| Author |
Message |
peasant
Reacher
Joined: July 24, 2004
Posts: 323
|
 Posted:
Aug 21, 2004 - 01:43 PM |
 
|
| Post subject: Chinese youth in the eyes of an American professor |
Stanley Rosen is a political science professor at the University of Southern California. He specializes in China’s politics, focusing on the Chinese youth. As a matter of fact, his Ph.D dissertation was on the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in China. Lately, he is also doing research on Hollywood’s relationship with China and influence on China’s film industry, and on the returning overseas Chinese students. He comes to China often and has done quite a few surveys regarding a broad range of issues.
Early this month, he gave a seminar on “the Changing Value of the Chinese Youth” in a bookstore in Beijing. He said the following three things that are changing the values of the young generation: globalization, nationalism, and pragmatism or materialism.
He answered questions from the audience and later a reporter from “China Youth” newspaper interviewed him twice more. The following questions and answers are based on that seminar’s Q&A session and the subsequent interviews. It was published on Aug. 18th in the “China Youth” newspaper(in Chinese).
Q: Let’s start with globalization. How do you think Chinese youth perceive the United States?
A: When I was in China in 1985, many Chinese students told me that they like the United States. It was very common for them to criticize the Chinese government. They said they trust VOA very much. I told them they should not trust it one hundred percent. I could feel the prevailing pro-USA sentiment.
After 1989, there were changes in the American government’s attitude towards China. Consequently, there were changes in the attitude of the Chinese youth towards the USA. I think 1993 was a turning point.
First, it was about China’s bid for hosting 2000 Olympic Games. The US congress passed a resolution to oppose China’s bidding because of China’s human rights violations. It was a very silly [or stupid? The original Chinese words are 太傻了] move on their part. They didn’t understand China. This caused hard feeling among the Chinese students. There was a survey among the college students in Beijing at the time. 75% of those surveyed said it was an interference of another country’s internal affairs. “No matter how we look at the government, we want the Olympics in Beijing. The USA isn’t an international organization. You are just another country. What do you have to do with China’s bid for the event?”
Two or three weeks later, there was another incident. The US Navy searched a Chinese commercial vessel headed to Iraq, on suspicion of chemical weapons it might carry [In reality, it was a freighter destined for Iran, suspected of carrying possible precursors of chemical weapons]. This offended many Chinese: the US acting as the world’s police.
It was very silly and clumsy for the US to act the way they did. Just as Mao once said, “you lift a stone and in the end you hammered your own feet”.
Here I have the result of a survey conducted by the Horizon Group [Chinese name 零点公司, zero point company]. According to the survey, the most likely interruptive factors to world peace are terrorism and the US’s hegemony; the most important countries for the development of China’s economy are the US and Japan. The survey illustrates that Chinese youth perceive the US as both dangerous and important.
Here is another survey among the middle school students. When asked what comes to mind when the USA is mentioned, the answers are hegemony, very developed, world cops, NBA, bombing of the Embassy, interference of other countries’ internal affairs, the president’s sex scandal, campus violence, the destination of the talented, Harvard, good environment, TMD[tactical missile defense], etc. As we can see, there are both positive and negative perceptions of the US.
Q: Just now, you mentioned the bombing of the Chinese Embassy, and you discussed the incident in some of your articles too. China was a victim, but how come after the incident, many Americans have a bitter feeling towards the Chinese? Why is this?
A: That’s because the TVs in China and in the States were covering different things.
On the Chinese TVs, it’s the Chinese Embassy was bombed and ruined, and three people died. On American TV, it’s the youth in Beijing throwing the stones at the American Embassy. The emotions were different and the resulting attitudes were different as well.
By watching the Chinese TV, I think 100% of the Chinese would believe the bombing was deliberate while on American tubes, it’s all about the Chinese students throwing stones and other stuff at the American Embassy. They believed the action was encouraged and supported by the Chinese government. They did not understand the situation in China.
Q: Was it because the Americans didn’t know the Chinese embassy was bombed? Was there no report on this?
A: Yes, Americans knew. The spokesperson from the Pentagon came out several times to say it was not deliberate. It was a mistake and they expressed apology. The problem was that the news reporting in China was different than that in the US. The Chinese didn’t buy it that it was done by mistake. Almost 100% of people thought that way.
Sometimes I met people from VOA and Free Asia Radio. I told them I saw some survey results from China. In Chinese college students’ minds, there are two Americas. Good America and the bad one. They think the American domestic society and its culture are good but its foreign policy is bad.
I told them many people trusted VOA, but gradually they lost their trust in VOA. One of the reasons is the report of the bombing of the embassy. VOA said it’s a mistake, representing the stand of the US government. It’s not a neutral stand. But VOA people don’t believe what I told them.
9/11 gave Americans a big lesson. Before, most Americans believed that people all over the world like America. American culture is ubiquitous and the US is the best. When people told Bush junior that the anti-America sentiment ran high abroad, he didn’t believe it. It was never thought that people didn’t like America.
Q: You said that the US did some pretty stupid things. What about China?
