|
the chinese and american experience:
a bridge between two cultures
seminar: november 8, 15, 29 - 2001
oakton community college - skokie campus
lecturer: william k. tong, adjunct faculty, earth science
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
excerpts from
"americans & chinese: passages to differences,"
3rd edition, by francis l.k. hsu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"americans & chinese" is the classic work of professional anthropologist francis l.k. hsu, who was former chair of the anthropology department at northwestern university and president of the american anthropology association. first published in 1953, "americans & chinese" was the first comprehensive and exhaustive study between two great cultures, china and the united states of america. professor hsu utilized his unique background (born in china, educated in europe, and settled as an american citizen since the 1940s) as a scientist to bridge the gap between two often very different cultures by illuminating each through the deliberate comparison and contrast of an astonishing array of everyday facets of life generally understood by most native members of each respective culture, including: art, fictional literature, sex, romance, the role of women in society, parents and children, educational methods, social needs and values, causes and nature of crime, marriage and class, hero worship, attitudes towards government, corruption and bribery, religion (chinese polytheism vs. western monotheism), approaches and attitudes to economic life. he also analyzed the long-standing societal problems that have plagued america (old age, the generation gap, racial relations, sex crimes and violence), as well as those that had plagued china, especially before 1949 (inability to shed past practices, foot binding, the powerless plight of women, revolt without revolution, the loss of world leadership in science, lack of voluntary organizations outside of kinship). even more amazing were his 1953 predictions of america's struggle with world unrest while pursuing foreign policy that supported former colonial powers in opposition to the struggles of indigenous peoples to gain freedom by pursuing american ideals and principles - he essentially foresaw the aftermath of the korean war and america's disastrous involvement in vietnam more than a decade later. professor hsu's book aimed to present a new solution and paradigm for understanding the root cause of societal ills in both cultures. in america, he saw the blind, often excessive pursuit of self-reliance and the inherent, permanent instability of human relationships as the root cause of many intractable social ills, including crime, racial discord, and the sale of influence in government. in china, he saw the traditional narrow focus on kinship based relationships had rendered their society unable to effectively counter western colonialism, widespread poverty and famine, and even the practice of footbinding of women. "americans & chinese" is well organized into discrete chapters, and may be read and skimmed in any order desired. the author's reasoning and arguments are well documented and supported, and often challenge readers' long held assumptions. it is especially suited to open-minded readers who wish to truly learn and understand chinese culture, as well as illuminate and offer an alternative perspective on american culture.
as a fourth generation chinese american who was also the first to be born in america (my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were immigrants), "americans & chinese" has influenced my life and outlook more than any other book that i've read. my father found it to be invaluable for helping him understand the culture of his adopted country.
-william k. tong, adjunct faculty, earth science
oakton community college
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the paperback version of the 1981 edition of "americans & chinese: passage to differences" is available at amazon.com and barnes & noble book stores. here are reviews of the book from amazon:
from the back cover: "when the first edition of professor hsu's book was published in 1953, it became a celebrated book, highly valued among scholars across many fields in the humanities and social sciences.... the publication of the third edition of this book, almost thirty years after its first appearance, certainly says a great deal about its value.... reading this classic allows the readers to see real people, and how people relate to people, in two culturally contrasting societies. this book will serve a useful purpose for those who have little understanding of the cultural history and psychological orientations of the people of china and the united states."
-the journal of psychoanalytic anthropology
about the author
francis l.k. hsu (1909-1999) was professor emeritus of anthropology and a past director of the center for cultural studies in education at the university of san francisco. for many years he was chairman of the department of anthropology at northwestern university, and in 1977-1978 he served as president of the american anthropological association.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
excerpts from "americans & chinese: passages to differences," 3rd edition, by francis l.k. hsu
prologue: culture and behavior
there is no doubt that individuals differ as to temperament, taste, potentiality, and idiosyncrasy. exceptional actions on the part of some individuals are not difficult to find. for example, a mischievous chinese humorist, hsu wen-ch'ang of the ming dynasty, did something that seemingly antedated the russian pavlov of the "conditioned reflex" fame by at least two hundred years. hsu's maternal uncle disapproved of him in general, and the feeling was mutual. one day they had a particularly trying session with each other. while his older relative was visiting with hsu's parents, hsu went outside the house and bowed low toward the donkey on which his uncle had arrived. before the animal realized what was happening hsu whacked it with a stick several times on its head and body. of course the donkey twisted and jerked wildly in pain. when the time came for his uncle to take leave of hsu's parents, hsu was asked to see the visitor off. as soon as his uncle mounted the beast, hsu bowed low to the departing relative in the customary attitude of respect. the animal, remembering what had followed that gesture before, instantly jerked and twisted, throwing hsu's uncle to the ground.
beyond differences among individuals, every society exhibits variation within itself. northern chinese and cantonese speak mutually unintelligible dialects. clan temples were more numerous south of the yangtze river than north of it. some northern chinese are prone to speak of their southern compatriots as superficial and "slippery headed" (tricky), or dishonest, while i often met southerners who told me that i did not look like a man from the north. i have, they would say, a southern complexion and a stature not quite tall enough for the north. the myth about northern stature is alive in spite of the fact that many fukien chinese (from the mainland province opposite taiwan) are giants of six feet or better. as for the united states, sortie new yorkers think, as one author put it, "californians are adolescents with a surfboard under one arm and a guru under the other." on the other hand, some californians see most new yorkers as people too given to what's "in" and what's "out." they are "rigid with apprehension that they will die wearing the wrong sneakers."
it is well known that laws vary from state to state in the united states. but most americans probably do not know that mississippi is the only state in the union that allows convicts in prison to receive regular conjugal visits; or that nevada, besides having legalized gambling, did not post speed signs on its highways before the energy crisis, on the theory that motorists should be able to judge for themselves. however, in spite of exceptional individuals and regional differences, a majority of the people of each society do act according to their society's accepted and usual patterns of behavior in their day-to-day business of life. the penalties for nonconformity vary. a departing male american who forgets to kiss his wife at the airport is in for trouble when he returns. a chinese father who boasts to his friends about his son's good looks will be an object of derision. an american guest who brings someone else to dinner unheralded is not likely to be invited again. a chinese visitor who compliments his hostess on her beauty comes close to being immoral. he can praise her cooking skills, or her kindness, or even the way she trains her children, but he must not mention her physical attributes, including her clothing. these do's and don'ts are but a few of the countless culturally prescribed rules of individual behavior so clear to the adults of each society that they seem to be part of the order of nature. from this angle, the notion that each individual can "do his own thing" to the exclusion of others is unrealistic and nonhuman, for two reasons. first, all of us must live with some other human beings in varying degrees of affection. they are our spouses, parents and children, close friends, relatives, followers, and heroes. the second reason we must have some other human beings is that they provide us with goods and/or services. we and they stand in role relationships to each other. we need not only basic utilities, garbage disposal, or medical attention, but also postcards, writing implements, and daily nourishment. even zen masters usually have to do their meditation in buildings which they did not build and guide or punish their disciples with tools which they did not produce. there are quite a few hindu holy men who receive the adulation of their disciples while seated on tiger-skin-draped thronelike sofas or make use of the modern microphone as deftly as billy graham in madison square garden.
