Anxiety Ridden Chinese

The Chinese are the most anxious people I know.

Why?

I hypothesize that it results from combining the worsts of capitalism and communism, with historical ties. Currently, China's economy is capitalist with no safety nets. Its politics are communist with no other parties or elections allowed. Chinese experience the "capitalist anxiety" where they focus on wealth accumulation and live in fear of anything that could wrong, taking wealth away. They also experience the "communist anxiety", always wondering if what they have accumulated will be nationalized.

The "communist anxiety" is a remnant from the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) where landlords were overthrown and all the country's land were collectivized. That Revolution morphed into State control of everything, where one's life was not her own choosing. For example, nearly everyone with a high school degree were sent to countrysides to be 'reeducated and reformed'. Merit-based education was banned throughout the country, taken over by propaganda-based education. In the countryside, it was illegal to raise your own chickens because they were not collective property. In 2009's market economy, where everything (economically, not politically) is to your own choosing, there is no wonder that people are so anxious to safeguard possessions against anything that might happen.

Here, my Marxist friend counters that it's not anxiety I'm describing, but materialism. People can choose non-materialistic pursuits. Yes, but choosing a path that is not the one that everyone else is doing requires critical thinking: the exact thing oppressed in schools and society. Seeing their hold on power cannot be sustained from isolation like North Korea's, the Chinese communist government opened its doors to capitalism in order to draw people's attention to material gains rather than rights and freedoms. With people focused on getting Mercedes, they have no interest in participating in social movements. Hence while it is possible to critically examine one's life in spite of hegemony, it is very, very hard.

On top of these historical, economic, political, social conditions, add in a long-standing culture valuing achievement and work ethic, and the Chinese become the most anxious peoples.

There is a deep psychological price to be paid in being the 'Economic Miracle' and 'Model Minority'.

How Does Chinese Work

Many have been asking me how exactly does Chinese work? Laura's explanation is the best I've seen. Be prepared to be blown away. http://eastversusmidwest.blogspot.com/2008/07/exactly-how-does-chinese-work.html

Ok, now you see how Chinese is the opposite of the romance languages, linguistically. I want to add a bit about how it is also different in spirit. English is a language of precision. We have a noun for everything! Chinese has few nouns and lots of adjectives to construct new words. In Chinese, pumpkin=south melon, watermelon=west melon, gourd=winter melon, cucumber=yellow melon...

In turn, Chinese is a language grounded in poetry. In daily conversation, people refer to poetry and literary works thousands of years old. English's precision helps us understand what the other is talking about: biscuit v cookie, bungalow v house. Chinese's wide use of references and colorful adjectives help other Chinese know exactly what the other is saying.

Customer Service

We go into a restaurant in Xining, the capital of Qinghai, a Tibetan province in western China. It's the usual loud pop music, musty, smoke-filled atmosphere. I order vegetarian soup and my friend beef stirfry as I'm not a meat-eater and he is.

An hour later, we have yet to see our food. I walk up to the 4 waitresses sitting and chatting. There are few customers. I ask: "Is our food ready?"

Our waitress looks up at me, innocent and no trace of ill-humor: "Yeah, it is ready." There are no signs of movement.

"Hmmm, will you bring us the food then?"

"Oh! Ok, sure!" Goes to the kitchen.

She brings back a plate to put the dish on, but no food. I also wondered why only one plate holder if we ordered two dishes.

Five minutes later, she brings out the one dish: "Here you are: one beef soup."

Fearing we will not eat until morning if we don't eat what's in front of us, we dig in.

So Funny and Sad and True

1. My friend who is a Hui Muslim, an ethnic and religious minority, does development work for an international organization in Xinjiang, the western most province madeup of mostly people who are Central Asian descendents and strict Muslims and speak a Turkish language. It's as contentious a region as Tibet just not as much in the news (for a variety of reasons of course, but perhaps one of them is that the West is more sympathetic to Buddhism than Islam).

A person my friend has worked with is a professor at an Irish university teaching human rights and invited him to do a MA in human rights at her uni, all expenses covered of course.

His response: "You want me to study HUMAN RIGHTS in Ireland?! All my family in China will disappear!"

2. We don't realize how much trust there exists in the States where we trust that someone will do something that she said she will do. In academia especially, grants and awards are given on the basis of a proposed project's merit and the only substantial check is the result at the end of the study; or more accurately, the bad rep you will have by failing to publish a substantial result. In China, where the checks and balances and a tradition of general rule following fostered by a strong legal system (not as much as the Germans and Japanese of course, but still existing) are easily subverted, trust even in academic partnerships is elusive.

At a meeting where a National Science Foundation funded project's principal investigator (PI) is meeting with the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS):

CAS: Show us the documentation that shows you have the NSF grant.

PI: I forwarded you the email that said we received the grant, and I sent you our approved proposal.

CAS: How do we know you didn't just write that email and approve that proposal yourself. I do not believe that the most prestigious research institute in the US just gives you an email to say your proposal is approved. You must have some certification, or your university must have it.

PI: Well, I only have the email, and I also know I've gotten it because the award is in my bank account.

CAS: So you need to either prove to us you have the money in your bank account or give us a certificate from your university.

PI: Would I really come all the way to Qinghai to try to form a research partnership with you if I'm pretending to have the money? Expenditures are in USD, which is 7 times rmb. But I'll try to see if my university has some more formal agreement from NSF. Realize that in the US, we don't stamp things.

The document that the university received from NSF is...?

An email.