A: In many places, China and the US don’t understand each other and have done silly things. It happened in the US. It also happened in China.
In 1998, all the American correspondents received phone calls saying that the Foreign Ministry spokesman wanted them to listen to a speech given by an important person.
The person turned out to be the deputy minister of the Ministry. He said the Clinton administration had a positive change of attitude towards China. The relation was now constructive cooperation between the two. They also treated the reporters with many delicious dishes, like a fancy banquet. They thought they were giving the reporters a big favor, just as years ago, Mao often all of a sudden decided to receive the foreign dignitaries at midnight and thought he was giving laowai face by doing that.
But it ended up this way: first, the American journalists were wondering why they were treated with those tasteful and fancy dishes. You can use the money to feed those people in the countryside who are still starving. Second, the Chinese side reiterated its stand on Taiwan and t¡bet, and told them its stand was right. The Foreign Ministry people told them that they already told how China’s media should report on those issues and that the foreign media should do the same. They don’t understand the relationship between American media and the government. It caught many American reporters by surprise: you think we are the puppets of the US government? The New York Time reported this event based on these two issues.
[The discussion about the Hollywood movies in China and Chinese movie making was omitted here]
Now many scholars outside China believe your patriotism, to a large extent, is nationalism. Someone wrote a book titled “China’s Neonationalism”.
In my personal opinion, patriotism is good but nationalism isn’t. For example, after the bombing of the Embassy, the young people in Beijing threw stones at the American Embassy. Do you think that’s patriotism or nationalism? Extreme nationalism will hurt patriotism.
The expressions of nationalistic sentiment among young people are mainly on the Sino-US and Sino-Japan relations. Tonight, the Asian Cup final will be held between Japan and China. I read the recent Japanese newspapers about the Chinese football fans throwing trash at the Japanese players.
After the bombing of the Embassy, some survey showed that many young people, after watching the TV coverage about the incident, thought their government was too weak on the issue: the US bombed our embassy; we should hit theirs back. I also noticed an interesting phenomenon. On one hand, there were newspaper articles such as “to reevaluate American movies”, “to reevaluate American freedom of speech” and “to reevaluate America’s human rights”. On the other, there were reports about the life and the work of the foreign workers of the multinational companies being normal. The foreigners were safe in China, and their rights and property were well protected in China.
On one hand, the Chinese government needs patriotism. On the other, they need foreign investment, too. How do you balance the two? Sometimes it’s not easy and it’s not always successful.
China is planning to build a high-speed rail system. The Japanese technology is the best and their bid is very competitive. But the prοtests on the internet against granting the contract to Japan were very loud. It’s possible that the best choice will be missed due to political considerations.
Nationalism is a double-edged sword. Both edges could be as sharp and it’s not always easy to handle. If the popular nationalism goes to extreme, it might get out of control. It’s not without possibility it might aim at the government one day.
Q: What’s your opinion on the beating of Ms. Zhao Yan [at Niagara Fall]?
A: It is not very unusual for things like this to happen in the US. Now they are extremely nervous about terrorists. It also happened a few times that the Americans were beaten in China. But news like this won’t make to the front page article in the US as the most important news. Look at this “Globe Time” [Chinese newspaper], the whole front page was devoted to the Zhao Yan incident and they took it as the most important news of the day.
Q: So you think her beating has nothing to do with the fact she is a Chinese?
A: Nothing at all. If she were an Arabian, the beating could be worse.
LA Times has an article about how China reported the incident and how the Chinese reacted to it. If you ask Americans about the incident, most of them had no ideas about it at all. But in China, most people are aware of the incident. But I also saw people making fun of her, thinking she was after the money.
This incident is much less significant compared with the bombing of the embassy and the collision of the American spy plane and the Chinese fighter. But if this happened in Japan, I am afraid it would be a different matter. It will remind people of WWII and people would think the Japanese are bullying the Chinese.
Q: Did you watch the Asian Cup final between Japan and China?
A: Yes, I did, from CCTV5.
I think the commentator isn’t neutral. He used “we” when he referred to the Chinese team. When China was on offense, he said it’s good. But when Japan was on offense, he said “it’s now dangerous”. When the referee gave a foul to a Chinese player, he criticized the referee but when the referee did that to a Japanese player, he won’t say a word. If the match was held in Japan and their commentator did the same, would you feel good about it?
China lost the match, and he found many reasons why China lost but none of the reasons he mentioned was about the Chinese players themselves. All in all, it’s not that we didn’t play well, even though we lost. I think it’s just like Ah Q [a character in a short story by Lu Xun], all the blames should be put on others, on outsiders, not on ourselves.
I have a friend who is doing the political psychology research. He grew up in China. He said he found that Chinese people have this mindset: we are victims and we were bullied; whatever outsiders did to China, people would immediately come to the conclusion that they were bullying China; it wasn’t fair to China; it was all others’ faults.
China has 1.3 billion people. They are very fond of football and they have a very strong desire to excel. But they are not successful. Why are they so poor on this? Why can’t they find talented players? The Japanese players are not that tall and strong but why the Chinese always lose to Japan? They even lost to Hong Kong before. Whose faults are these? Why can’t Chinese reflect on themselves and find reasons in themselves?
