Loyalty vs Respect

Ever since I've been in China I've thought about the issue of relationships in China: whether it is business relationships or personal relationships, both are somewhat different to what I've been used to, but only subtly.

For business relationships, yes, there is no doubt that in China you need to be-friend your business partner and many deals are done due to friendships; but in England it would be incredible naive to presume there is an entirely open playing field and that the show is not still run by certain people who know other people. After all "it is not what you know but who you know" is a western saying, not a Chinese one. And China may have more than its fair share of corruption in its business deals, for a mixture of culture and economic development reasons, but it's not like we are immune to this in the UK either - it's just we've spend a lot of time building up a culture where law matters, and China has not get there yet. With more time, some ponder that it might - others say its not possible as long as the judiciary is not independent or transparent (it does what the Communist Party tells it to do, hearings are short, decisions rarely explained, and the rulings and punishments rarely consistent).

But it is personal relationships that are more interesting. Previously I'd explained it thus: In England you'd be nice to people very quickly, even strangers, but it takes a long time before you can really be friends; whereas in China, you are not nice to strangers, but you can pretty quickly become close friends. This has never satisfied me as an answer though for a number of reasons. So, as I was thinking more about this issue, I came to consider the issue of respect.

In general--and it really is hard to generalize a country so diverse as China, but one must, so one will--there is a lack of respect for the environment, for others' space and for someone else's rights. There is a strong selfish streak, which may be driven by economic reasons. Now it is also fairly clear that many in the UK lack respect too; but that seems more out of immaturity and a strange intentional desire to annoy others more than anything else. But, as many will know, the Chinese care very deeply about their friends and family; one could argue much more than in the west where the family unit is weaker. I strongly agree with this, and thus it came to me that maybe it is worth differentiating between the concept of loyalty and respect.

Maybe the Chinese are very loyal, but not very respectful. Can that be possible? I'm not sure, but it seems to make sense to me: a strong caring for those one knows or needs to know to be successful, but not much consideration for anyone else. I'm not writing a book to explore this more deeply, but I'll think more about it and see if these are the right words to differentiate something that really is a striking difference between the two cultures. Now I wish the youth in the UK would respect others as much as the youth in China would do, and that there would be as little crime as there is in China; but these may be more about economic, judicial and historical reasons than from actual beliefs.

Evidence this might be true? Well, the fact that discrimination in China is rife (automatic feelings against those that are different, either ethnically, geographically, religiously, or according to language, wealth, disability etc) and seemingly impossible to overcome implies a lack of respect and a lack of willingness to respect others. There is a strong lack of respect for differences overall, partly inspired by a government agenda.

The challenge, if this is true, is how to encourage more respect, since there will not be sustainability without respect. And I'm working on sustainability... more thinking clearly needed but the idea of loyalty vs respect is an interesting one I think.

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Interested in what I'm up to? http://adam.nomadlife.org

Celebrating 18 months

How momentous - and why not celebrate by proving to your parents you can climb up a climbing frame in the playground; pee in the potty when it's nearby; and get your first fever!

Happy 18-months old, Hannah!

China's air and gardens

The newest thing China is known for is its awful air quality. When it's bad it gets in western newspapers and everyone seems to be talking about how it affects this or that, whether one is leaving Beijing/china because of it or not (and some cities are better than Beijing). But Beijing does occasionally have insanely blue skies, stunningly blue skies. Unfortunately they are fairly rare - rare enough to really be news that hits the newspapers (though that is not the case).

Last week we did have some stunning blue skies and flaky clouds. We also had some excellent sunsets but city-standards (no comparing to a beach or mountain sunset of course). When Beijing is like that it is a wonderful city. I estimate the weather is depressingly bad about a third of the time, which is quite a lot, but it is not "all" the time. And you can manage around it. No city is perfect. It does not bother us as much as other people. We do use an air purifier when it is really bad; and we go out less - but we still go out, and we still have fun, and so far our health has been fine. Others seem to disagree, and are leaving because of it. If you have other reasons to leave, or if all things really are equal and this tips the scales over, then it might be time to leave. But we have reasons to stay in Beijing and are not, yet, close to a tipping point.

One of the oldest things China is known for, apart from the Great Wall I suppose, are its gardens, though they are certainly not gardens in the English sense. These are usually full of rock features, pagodas, water features, zig-zag bridges, and a variety of plants. There are not actually a lot of flowers, and not a lot of grass, usually. They are of course for a different purpose than those in England: not for play, that is for sure, and certainly born less out of love for agriculture. What they may have in common is a desire to show-off and create a place to relax, just in very different ways. Typically the areas around Shanghai are most famous for their gardens as they have an abundance of water, the right weather for growing a variety of plants, and (presumably) some cultural reasons as well.

China holds a domestic "Garden Expo" every two years: this year it is being held in Beijing so the local government has gone to the usual extremes: found a lot of land, built a new subway, recruited thousands of volunteers and built an insane Garden Expo. We went to visit it today - it is the opposite end of town so took a while to get there, and it was over 30 degrees. Despite a lack of shade though it was worthwhile. There were some incredible gardens: a lot of effort, very pretty, and also quite creative (there are over 40 different mini-gardens, some larger than others). It's a big area, and they have clearly put a lot of effort into it. In fact it is almost too impressive: one wanders what will happen after the Expo finishes in 6 months. I presume they won't just abandon it but it will take work to keep in good condition, as well as money, and though there are some nice walks there and alongside the neighboring river, I can't see a lot of people using the site for any purpose other than just visiting the gardens (and maybe taking wedding photos).

It's not great for a buggy as there are a fair amount of steps or paths made of broken stone; but we enjoyed the 5 hours or so we spent there, even in the heat.There has been a lot of thought into its design, so you can spend hours wandering around and exploring different paths, areas, and mini-gardens. Yet just as its scale and ambition is distinctly Chinese, so are some of the other aspects of it too: the waste of volunteers who mostly just stand there; the desire to pretend it is international which has led to creating a fake stately home with maze and random European huts (but not European gardens); the arbitrary nature of certain things like having a museum that closes 3 hours before the actual park does; and the overly commercial side to it (a lot of tacky gift shops in some of the buildings). 

But on the whole China is getting much better nowadays with tourism: there are electric cars to transport people around, good signposts, maps, plenty of drinks available, good public transport, some ramps for the disabled and even some actual food options (not good food options, but more than just instant noodles and sausages). For those who have traveled in China this will all seem very familiar I am sure.Which leads me back to my earlier issue of what will happen once the Expo is over. Because that has been China's biggest flaw for previous temporary events: they build them so big that they are almost guaranteed to be white elephants. So I'll need to find out more about what happened to the previous 8 expos that were elsewhere in China, and come back to this one next year to see what it is like!