consequently, no matter how committed a society is to an individualistic philosophy, it cannot function without having to organize its members according to certain general principles of grouping: women as distinguished from men, adults from children, able-bodied from the unfit, atomic scientists from butchers, unskilled from the skilled, the qualified practitioners from the quacks, soldiers from civilians, and so forth. individuals are placed in each of these categories for their commonality, not individuality.
as our society evolves toward greater equality and liberalization more women will enter occupations formerly thought to be male preserves, more children will break down more parental restrictions, and more "gays" will be accepted in the "straight" world. but it is unlikely, in fact impossible, for any society, including ours, to obliterate categorization and consider every member as an individual in every way according to our individualistic idea. can we stop certification of doctors and drivers so that anyone who wants to can practice medicine or drive a car? can we forget about age and income differences so that anyone who so desires can collect social security and welfare payments?
likewise, over and above differences based on class, national origin, sex, geographical region, age, and occupation, a majority of chinese in china can deal with each other better than they can with the inhabitants of the united states, while a majority of americans can do the same better with their own countrymen than with the chinese in china. they may not approve of or understand all that their respective fellow countrymen do, but in the normal course of events they are less likely than foreigners to be surprised by them. for each people share a large body of basic, common ideas, attitudes, and expectations which provide the average man with his bearings in dealing with his fellow countrymen and which hold the society together, contemporaneously and over time.
in the 1953 edition of this book, i related the following episode according to mid-1948 north china newspapers:
a bundle containing the remains of a woman's body was found on the bank of a river which runs through the metropolitan city of tientsin. more than ten years before, she and her husband, chang, had left their north china village and gone to manchuria, where he worked as a coal miner. she died in 1946 and was buried there in a temporary grave. when the nationalist vs. communist civil war forced a shutdown of the mines, chang decided to go back to his native village. not wanting to leave his wife's body in manchuria, he dug its remains out of the tomb, packed them in a bundle, and started home with his three children, aged eleven, eight, and seven. unable to pay for train fares all the way, they walked from changchun, north manchuria, to shenyang, south manchuria, a distance of about two hundred miles. from there they rode for forty miles west to hsinmin, then walked for three hundred miles to the north china coal mining center of tongshan, from which point they rode free in a coal train for another eighty miles to tientsin. before beginning their last 120-rnile walk home from tientsin, the four passed the night at the bottom of a wall near the railway station. a thief, obviously mistaking the bundle for ordinary baggage, stole it and later abandoned it. as soon as chang discovered the bundle was missing he begged a literate person to write a number of "lost" notices for him, and these he posted in streets around the station. when someone told him that the police had found a female body near the river, chang went forward and identified it as that of his wife. but instead of agreeing to its local burial, which the authorities required for public health reasons, chang insisted: "burial here will never do. even if i agree, my sons will object. i carried her over a thousand miles. i used the bundle as a pillow every night, but i am still not sick!" he was finally allowed to take the body. but before leaving, chang asked that the lock of hair and a tooth, removed by the examiners for identification, be returned to him, saying "she must have her body intact for burial. "
that chang was a poor and illiterate man who could not afford to pay for rail transportation is easy for americans to understand. they have heard that poverty was common in china. americans who hear this story are also impressed by the intensity of chang's devotion to his deceased wife, but they regard the form it took as bizarre and unnecessary since it might have imperiled the health of chang and his children. some of my american friends sympathize with chang's insistence on the restoration of the tooth and the lock of hair, yet they cannot understand why chang claimed to be acting on behalf of his children.
in the chinese view both american objections are groundless. to be buried with body intact in the village of one's birth is, to the chinese, part of the complete life, and it is a son's obligation to carry this out. because the miner's children were too young to bury their mother, the father acted for them, regardless of whatever hardship this entailed. just as these customs baffle the average american, many american ideas and practices are equally alien to the chinese. i first realized this in china in 1944 while watching the movie version of marcia davenport's novel, "valley of decision." the leading roles were played by gregory peck and greer garson. peck, as the son of a wealthy industrialist in one of the great steel centers of the united states, had many new ideas concerning both production and labor relations which were contradictory to those of his parents and their associates. he was unhappily married to a woman whose ideas agreed with those of his parents and they had a child of about six. during a conversation with greer garson, a maid in the family's palatial home, whose father was a worker in one of her employer's plants, peck became attracted by her views, personality, and sympathy. but she refused his love because he was a married man. in the meantime, labor trouble erupted in the plant. the workers struck for higher wages and better work conditions. a group of strike breakers were then called in. peck attempted to persuade his father and his advisers to call them off and to discuss terms with the labor leaders. but while his father, under pressure of the son's advice, was exchanging views with the labor leader, a battle started between the workers and the strike breakers. the father was killed, many men were injured, and the family's magnificent house was destroyed. garson's father was killed also. after order was restored, peck took over the management of the business and liberalized its labor policies. in conclusion, peck's unsympathetic wife demanded a divorce and peck and garson were married.
to the american audience, this was good drama, since every conflict was resolved in a way that is desirable, from an american point of view. the production conflict was resolved in favor of new views on manufacturing methods over the old-fashioned ones; liberal attitudes toward labor won out in the social conflict with hard fisted attempts to suppress the workingmen; peck, the progressive son, replaced his conservative father; and true love triumphed where only marital misery had prevailed.
however, my chinese friend who saw the film with me was far from pleased. he understood the gigantic size and extent of american industry and wealth, and he had some comprehension of the bitterness and violence of american industrial disputes. he was also aware that americans are usually ready to experiment with new ideas or to introduce novel methods of production. but he considered both the peck and garson characters to be villains. peck was shamefully unfilial because he was opposed to his father, and undid all that the elder tried to carry out. garson was practically the sole cause not only of the breakdown of peck's marriage but also of his family's ruin and his father's destruction. when the maid first entered the picture, the family was prosperous, dignified, and intact. if she had not encouraged her young master in his views, he would not have asked his father to negotiate with the laborers, the old man would not have been exposed to their fatal attack, nor would her own father have died in the melee.
