't represent the full sum of the Chinese citizenry, and an elicited opinion is not the same as a deliberate effort, which is what I felt was implied by the original statement. As it seems your anecdotal impressions are the best information available here, I accept them for what they're worth. Could you please tell me more about China's rising STD rate? I've often heard of it in objective terms, but I'd like more contextual information as to how it relates to other countries. A rising STD rate is always problematic, obviously, but if it's low to start out with that might explain a seeming lack of urgency on the part of policy-makers. edit: In regards to classical Chinese sexuality, I was referring to a historical summary I read rather than actual Chinese classics. It's in an offline book, but it may be interesting content so I'll type it up. Some Guy TT fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 18:24
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Some Guy TT posted:
Yes, I'm sure I came off a little too excited, so no hard feelings either way I hope. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/hiv-aids-china-cases-rising_n_2203294.html For STDS, I'm sure you've seen a lot of articles like this one. They usually come up every few months and then disappear. There's no real discussion of STDs in schools and people have a lot of prejudice toward sufferers (of any STD) There was a popular TV show 3 years ago called Narrow Dwelling (Woju) which actually had an episode deleted because the authorities were afraid it would make people dislike Hep-B sufferers or something like that. I haven't seen the episode obviously, so it's hard to say, haha. So it seems the authorities know there's a problem and don't want to encourage prejudice. They want to deal with it, but at the same time people refuse to talk about it(you see this in Japan too, people will sometimes avoid going to get testing done out of fear/shame...but I suppose that happens everywhere). AIDs used to come a lot from dirty needles, a couple areas got huge epidemics via dirty needles used in blood selling (Yu Hua talks about this a lot, the blood selling part, since it seems like he knows some people who were involved with it). Lately, kids are having more sex but they really don't like condoms...no one does, but (anecdotally) young Chinese guys are running roughshod on their partners over the issue to really deleterious effect. I think like any big social issue in China, the government is afraid to talk about it openly. But the rate is going up- it's even going up quite a bit neighboring Taiwan which likewise has a Chinese society with little to no sex education- so it will continue to rise until the government can't ignore it anymore. It's a problem... If you ever go to a Chinese hospital- make sure they use a clean needle. So, people are afraid to talk about it, a little prejudiced toward sufferers, not much government support on the issue, and a lot of ways to get it due to environmental factors+pressure. I personally hear Shanghai nightclubs are the worst for this. But then Shanghai is it's own little world too. Edit: I forgot to add, I don't trust the rates the government reports at all- they must be much, much higher. Barto fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 18:41
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All right, the source is Through The Chinese Looking Glass. It's old, maybe fifty years, but as it deliberately describes the culture in broad strokes I've found it an interesting reference:Dennis Bloodworth posted:In Chinese society, sex was an essential but readily procurable commodity, like salt or detergents, and not some gift-wrapped bauble to swoon over. Chinese women looked upon love-making as an obvious, unmysterious, sometimes delightful activity, but only important for its occasional, equalling results. It is true that pairs caught in adultery were sometimes strangled under the law, but this severe punishment was designed to protect the family. For sex was part of the system: it had nothing to do with sin. The Taoist temples themselves served as retreats for superfluous girls, and nunneries became brothels in China as unself-consciously as monasteries became distilleries in France. Not that the Chinese were indiscreet. Chu Hsi, the famous neo-Confucian scholar who lived some eight hundred years ago gave this sly little piece of advice to young folks: "When going upstairs, utter a loud 'Ahem.' If you see two pairs of shoes outside the door and hear voices within, you may enter; but if you hear nothing, remain without." The book is filled with stuff like this. What I like about it is that a lot of the stuff it describes really isn't courtly or high-brow and probably survived to the present day more through oral tradition than bookkeeping. Although obviously it's not much of an authority on modern China I find its depictions of the culture absent modern assumptions to be a nice change of pace.