[to be continued] |
|
|
|
|
smurfette
PopStar
Joined: Nov 07, 2003
Posts: 1287
Location: smurf village
|
| Posted:
Aug 22, 2004 - 03:17 AM |
|
|
I will not be surprised if solid statistics showed that VOA or Free Asia Radio is losing their listeners.
Listeners, or more exactly, preferences and thoughts of listeners are changing while these radios don't, and the result is to like that.
On Asia Cup, though some of the soccer fans in Beijing did behave improperly, the thing is, the number of people who participate in the movement is actually rather small compared with the huge over-all Chinese audience population, in other words, they didn't represent any group but themselves as individuals, but what had been showed in Japan's TV (NHK, the counterpart of CCTV) was like that every Chinese was doing that, burning Japanese national flag( maybe in real, only one or just a few flags had been hurt ).
And before final match, high official of Japanese government, even the PM himself, came out to speak that it hurted the emotion of Japanese people(sounds so familiar when Japanese PM visited the famous shrine?) and what's more, they even tried to set links of the soccer match with Olympics 2008, a smart one, huh? How about Britain's smooth hosting several Olympics or World Cup regarding the cases in the soccer field?
Let's look back, during World Cup 2002, ever started from the first miunte, there had been mountains and seas of criticism or anti-Japan voices among S.Koreans, as always. Why did Japanese media keep silent at that time?
Some can reckon that it is the fear caused them to demonize China and Chinese. The fear that this developing neighboure will jump forward with breakneck steps while they are still sitting at the bottom of the last downturn.
Well, so many issues with Sino-Japan relationship, old and new, positive and negative, that it is difficult to make my points totally unbiased and uniform.  |
_________________
statistically significant |
|
|
|
|
fukuman
Wonder Wit
Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 3699
Status: Offline
|
| Posted:
Sep 01, 2004 - 11:23 AM |
|
|
Just curious about this, myu friend said that the chinese fans were shouting something like " kill the japanese, cut off their heads" at the end of the match and that it wass replaced by another song by CCTV. He also said that hundreds of japanese were beaten, with police connivance. they were denied entry to beijings bars and chinese drank 4 free.
Is any of this true or is it just the usual rumour mill and massaging bruised egos? |
|
|
|
|
peasant
Reacher
Joined: July 24, 2004
Posts: 323
|
| Posted:
Sep 01, 2004 - 12:50 PM |
|
|
Fukuman, the Chinese fans song two songs during those games. One is “大刀向鬼子们的头上砍去”. I saw people translating it into "A big knife chops off the heads of the Japanese devils”. It’s a wartime song sung by the resistance forces. Though it’s hard for me to come up with a better translation but this one doesn’t seem to be very accurate since the original doesn’t seem to be this bloody. It’s kind of calling people to aim their knives at the devils’ heads. It’s more about an action of process while the above translation is more about the bloody results of the action. The other song is 歌唱祖国, “sing to our motherland”. I am not sure about the cctv part. But I assume they played the part when the latter song was sung.
I would say it’s definitely an exaggeration to say hundreds of the Japanese were wounded. When the matches were in Chongqin and Jinan, it was reported that the fans threw trash to the bus the Japanese players were taking, and maybe other things too. For the final held in Beijing, after some bickering with the Japan on the reports of the Chinese fans, the government did ask the fans to stay cool. One the huge screen in the stadium, it’s said “to be a civilized spectator”. They mobilized tens of thousands of cops during and after the game to keep the order. Didn’t you say a while ago that the Chinese government always talks tough but when it comes to actions, it acted cautiously? You might have used a better word “responsibly”. There might be some isolated incidents, but it doesn’t sound to be true to me to say hundreds of the Japanese were beaten. |
|
|
|
|
|
littlefox
Fire-eater
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
Posts: 2773
|
| Posted:
Sep 01, 2004 - 01:34 PM |
|
|
what I heard is the fans were chanting "baga baga (means bastard in Japanese)" at the end of football match, CCTV replaced it with a song.
Smurfette, nice post. especially the part of asian cup and shrine. A bunch of unreasonable football hooligans brought up a riot, a few of them had conflicts with the Japanese players and fans, so the Japanese people's feelings were hurt. What about just a while ago, a Japanese attacked the Chinese consulate in Japan, should China claim the people's feeling is hurt and play the victim? and the annual visit to that shrine, China can play victim every year and the whining will never stop.
and I agree with Stanley Rosen analysis of the Asian cup incident, there is no excuse to blame the opponent team when we lost, Chinese government invest a lot in male's football, what have those fuker been doing? Now they lost the game and blame the match. losers. the same thing actually happened when the women's softball game in the Olympics, some posters in Chinese forums blamed China's lost on the Chinese player in Japanese team, called her a traitor, which I see is blind nationalism, Chinese women softball team isn't strong enough, so shut up and work your ass off. |
_________________
Ah, the ubiquitous idiots... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Forum FAQ
Search
Preferences
Watched Topics
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