to the chinese audience, a son in conflict with his father was a bad son, and a maid who would help such a son in his ventures was a bad woman. through the same chinese lens, the daughter-in-law was regarded as an extremely virtuous woman who suffered in malicious hands. the question of the young master's own unhappiness with his wife as opposed to his possible happiness with the maid should never have been raised.
the contrasts epitomized in these two episodes arise out of the basic and characteristic ways in which people in each society see their past, present, and future, and define their problems and seek solutions to them. this common outlook has been variously termed "social character," "themes of culture," "life way," "ethos," "basic personality, " or "philosophy of life. " i shall not consider here the merits and demerits of these terms or enter upon a technical discussion of psychological anthropology. for the purposes of this book, i will simply call this common outlook the "chinese way of life" or the "american way of life."
does each way of life change over time? my answer is yes, but not in the usually understood sense of the word "change," especially as it has been applied to american society and culture. america has indeed undergone many changes since world war ii, and from the 1960s to the 1970s. in the sixties, we saw the widespread use of drugs among youth, the hippie and yippie movements, the student unrest that challenged the nature and even the very existence of higher education, the racial violence that threatened to reduce our cities to ashes, and the sex explosion.
since then, and up to now, we have witnessed a variety of new developments, which christopher lasch, tom wolfe, and others call the "new narcissism" or the "me generation." but is this trend really new? the shift from collective protest to the individual search for self-gratification and self-fulfillment was foretold in mass protesters' statements about their own mental condition while they were protesting. for example, "pete" (not his real name), a philosophy major who turned to campus-wide protest to force his ivy league university to divest itself of stocks of companies that did a primary amount of their business in south africa, said, "now that i'm actively involved in trying to change things, i'm much happier than when i was feeling a lot of guilt-sex hangups and ambition hangups."
pete's statement is echoed in the words of susan stern, another anti-establishmentarian of the late sixties. in her memoir of the weathermen, she described her feelings during the demonstration at the 1968 democratic national convention in chicago: "i felt good. i could feel my body supple and strong and slim, and ready to run miles, and my legs moving sure and swift under me."
seen in the longer-term context of the american culture, the trend toward individual fulfillment is but an escalation of that same american approach dramatized nearly a half century ago in "valley of decision." on the china side, tumultuous events after 1949 have seemed to signal to the western world real breaks with the past. the avowed aim of the communist government at peking since 1949 has been no less than the total transformation of the entire chinese society. the great leap, the cultural revolution, and now the fall of the gang of four and the drive for the four modernizations tell us something about the twists and turns of a giant revolutionary movement involving a huge society with a long and proud history.
but the chinese character of the new developments has yet to be clearly understood even by western visitors to the people's republic who had known the country before 1949. for example, after a 1972 tour of china the columnist joseph alsop changed from a vehement critic of the new regime to a high praiser of its achievements. as he and his wife were leaving china by train from canton to hong kong they discussed between themselves a question that puzzled them most. both found the soviet union and other european communist countries depressing in contrast to china, which they found during their month-long trip "neither suffocating nor depressing." rather than thanking god to be crossing the border (which is standard post-russia trip response), we wished we could have had several months more." he and his wife asked themselves, "why?"
alsop's question was well posed, i think, for i had the same feeling.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... [we shall now] look at the broader phases of the family pattern in which the two peoples differ greatly, but consistently.
the home
let us begin with chinese and american homes. an american house usually has a yard, large or small. it may have a hedge, but rarely is there a wall so high that a passerby cannot see the windows. the majority of american houses have neither hedges nor outside walls. usually the interior is shielded from exterior view only by window curtains or blinds, and then during but part of the day.
the majority of chinese houses are, in the first place, surrounded by such high walls that only the roofs are visible from the outside, and solid gates separate the interior grounds from the outside world. in addition, there is usually a shadow wall placed directly in front of the gates on the other side of the street as well as a four-paneled wooden screen standing about five feet behind the gates. the outside shadow wall keeps the home from direct exposure to the unseen spirits. the inside wooden screen shields the interior courtyard from pedestrians' glances when the gates are ajar.
inside the home, the contrast between china and america is reversed. the american emphasis within the home is on privacy. there are not only doors to the bathrooms but also to the bedrooms, and often to the living room and even the kitchen. space and possessions are individualized. parents have little liberty in the rooms of the children, and children cannot do what they want in those parts of the house regarded as preeminently their parents' domain. among some sections of the american population this rule of privacy extends to the husband and wife, so that each has a separate bedroom.
within the chinese home, on the other hand, privacy hardly exists at all, except between members of the opposite sexes who are not spouses. chinese children, even in homes which have ample room, often share the same chambers with their parents until they reach adolescence. not only do parents have freedom of action with reference to the children's belongings, but the youngsters can also use the possessions of the parents if they can lay their hands on them. if children damage their parents' possessions they are scolded, not because they touched things that were not theirs but because they are too young to handle them with proper care.
the lack of privacy within the home finds its extreme expression in many well-to-do families of north china. here the rooms are arranged in rows like the cars of a train. but instead of each room having a separate entrance, the rooms are arranged in sequence, one leading into another. thus, if there are five rooms, the front door of the house opens into the center room, which serves as the kitchen, each leading into a room which has in turn another door opening into the end rooms. beginning at one end of the house-call it room a-one can walk in a straight line to room b, into the kitchen-dining room c, into room d, and finally into room e. the parents will occupy room b, nearest the kitchen, leaving room a free for a married daughter when she and her children come for a prolonged visit. if the family has two married sons, the older brother and his wife and children will occupy room d, while the younger brother and his wife will occupy room e. the occupants of rooms a and e will have to pass through rooms b and d in order to go in and out of the house. actual arrangements vary somewhat from family to family, but this simplified picture is generally true.
such an arrangement in living quarters would be very offensive to americans. but many chinese adhere to a variation of the common linear arrangement even when they have more rooms and space in which to spread out. for they consider all within the four walls as being one body. the american child's physical environment establishes strong lines of individual distinction within the home, but there is very little stress on separation of the home from the outside world. the chinese child's environment is exactly the reverse. he finds a home with few demarcation lines within it but separated by high walls and multiple gates from the outside world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
parents and children
the difference between chinese and american homes reflects the contrasting patterns of behavior in the family. in no other country on earth is there so much attention paid to infancy, or so much privilege accorded during childhood as in the united states. in contrast, it may be said without exaggeration that china before 1949 was a country in which children came last. the contrast can be seen in a myriad of ways. americans are very verbal about their children's rights. there is not only state and federal legislation to protect the young ones, but there are also many voluntary juvenile protective associations to look after their welfare.
