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Q: Is "manufacturing consent" on overdrive in China?
First of all if you do not know the term quoted please Google it.
I find that society in general in China has been been "urged" to believe whatever they tell them for so long that the truth is relative.
I am so so sick and tired of people telling me that Chinese people are the way they are because of culture and history when one only needs to take the example of Hong Kong as the perfect example that Chinese people are not to blame for their ignorance but their environment is. (Or lack of a civilized one)
Having the perspective of having months at home very year as a break from the Chinese bubble.
How do you think Chinese society would be today if they had the education health care fair employment and freedom of Hong Kong for the past 100 years? I assure you it would be a drastically different country.
In closing is society in China a product of environment or is it innate to culture and genes?
Nature vs. nurture? I would go with environment - "When in Rome" and all that
coineineagh:
Agreed. There are counterarguments that culture/environment is largely a product of the people, but then it becomes chicken and the egg. I'm incliuned to believ, or at least hope, that Chinese are capable of better if given the opportunity. Europe had its dark ages too, after all. And fascism.
TIC. Bah Humbug
Scandinavian:
as to if it is in the genes, nope, look at those who grew up outside of China, maybe adopted children. as far as I know, they are completely normal.
quote.....
How do you think Chinese society would be today if they had the education health care fair employment and freedom of Hong Kong for the past 100 years? I assure you it would be a drastically different country.
end quote.
It's not that different from the USA. You know, that country that says universal healthcare is unconstitutional because it gives the federal Government too much power to collect tax from the rich to help the poor.
What did the Romans do for you and all that.
Lets keep an open mind and see how it pans out 
I saw Chinese studying abroad, and catching on very quickly things they would never learn in China. Outside of China, they can flourish as much as anybody, and they do, ho so brightly. I work with some middle-aged "sea turtles", if all China was like them, China would be the jewel nation where all things would converge. I believe that China fails at make its people blossom more by incompetence than (evil) design. The tragedy of the commons...
What is culture? Conditioning to the relative environment over a long period of time that leads to a belief system or acceptable behaviors?
Take for example when a Chinese person says someone is clever.
They do not mean this person is smart. They mean this person prevails in most dealings, regardless of the means employed to achieve the gains.
I too am often frustrated by unfamiliar behavior, but it is their country. Being a little long in the tooth (old) and having served 4 tours of duty in 2 wars gives me a unique perspective.
1. Men can, will, and do unconscionable things to each other.
2. The fabric of any society is only 3 days without food or water from breaking down into anarchy.
To answer the question, I think it is the environment and culture that has resulted from the environment.
As I said in another topic, I strongly invite you to take a look at the Open Library, it's full of travel reports and social analysis about China from 100 to 300 years ago, and it's very interesting. You can see how society was back then, and how those authors speculated it would become.
I think the tragedy of China today is that they have taken the worst of their traditions, and assimilated the worst of what the western world had to offer.
expatlife26:
Well said and interesting. I agree that modern china can be described as the worst of both worlds: They've adopted our western materialism and selfishness but left out our curiosity, idealism and what I think is a fairly genuine desire to be good people, even if we don't always do good things. They've kept their eastern rigidity without the humility and devotion to the greater good at the expense of self which made it an interesting counterpoint.