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Apr 14, 2013 18:51
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Some Guy TT posted:All right, the source is Through The Chinese Looking Glass. It's old, maybe fifty years, but as it deliberately describes the culture in broad strokes I've found it an interesting reference: Oh yeah, ok, I get where this is coming from. All those things it says are true, but it is simplifying things a bit and mixing up time periods. Like the last part, the poem from the Book of Odes- those poems are talking about a time period way back when, during the mythical beginnings of China. At that time, people had families based on the women's uncle. Men would wander around and have sex with women (who were stationary) and the uncle would raise the child, so parentage was not clear and there's a whole lot of anthropology and hypothesis about this period of Chinese history- 1500-2000 BCish. So...Not good evidence for later stuff, but a true situation and common in many cultures at that stage of development. Sometimes in Chinese literature from the Spring and Autumn/Warring States period you get references to stories about people getting pregnant by stepping in the footprint of a god or whatever. That's a tradition based on moms thinking of ways to explain to their kids where they came from (Or so says Lee Wei-tai whose lecture I am taking this from). Ok, that's pre-Confucianism, so also they're eating people at this time and doing human sacrifice, and etc. So I think we can say this doesn't quite apply to all of Chinese history (hehe). In fact, there's a couple big divides in Chinese sexuality that the piece above is mushing together. You've got the morph from Warring States (many different cultures with many different approaches to...everything, like France and Russia levels of different) being smashed into a Confucian-Daoist-Legalist system dominated by Liu Bang's Chu (southern Chinese) heritage which really sets the stage for what comes later. In the Tang, women are doing pretty well for themselves there's equality of sorts (in the upper classes) because of property rights and the family name but that situation changes in the Song when Neo-Confucianism makes people a lot more conservative. The reason for the decline in the status of women is linked to changes in marriage customs. During the Tang, the great houses still held prestige but sometimes little else. The prestige was enough and men would spend a huge amount of money to obtain marriage with the scioness of a great house. In contrast, they usually avoided marriages with Tang princesses because the princesses could do whatever drat thing they pleased including divorce, which wasn't pleasant to the Tang dynasty male psyche. In any case, the great houses power is based on their name prestige. The Tang emperors were actually steppes barbarians so they didn't like that and eventually forced a link between status in government and "nobility" and this was eventually tied to the exam system. This changed the way kinship relationships worked and by the Song dynasty something had changed. Men no longer paid money to a women's family, rather they expected a dowry. In effect, women had lost their leverage. The Tang had also seen the introduction of legal concubines for the "common middle class man" further weakening the status of women. The status of concubines was in between a wife and a maid, but by the 17th century Qing the legal status between maid, concubine and wife had blurred significantly- which was a bit of a nadir for Chinese womenkind. Anyho, it was all the fault of that damned test or so some theorize. Of course during these ups and downs this really changes things for People Having Sex. So guys can get their rocks off in the pleasure quarters, yes, if they have money and time. But normal people are usually stuck in traditional relationships and to be fair in centrally controlled society like China where the patriline is all-important and your relationship network with others in your area is all important...what sex with another person in your group means changes a lot. It's a lot more serious. If you're just a peasant, you can't go and bang the girl next door because that means something for how the entire village system works. Also, things are a lot more stable at this point in history for how the peasants are controlled and etc. Things get crazy conservative as we go past the Song though, even in the upper classes. So, I'm not saying that piece is wrong, I'm thinking that it's trying to make a point and not considering the entire situation for women, prostitutes, literati, peasants, different regions, etc. Is it fair to say "The Chinese man..." etc. etc.? Probably not, right? Anyway, I hope that kinda shows where I'm coming from on this.