in china, parents have had a completely free hand with their children. popular misconception notwithstanding, infanticide was never an everyday occurrence in china. it was the last resort of poor parents with too many daughters, especially during a famine. certainly no parent would brag about it. in fact, there are stories about the grief of parents in such a predicament and quite a few jokes on the theme of how some irate parents deal with tactless clods who utter unwelcome expressions about the birth of a daughter.
however, before 1949, infanticide by needy chinese parents was never cause for public shock or censure. parents who committed infanticide were seldom punished by the law. it is literally true that with regard to children, american parents have practically no rights; but from the viewpoint of chinese parents, children have little reason to expect protection from their elders. if an american were to point with justifiable pride to his country's many child protective associations, a chinese would simply counter with an equally proud boast about his nation's ancient cultural heritage in which confucian filial piety was the highest ideal.
american parents are so concerned with the welfare of their children, and so determined to do the right thing, that they handsomely support a huge number of child specialists. chinese parents have taken their children so much for granted that pediatrics as a separate branch of medicine was unknown until modern times. i know of no piece of traditional literature aimed at making the chinese better parents, and even several decades after the fall of the manchu dynasty, there was hardly any scientific inquiry into what children might think or desire. articles on how to treat children appeared only sporadically in a few chinese newspapers and magazines, many of them translations or synopses of material from the west.
but american do not only study their children's behavior - they glorify it. chinese did not only take their children for granted - they minimized their importance. the important thing to americans is what parents should do for their children; to chinese, what children should do for their parents.
the extent to which some american parents will go to suit the convenience of their children is exemplified by a midwestern couple i know. to make their little ones happy, they installed a fancy slide in their living room. guests entered the apartment by bending under it, and then they attempted to enjoy a conversation within reach of the boisterous sideshow provided by the young ones sliding up and down.
that this is unusual even for the united states is indicated by the fact that this couple felt compelled to justify their action every time they had a visitor and by the fact that their friends remarked about it. no chinese parents could have kept the respect of the community if they permitted anything remotely resembling this indulgence.
for many centuries, chinese were both entertained and instructed by tales known as "the twenty-four examples of filial piety." these were so popular that different versions of them are available. following the traditional approach to literature of writing on some exalted model, the chinese ancients have handed down to posterity at least two series of "the twenty-four examples of filial piety. "
these stories were illustrated in paintings, dramatized on the stage, and recited by storytellers in tea houses and market places all over the country. here is one of these "examples":
a poor man by the name of kuo and his wife were confronted with a serious problem. his aged mother was sick in bed. she needed both medicine and nourishment which kuo could ill afford. after consultation between themselves, kuo and his wife decided that the only way out was to get rid of their three-year-old only son. for kuo and his wife said to each other, "we have only one mother, but we can always get another child." thereupon the two went out to the field to dig a pit for the purpose of burying their child alive. but shortly after the man had started to dig he suddenly struck gold. it transpired that the gods were moved by the spirit of their filial piety, and this was their reward. both the child and the mother were amply provided for and the family thrived happily
to the chinese, this story dramatized their most important cultural support of the parents came before all other obligations s obligation must be fulfilled, even at the expense of the children.
economic support is not, however, the only way in which chinese children are obligated to their parents. the son not only has to follow the confucian dictum that "parents are always right," but at all times and in all circumstances, he must try to satisfy their wishes and look after their safety. if the parents are indisposed, the son should spare no trouble in obtaining a cure for them. formerly, if a parent was sentenced to prison, the son might arrange to take that parent's place. (in the 1999 movie, "romeo must die," the hong kong police officer character played by actor jet li voluntarily frames himself and goes to prison to protect his father, a crime boss, from being convicted of contract murders. - w. tong) if the parents were displeased with their daughter-in-law, the good son did not hesitate to think about divorce. in the service of the elders, no effort was too extraordinary or too great.
...the relationship between chinese parents and children shows entirely different characteristics. chinese parents are amused by infantile behavior and youthful exuberance, but the measure of their children's worth is determined primarily by the degree to which they act like adults. chinese parents are rather proud of a child who acts "older than his age," whereas some american parents might take a similar child to a psychiatrist. what chinese parents consider rowdiness in a child's behavior, american parents might approve of as a sign of initiative. (american parents praise their children by calling them "good kids." chinese parents giving similar praise call their children "obedient," which in the chinese context is synonymous with "good" in chinese society. -w. tong)
also interesting is the approach of chinese children to whatever toys they may have. when i was six years of age, my mother bought me a cart made of tinfoil. soldered above the door of the cart was an ornamental rectangle. having seen movable curtains on real carts, i attempted to lower the "curtain" at the entrance of my toy cart and yanked the stationary ornament out of place. an american mother might have gloated over creative impulse of her "budding genius," but my mother was very much displeased because she thought me destructive and temperamental. had i acted the model chinese child and nursed one old toy for a couple of years, an american mother might have worried about the retarded or warped state of my mind."
...in order to understand the contrasting life-styles of the american and chinese peoples, we must explore the long-standing parent-child bases that have nurtured them. only then can we evaluate how far more recent developments have or have not altered the picture. it is true that a good many things have happened, to the chinese parent-child relationship since 1949. to start with, when an american speaks of a family he refers to parents and unmarried children; a chinese includes grandparents and in-laws. even if chinese grandparents and in-laws do not live under the same roof, they usually reside in the same village, a neighboring village, or, more rarely, a neighboring district. this is one of the traditional features which the government of the people's republic has worked hard to alter by assigning places of work, by stimulating population movement, by the work-study program, and other measures. but as we shall see in chapter 15, kinship and local ties remain important building blocks of the commune. on the other hand, americans related by blood or legal bonds may live so far from one another that this broader group does not come together except on holidays.
these differences mark the point of departure in the early experiences of chinese and american children. the chinese child grows up amid continuing or frequent contacts with a number of related individuals besides his own parents and siblings, but his american counterpart grows up in much greater physical isolation. thus very early in life the former is conditioned to getting along with a wide circle of relatives while the latter is not.
far more crucial, however, is the manner of interaction between the growing child and individuals other than those belonging to his immediate family. american parents are the sole agents of control over their children until they are of age. the grandparents and in-laws do not ordinarily occupy a disciplinary role, whether they live in the same house or not. even when grandparents take over during an emergency such as sickness or childbirth, the older people are supposed to do no more than administer things according to the laws laid down by the younger couple, most likely by the younger woman.
