People scrambling for limited living space tend to screw over almost everyone they encounter.
My friend Robert mentioned something fundamental to human nature. When you squish people together in a small space, there is a powerful tendency for trust to die.
The problem with us Chinese — mind, not so much the Hong Kong and overseas Chinese as it’s more in the case with Chinese mainlanders — is that even primitive levels of trust have now disappeared from their society. The fast and radical economic and social changes in China after it had reintegrated with the rest of the world 30 years ago just ended up creating a dog-eat-dog world over there.
Notice where it is the strongest in the PRC itself. Take the same people out of that setting, and they tend to change their basic assumptions about survival’s necessities. Something in the cultural mix of Hong Kong, something about the British influence, dampens this tendency, the same as simply moving to a Western country, for example. This, despite the very high density of humanity in Hong Kong.
I tend to think this reflects a very basic human instinct about enemies. If you have enemies, you naturally want to band with others to face them. That element of recognized or felt commonality under threat is the key to organizing defense. It makes politics useful and possible. If all your enemies are too far away, then all your threats are your own kind. It’s not as if the PRC has no enemies, but in the awareness of the people, they are all far away. Instead, one’s own kin may be the worst enemy, but almost surely someone geographically close but not directly dependent on you is your enemy. As a consequence, politics are nearly impossible.
Dependency registers in the mind as not something we choose. Trust is something we have to choose. It’s always more complex than that, but we seldom understand what we cannot characterize and discuss in brief. Thus, I sense the Chinese mainlanders see themselves forced into a measure of dependence, and they take their independence where they can get it — mostly from each other. Robert notes you can’t go anywhere without having to watch intently for being shafted by anyone and everyone. There is no activity safe and regulated to the point you can trust it or the people involved.
Thus, we should hardly be surprised when outsourcing to China comes at the price of toxic dog food and baby formula. If you can’t play by their rules and watch them like a hawk, you won’t get what you expect. That’s not a put down; it’s the facts. I note this does not prevent businesses there prospering when they play by Western rules, but that’s another matter.
Of course, I’ve noticed a great many other Asian folks have some of this. There may be some adjustments over what they trust each other for, but there seems an element of distrust which is always sly and sneaky from people who live under the bootheel, as it were, of a particular type of oppression. Everyone is oppressed in one way or another, but it seems to me tied to a particular kind of oppression, and a particular sense of consciousness about it.
Naturally, I am only philosophizing from an outside position, so my own consciousness of the issues is limited. However, it seems to me at least half of the issue is consciousness for those under the gun. Few cultures understand serenity better than some of the Eastern religions and philosophies, but it would seem this treasure has been denied the masses.
Most of my readers would recognize the language of cultivating some mastery of your own destiny. We can’t simply ignore the moral context or we will be speaking the wrong language, and our assertion of self would mean nothing. I might have a tough time carrying my brand of manhood to any number of Asian cultures.
But at the bottom of things, I know trusting another human requires the sense I have some choice in the matter, as it does for everyone else.
