What I Learned About Chinese Culture From This Distinguished Gentleman

No, he is not my neighbor but you can find him here

Photo credit to an article by this distinguished gentleman

The Chinese culture is a five-thousand-year-old culture. It is impossible and disrespectful to try and describe that within a couple of words, let alone a tweet. Also, I am not Chinese.

I follow a gentleman on MEDIUM whose articles took me down a path that allowed me to discover some interesting things about the “China Indo-China Connex” as he put it.

I will give him full credit at the end of this article and also point you to some of his work on MEDIUM.

Here are some of the main points that grabbed my attention.

Xiushen qijia zhiguo pingtianxia

In that order.

Xiushen — Look after yourself, cultivate yourself, do everything to make yourself useful.

qijia — Look after the family.

zhiguo — All is peaceful under heaven.

pingtianxia — Look after your country.

It is striking that PEACE comes before the country and the country is last. It follows that if there is peace in your own country then there must be peace in the world.

There is a whole people immersed in these ideas — Lee Kuan Yew.

East Asian and South Asian concepts of societies.

East Asians refer to Korea, Japan, China, and Vietnam ( normally referred to as part of Southeast Asia and I use that term with the greatest respect).

India itself is South Asian.

These two cultures emphasize similar values. The belief that the individual exists within the context of his or her family. The individual is not pristine and separate. The family is part of the extended family, and then friends, and then the wider society.

The ruler or the government does not try to provide for a person what the family best provides.Governments will come, governments will go, but the family endures.

I was shocked to find out East Asian people find the opposite of this a bold Huxleyan view of life. There are alarming…