chinese parents have much less exclusive control over their children. in cases where grandparents do not share the same roof with them, during a brief visit the older couple can do almost anything they see fit in regard to the children, even if it means going over the parents' heads. the liberty taken by most chinese aunts, uncles, and in-laws would cause very severe stress in american families. furthermore, while an american mother exhibits her displeasure with an overindulgent grandmother and is considered right by others, a chinese mother doing the same thing would have been an object of censure rather than sympathy.
the inevitable result of the omnipresent and exclusive control of american parents over their children is greater and deeper emotional involvement. the american parent-child relationship is close and exclusive. to the extent that they are the only objects of worship, they also are liable to become the only oppressors. accordingly, when an american child likes his parents, they are his idols. when he dislikes them, they are his enemies. a conscious or unconscious attachment to one parent at the expense of the other, a situation which gave freud ground for postulating his famed oedipus complex, is the extreme expression of this configuration.
the mutual affection of chinese parents and children is toned down compared to that of their american counterparts. since parental authority varies with circumstances, the parental image in the mind of the growing child must necessarily share the spotlight with men and women held in much higher esteem, such as grandparents, and with those regarded as the equals of the parents, such as uncles and aunts. the feeling toward parents and other adult authority figures being divided and diluted, the child does not develop a paralyzing attachment to, or strong repulsion against, the elders. there is still less reason for the emergence of the oedipal triangle in which the child is allied to one parent against the other. consequently, when the chinese child likes his parents, he fails to idolize them alone; when he dislikes them he vents his displeasure with great reserve. these contrasting results flow inevitably from the respective kinship premises of the two cultures. even though the biological family consists of parents and unmarried children everywhere, according to the american pattern of interaction it tends to become a collection of isolated dyads; according to its chinese counterparts, no dyadic relationship is free from the larger network.
this contrast reveals itself with great clarity when pseudo-kinship is involved. the only pseudo-kinship relationship left in present day united states is that of godparents and godchild. our older daughter eileen's godfather, mr. l. (an anthropologist and a native american), died in 1953. some years later my wife and our two daughters paid a social visit to mrs. l. while the five of us were having dinner, our younger daughter, penny, then about twelve years old, casually declared to all of us that since mrs. l. was eileen's godmother, she was naturally also her godmother. this came to my wife and me as a surprise. though born, raised, and partially educated in china, i had understood - intellectually at least - the american usage. eileen was mr. l.'s goddaughter, and he her godfather. but that relationship had nothing to do with mrs. l. nor with any of eileen's family members. our evanston-born second daughter, though she had never seen china at that time, had obviously picked up our implicit understanding of chinese kinship logic. according to which, not only would mrs. l. be eileen's godmother and eileen's sister would be mr. and mrs. l.'s second goddaughter, but all of mr. and mrs. l.'s children would be both of our daughters' godsiblings.
the beginning of the contrasts between the two ways of life now become apparent. in america, the child learns to see the world strictly on an individual basis. even though he did not have a chance to choose his parents, he can choose to prefer one more than the other. extending from this basic tie outward, the american's relationship with other members of his kin group is strictly dependent upon individual preference. the american "must see early in life that a powerful force composed of many aspects of individual choice - making operates to create, maintain, or cancel out interpersonal relationships. his parents, for their part, have to conduct themselves so that they will not tag in the competition for the affection of their children. this, and the fact that most american parents encourage their children very early to do things for themselves - to feed themselves, to make their own decisions - leads the american child to follow his own predilections. he expects his environment to be sensitive to him.
the chinese child learns to see the world in terms of a network of relationships. he not only has to submit to his parents, but he also has little choice in his wider social relationships and what he individually would like to do about them. this, and the fact that chinese parents are firmly convinced that elders know better and so never feel defensive about it, leads the chinese child to appreciate the importance of differing circumstances. as to defending themselves, the characteristic advice to chinese children is: "don't get into trouble outside, but if there is danger, run home." the chinese child is obliged to be sensitive to his environment.
there is experimental evidence for this difference. godwin c. chu, comparing his study of 182 chinese high school students in taiwan with an earlier study by janis and field of 182 american high school students, demonstrates that the chinese are far more persuadable than the americans.
though consciously encouraging their children to grow up in some ways, american parents firmly refuse to let the youngsters enter the real world of the adults. they leave their children with sitters when they go to parties. if they entertain at home, they put the youngsters to bed before the guests arrive. children have no part in parents' regular social activities. there is a tendency on the part of a few ultra-modern american parents to take their babies or children with them to social gatherings, but this is not the generally accepted american way. at least not yet.
chinese parents take their children with them not only to wedding feasts, funeral breakfasts, and religious celebrations, but also to purely social or business gatherings. a father in business thinks nothing of taking his boy of six or seven to an executive conference.
this pattern is still adhered to by the majority of second- , third- , and even fourth-generation chinese-americans in hawaii, san francisco, and new york. like their caucasian neighbors, chinese organizers in hawaii resort to "family" picnics and "family" evenings, and even athletics for the purpose of maintaining or increasing club or church enrollment. but unlike their caucasian neighbors, chinese parents take their very young children with them on many more occasions - for example, on social and business visits which last until late at night.
some years ago the idea of "togetherness" between parents and children became fashionable, at least in some sections of american society. the central concern was that the parents and children should do things together, such as attend outings, shows, or church activities, and share hobbies. some writers observed that television, for all of its faulty programming, at least brings members of a family together. now we know that this isn't true. there is also no evidence that the togetherness which some progressive parents had hoped would solidify the family as a unit has achieved the desired effect. for the togetherness that progressive american parents looked for was planned-an activity-studded togetherness in which children and their elders would have each other but would define the rest of the world as outsiders and give it no part in their circle. so conceived, it was literally a honeymoon between parents and children. it was bound to get on the nerves of all, especially its commander-in-chief, the father. it failed because it was an artificial togetherness, not one nurtured in the american kinship constellation.
chinese youngsters enter into the adult world unobtrusively in the course of their mental and physical growth. their own infantile and youthful world is tolerated but never encouraged. on the contrary, they reap more rewards as they participate more and more in adult activities. from the beginning their elders share with them a community of interests, except relating to sex; they participate in real life, not in an artificially roped-off sector of it. american parents, except for the very poor, proceed on quite the opposite assumption with their insistence on privacy for all individuals. the business of american parents - social and commercial - is their private reserve, and no trespassing by children is allowed except on those rare and eventful occasions when an explicit invitations is extended. by the same token, parents are also supposed to refrain from entering into the activities of their youngsters.