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Apr 14, 2013 19:29
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On a related note, if you're married into, or marrying into a Chinese family, I think you can agree that the openness with which immediate family members jovially discuss your having kids at family events in public is pretty loving obnoxious. Can we all agree on that? Okay, thanks. Don't agree? Shut the gently caress up, you're wrong. My favorite was a Western friend of a friend who married into a typical Chinese factory owning family. After six months, they hadn't announced any pregnancies yet and the family were beside themselves because they had all talked amongst one another and sort of unilaterally decided that the white dude was gay and going to leave their daughter barren. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 20:20
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Barto posted:Anyway, I hope that kinda shows where I'm coming from on this. That's all very informative, thank you. The book I'm referencing was intended to be an introduction rather than a primary source, so I'm sure your annotations get the specifics down better. The book is mainly concerned with non-standardized information that, for one reason or another Westerners don't have access to. I was really surprised to read that the Chinese did commonly use gunpowder for military purposes centuries before the Europeans did. I just feel really embarrassed now for believing that myth this whole time when fifty years ago it could have been easily debunked.
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Apr 14, 2013 20:43
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I'm glad, after last time, we could have a discussion about Chinese sexual mores without getting too deep into a slap fight or getting too creepy. Good job, gentlemen. Speaking of gentlemen, here's an article from the New Yorker. Yes, I read the New Yorker. I'm very rich. This is what rich people do. The article is about the reception of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and more broadly about comedy in China. The even cite one of my old teachers, David Moser, and an essay in which he discusses Xiangsheng, or Crosstalk, the weird Chinese vaudevillian two-man stand-up tradition. The New Yorker posted:once in power, the Party formed a “Committee for Crosstalk Reform,” which set about correcting hundreds of classic bits. The Committee concluded that it was time for the comedians to replace satire with “praise.” After studying the effects, David Moser, an American linguist, concluded, “ ‘praise’ is not very funny.” I think a Chinese variation on The Daily Show would be pretty awesome. They could always put it in Hong Kong or Macau. I'd think Next Media would get on that, if they weren't too busy talking about street making GBS threads and tits in the Apple Daily. From another rich person news source, The Economist, comes something I imagine most of us never think about, but is actually pretty important. It turns out that Hong Kong has no archives legislation, so records just get burned, shredded, lost and poo poo upon with absolutely no negative consequences. The government just straight-up says "Yep, we shredded all that poo poo." The Economist posted:in 2011, when the government moved its headquarters to the Tamar complex, the site of the former Royal Naval base, a mass of paper records that, were it to have been piled up as a tower would have stood nearly three times higher than the city’s second-tallest building, were shredded summarily. And the government admits as much. And this isn't just something that we can blame on the handover. Macau has an archives law, despite being a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Even the street-making GBS threads mainland keeps detailed files on every steaming turd levied upon a Henan sidewalk. And of course the records were kept under British rule, since we all know how much the Brits love filing paperwork. There's no reason for this at all. Maybe the government just assumes it's better to burn everything to save room for more public housing? I'm really shocked to read this.
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Apr 15, 2013 04:03
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I'm pretty impressed with people's in depth academic knowledge on Chinese history and literature, and it's doubly impressive when applied to a topic like Chinese sexual morals. There's a lot of good thinking here, and I am duly impressed by both sides of the argument. BUT. Has anybody actually interacted in depth with Chinese individuals from China or their families? Do these people seem like the most enlightened or liberated people when talking about sex? If anything I've found that the typical person is really naive, and parents don't talk to their kids about sex. I think largely culturally, the society has a certain amount of conservatism about sex. Contrast that with people openly accepting that the rich and powerful(mostly men) have multiple mistresses. The picture I get is a mostly patriarchal society with double standards on sexuality and the typical lower or middle class not really that liberated. Kind of like the West before the sexual revolution.
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Apr 15, 2013 16:06
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Seriously, this argument is far too anecdotal (on both sides) for my taste. Does anyone have any survey data or something?
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Apr 15, 2013 16:57
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We could talk about the articles I posted instead, one of which explains what might have happened to all the survey data.
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Apr 15, 2013 17:05
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