not so among the chinese. chinese children consider it a matter of course to witness or participate in adult affairs, exactly as chinese adults have no constraints about joining in their children's activities. this reciprocity goes so far that neither has any reservations about opening letters addressed to the other.
nothing is more strikingly symbolic of these profound differences than the fact that american children celebrate their birthdays among themselves, their parents being assistants or servants, while chinese children's birthdays are occasions for adult celebrations at which children may be present, as in wedding or funeral feasts, but where they certainly are not the center of attraction.
the line of demarcation between the adult and the child world is drawn in many other ways. for instance, many american parents may be totally divorced from the church, or entertain grave doubts about the existence of god, but they send their children to sunday schools and help them to pray. american parents struggle in a competitive world where sheer cunning and falsehood are often rewarded and respected, but they feed their children with nursery tales in which the morally good is pitted against the bad, and in the end the good invariably is successful and the bad inevitably punished. when american parents are in serious domestic trouble, they maintain a front of sweetness and light before their children. even if american parents suffer a major business or personal catastrophe, they feel obliged to turn to their children and say, "honey, everything is going to be all right." this american desire to keep the children's world separate from that of the adults is also exemplified by the practice of delaying the transmission of bad news to children when their parents have been killed in an accident for example, or concealing certain facts from them, as when one of the parents goes to jail. in summary, american parents face a world of reality while many of their children live in the near-ideal, unreal realm where the rules of the parental world do not apply, are watered down, or may even be reversed.
it is this separateness of the children's world that makes the kind of hero found in j. d. salinger's "the catcher in the rye" so meaningful to so many youthful american readers. here is an adolescent who sees through the invisible wars around him. he denounces as phonies the people who act according to rules outside that wall, but he feels terribly lonely, because most of those inside the wall are working so hard to be content with their place. however, even holden caulfield returns to the fold in the end. he decides not to run away; he goes back to school; and he reflects while his little sister, phoebe, is on the carousel: "the thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. if they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."
in this context, too, we can understand why eddie seidel, jr., a fifteen-year-old boy in minnesota, jumped two hundred feet to his death from a bridge after the television series "battlestar galactica" was cancelled by abc. "his father ... described eddie as a sometimes brilliant boy who couldn't find enough in life to keep him interested." the father "learned ... the boy had been sniffing gas with friends so he sent him to a psychiatrist." the latter reported that the boy was "just kind of bored with life," because "there was nothing here for him to excel in.... there was no real challenge here on this earth." he "lived and died for television shows" according to the news story headline (san francisco chronicle, august 26, 1979). eddie's is, of course, an unusual case in any society, but it is more in tune with what goes on in america than in china.
chinese children share the same world with their parents, and the parents make little effort to hide their problems and real selves from their children. very early in life, chinese children learn that reward and punishment are not necessarily consistent with the estabished rules of conduct, and that justice and love do not always prevail. at the same time they are more likely than american children to become conscious of the power exercised by the environment - they see their parents' faults as well as their virtues. from the beginning, they see their parents as ordinary mortals succeeding at times but failing at others, following inevitably the paths marked by custom and tradition.
american children are not only increasingly convinced of the importance of their individual predilections, but they are equally sure that they can accomplish what they set out to achieve. in the american child's restricted and comfortable world, he experiences few irreparable setbacks and knows few situations in which he is entirely frustrated by reality. it is only parents who can impose restrictions that the child may see as barriers to his own advancement.
the chinese child is not only fully aware that he should obey his parents and other seniors, but even when he succeeds in circumventing them, he still faces the hurdles presented by custom and tradition. through his active observation of and participation in adult activities, he is already well acquainted with some of his own shortcomings and the real nature of his society. the foci of attention and power being many, the restrictions imposed upon the individual. come not merely from the parents but from the society at large. even if he resents these barriers, he can still see no point on which to center his attack, for they are too numerous and too diffuse.
consequently, chinese children's dreams are far less grandiose and their fantasies are far more down to earth. being part of the adult world they tend to be too busy with adult or adult-linked activi ties to be left to their own devices. this explains, i think, why chinese literature, regardless of political change, does not feature characters who will go it alone, and is not concerned with introspection - a condition that one scholar of chinese literature characterizes as "psychological poverty."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
school
by school age, chinese children have a fairly realistic world view. most american children of the same age understand little of the. world of human reality which awaits them." the impact of the schools makes their differences even more pronounced. the traditional chinese schools, which remained unchanged for two thousand years, and the american schools of today are different in every way imaginable.
old-style chinese schools carried forward what the growing children had learned from the preschool experience, just as modern american schools attempt to further the pattern of behavior that american youngsters learn at home. chinese children learned at home to respect their parents and tradition. in school they had the same virtues impressed on them by confucian classics. american children learn at home to follow their individual predilections. in school, it is true, they are taught to cooperate, to develop sportsmanship, and so forth, but the relentless emphasis on creativity, autonomy, and progressive teaching techniques reinforces the values learned in the home.
it is only since the beginning of the twentieth century that chinese children have been confronted with ideas and activities in school that are different from those which prevail at home. in the newer schools, for example, they learned about the relationships between germs and disease; at home their elders, who might also have attended school, but the fully traditional school, spat on the floor just as their ancestors did. in the modern schools, youngsters engaged in physical exercise, arts and crafts, and band practice; at home their elders could not see any connection between scholarship on the one hand, and calisthenics, wielding a knife, and blowing a bugle on the other.
this is not to deny that the progressive teaching technique is relatively new, even in the united states. it began in the 1920s, and its principal proponent, john dewey, believed that education should be related to a child's interests and experiences. even so, many americans today are not unfamiliar with the stereotype of the severe-looking schoolmarm in the one-room schoolhouse of early american history. but the progressive teaching philosophy and technique are indigenous american developments, and in terms of our analysis, a natural outgrowth of the american way of life.
conversely, the old-style chinese schools are truly of ancient origin. the philosophy of education on which they were based flourished in china without significant change for over twenty centuries. the new-style schools were introduced from the west from about the end of the nineteenth century and did not replace the old-style schools until about the end of world war ii. the old-style chinese schools are organic to the chinese way of life, especially in view of their age, as much as the progressive teaching technique is to the american way of life, despite its recent origin.
furthermore, although the new western-style schools in china began to confront chinese children with ideas and activities that were different from those which prevailed at home, the differences between them and the old-style chinese schools are not so great as those between chinese institutions as a whole and their american counterparts.
for one thing, american schools foster a desire and a skill for self-expression that is little known in the chinese schools. even in nursery schools, american children are taught to stand up individually to tell the rest of the class about something they know - perhaps a toy or an outing with parents. when i compare american youngsters with those i have known in china, i cannot help being amazed at the ease and the self-composure of the former when facing a single listener or a sizable audience, as contrasted with the awkwardness and the self-consciousness of chinese youngsters in similar circumstances. in old-style chinese schools there was nothing like public performance at all. for purposes of recitation, the teacher listened to each pupil, standing beside him one at a time and facing the wall, as the pupa loudly repeated that section of the classics assigned the day before. the rest of the class, which might contain up to thirty boys, could not hear the performing pupil because they would all be busy reading aloud their own assignments. in fact, it was not uncommon for a lazy teacher to have two pupils reciting simultaneously, one on each side. in modern chinese schools after 1911, public appearance came into vogue. but even then the responsibility usually fell on the shoulders of the selected few, and practically all of the public oratory in trade and high schools was performed by rote, prepared in advance, and corrected by teachers before delivery.
since 1949, public exhibition of music, dance, sculpture, painting, and crafts has become far more common than before. visitors in the seventies, my family and i included, have all marveled at the remarkable precision and, by american standards, advanced forms of the arts. performers and exhibitors are no longer limited to the select few as before. spontaneity, however, is not given priority. for the overriding emphasis, pronounced by large slogans everywhere, is on how the arts can serve laborers, farmers, and soldiers.
the american emphasis on self-expression not only enables the american child to feel unrestrained by the group, but also makes him confident that he can go beyond it. the chinese lack of emphasis on self-expression not only leads the chinese child to develop a greater consciousness of the status quo but also serves to tone down any desire on his part to transcend the larger scheme of things.
a second fundamental difference between american and chinese schools is the importance of the progressive principle in the former and the lack of any indigenous development of it in the latter. simply stated, the progressive principle has two facets: individuals learn at different rates, and individuals have different kinds of abilities.
while this principle is not equally endorsed or lived up to throughout the school system, there can be little doubt that no other single principle has had a comparable influence on american education. the rapid acceptance and widespread popularity of intelligence tests and various psychographs is one indication; the movement to provide special training to the exceptional child is another; and the many curricula in which more stress is laid on the pleasure of learning than on learning itself is a third. to the extent that the chinese tutor schools of old allowed students to proceed at different speeds, one might say that they also were particulary progressive. but this scholastic liberty was a matter of practical convenience and not a matter of principle. moreover, while american students began by taking different courses, ranging from those that were creative to ones that required some memorization, chinese students in tutor schools had to concentrate on memorizing great literature from the past and practicing the art of handwriting. there was never any thought of devising methods to make the learning process more palatable; this scholastic route had but one immediate and long-term goal: imperial examination honors leading to official rank.
the modern chinese schools, which came near and after the end of the manchu dynasty, did open the door to different curricula and aimed at somewhat different objectives. they contained most of the subjects taught in american schools, and they no longer expressly prepared men for the now nonexistent imperial examinations. but in the majority of schools, there was no freedom to choose electives. furthermore, while chinese children in modern schools learned physics and chemistry and attended physical education and craft classes, they still concentrated on reading and writing, ethics and civics, and history and geography. until world war ii, the number of chinese college students in the arts and humanities far outnumbered those in the physical sciences.
in other words, throughout the years of the chinese republic, there was no significant deviation from the confucian ideal of education in which the individual should be concerned first and foremost with his place in the scheme of human relations: emperor-subject, father-son, husband-wife, brothers, and friends.
during and since world war ii, the number of chinese college students in the physical sciences and engineering has become much larger than in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. but new-style schools in taiwan since 1945 have in many ways reaffirmed many of the educational practices and goals of traditional china. the most spectacular indication of this is what all taiwan knows today as ngo pu which, for lack of a better translation, may be described as "evil-type supplementary instruction." all grade school students have to take entrance examinations to gain admission into the better high schools. the examinations are so competitive that all school work is keyed to passing them. those who hope to succeed in these examinations (a majority) pay for supplementary instructions for several hours a day after school. many of the supplementary instructors are regular school teachers paid by the parents of the pupils. as high school pupils have to pass entrance examinations for admission to colleges and universities, this practice is even more common for them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... in addition to the emphasis on self-expression and progressive principle, there is a third facet: american schools seem to encourage a militant ethnocentrism. many american school children entertain the idea that the world outside the united states is practically a jungle: china is a land of inscrutable ways and mysterious opium dens, and africa is a "dark continent" inhavited by cannibals and wild animals. even europe is a backward place - its only export a decadent culture and its present inhabitants an unprogressive lot whose ancestors stayed behind when their more intelligent and ambitious fellows departed for america.
once i met a youngster in a park who, seeing that i was chinese and trying to be very nice, said in his boyishly exaggerated way, "the chinese are great." i asked him if he knew what was so great about them. and he responded, after a long pause, "they fly kites and they invented gunpowder."
this boy's innocence is not accidental. he was first of all assisted by popular media such as movies and comics whenever the chinbese or other orientals are included. for years we had fu manchu, the chinese laundrymen and their broken english, and harold lloyd's movies featuring pig-tailed chinese gambling their life savings away in opium dens.
... in other words, china is a land where coolies, fortune tellers, opium smokers, and primitive water wheels predominate - a picture in substantial agreement with america's popular notion of that asian land.
... presuming that school texts will undergo continuous change and evolve toward a less ethnocentric view of the world, it probably will still be a long, long time, however, before the average high school honor student from the best equipped american institution will be able to associate much more than the name of confucius, kite-flying, and gunpowder with china, and an even longer time, if ever, before american youngsters will concede that any other people on earth could have anything better than or even as good as what is to be found in america. one reason for the above is that old prejudices die hard. the familiar ideas are bound to maintain their hold in spite of the best intentions. the other reason is more deep-seated. can americans afford to allow any other people, especially a non-western people, to better them in any way? my conclusion is that they probably cannot because active superiority over others is essential to a people with the individual-centered way of life. from this angle, the reason for america's insistence on its superiority over the rest of the world, especially the non-western world, is both similar to and different from that underlying beijing's anti-united states posture in the recent past. in both cases the attitudes are functional and are dictated by felt needs. however, while the american need for superiority over others is rooted in the long- established national character of the people, the chinese need to be anti-united states was based on temporary political expediency, generally unrelated to the aspirations of the people. it was washington which rebuffed chinese communist leaders' friendly gestures, including mao's and chou's offers to visit the national capital shortly after they took power in peking. instead, the united states adhered to the domino theory of [former secretary of state] john foster dulles, and pursued a china encirclement policy. such attitudes and acts were what led to beijing's militancy toward the united states. consequently, chinese militancy toward america could change in short order as new circumstances developed. the american approach toward the rest of the world, however, is likely to be longer lasting in spite of setbacks such as vietnam .
to the chinese, confucian classics were, of course, the only important matters of learning, and history was written from the chinese point of view alone. it is something of a surprise for many a present-day chinese, including myself, to learn that genghis khan and his successors considered china only as a province of his much vaster empire, since the mongol rule was presented in chinese books simply as a dynasty, yuan, in the sense that tang, sung, and ming were also dynasties. many popular novels, either of the supernatural or the realistic kind, depicted victorious expeditions of founders of dynasties or their generals. some of these dealt with battles between chinese and "barbarians" but more often the opponents were all chinese. the most famous chinese versus "barbarian" war was that waged by the clever tactician, chu ke liang, of three kingdoms fame (a.d. 220-286) against a southern tribal chieftain, meng hu. in this campaign, chu ke liang was supposed to have defeated and captured his "barbarian" opponent six times-each time the captive was released and each time he came back with a more formidable invading force. but when he was captured the seventh time and was once again released, meng hu vowed "eternal allegiance" to the han people. in popular chinese thought, chu ke liang's actions were a great feat of "conquest of hearts" and it has ever since been eulogized in chinese historical writings.
however, the chinese, while always maintaining their own unquestioned superiority and conscious of their differences from others, never entertained the notion that their inferiors should change their ways of life. some of the "barbarians" became "cooked barbarians" (shufan) in that they took on chinese speech and culture; they were welcomed. many of them remained "raw barbarians" (shengfan),- they were also left alone. some chinese undoubtedly considered the latter unfortunate, but it was their own business.
for this reason, the chinese attitude vis-a-vis the non-chinese world must be characterized as passive superiority, in contrast to american and western active superiority. neither attitude is an unmixed blessing, and we shall see the logical consequences associated with each as we journey through the body of this book. white westerners in china were, of course, objects of curiosity to chinese children and adults, as were asians in the united states. the chinese nickname for westerners was "ocean-born devil or ghost" (yang kuei tze) primarily because of their pale skin, and the frequent occurrence of blue eyes and blond hair. the chinese associated these colors with death and funerals just as many americans equate the color yellow with cowardice and white with purity and weddings. but because of their attitude of passive superiority, chinese parents and teachers, far from encouraging their children to disregard all non-chinese things and values, actually insisted on a relativistic view of the world. chinese, for instance, have for many centuries revered written characters, which they believe to have been created by past sages. there were many "societies for saving papers with written characters. " these societies employed collectors who roamed around town, with forks in hand and baskets on their backs, gathering such scattered pieces. the bits were then burned at the local confucian temple. it was believed that a person who used inscribed papers for toilet purposes would be struck dead by lightning. and one who accidentally stepped on a book must pick it up and place it on his head momentarily for propitiation. we might imagine that chinese parents and teachers would restrict their feelings to chinese written characters, but this was not usually the case. i knew a number of parents and village tutor-teachers who advised their children or pupils to treat with equal reverence pieces of paper on which there was writing, whether the words were chinese or foreign. "after all," i heard one father say, "the foreign words must have been created by foreign sages."
this seemingly minor episode is an expression of a basic aspect of the chinese orientation to the world. with the coming of the new schools and a new curriculum, the age-old injunction against defiling of the written character has been noticeably relaxed in many quarters. however, in this new curriculum, which prevailed until the rise of the communist regime when jingoism and mao's sayings began to overshadow everything else, school children learned not only about great men and significant events in chinese history, but they also read and heard about the scientific investigations and statesmanship of benjamin franklin, columbus and his discovery of the new world, abraham lincoln's efforts to emancipate the slaves, the magna carta, and the french revolution. as early as the first or second grade, i learned in an ethics course how george washington when a small boy cut down a cherry tree and was honest with his father about it, how a famous french scholar by the name of montaigne used all his spare time, including the few minutes before and after dinner, to write his thoughts down so that in ten years he accumulated a tremendous volume, and how the scotsman, robert bruce, after disastrous defeats at the hands of his english adversaries, was inspired to victory by the actions of a spider which tirelessly and successfully built its web in spite of destructive winds. some of these anecdotes are, of course, myths. but they are myths that represented the united states and the west in a favorable light. it is no exaggeration to say that the average american high school graduate knows very little about the rest of the world, especially asia and africa. it is equally true that the average chinese high school graduate, before the rise of the new regime in 1949, tended to have a fuller view of the world and its inhabitants .
the usual chinese description of things american is that they are different. this remains basically so in taiwan today even though, since the country is under the pressure of so much american influence, the idea of american superiority often asserts itself. on the other hand, the usual and prevailing american view of the chinese is that they do everything the wrong way. this does not deny the existence of a very small american minority of sinophiles.
we have seen that american parents encourage a feeling of self-importance in their children who live in a world quite separate from reality; and the american educational system confirms this initial tendency. this belief in personal invincibility affects the belief in the invincibility of the country. this last conviction has an inevitable effect on internal politics and the conduct of international affairs.
the child's private world cannot, however, be kept distinct from that of the elders indefinitely. american children, when they begin school, for the first time come into close contact with persons, ideas, and activities over which the parents exercise little or no control. the children must submit some of their ideas about themselves and their environment to mild tests of reality. the chinese child, having never been set apart from the world of his elders, faces no such trial. he has always been in contact with a multiplicity of persons and he has few illusions about his own capabilities and how he may fare in the world.
serious dislocations often result when the american child enters school life. these occur in two principal areas, the first of which is the religious. the majority of american children are raised in the christian faith, learning its prayers, attending sunday school, and participating in other church activities. as they are initiated into the wonders of science, with its mechanistic description of the universe, they cannot but apply the same mechanical principles to their conception of religion. for example, how can god watch over all of us at the same time? who or what created god? how do we explain the miracles? having been encouraged to be rational about things, american children will ask these and innumerable other questions. but finding no satisfactorily "scientific" answers to these questions, american parents and teachers have had to evade the issues. some children will feel compelled to explain the supernatural in mechanistic terms. recently, i overheard one child say to his playmate: "jesus is right in this room. we cannot see him because he is of every shape and color." this child was simply repeating the arguments i have heard in many a church and sunday school. but his playmate extended the argument thus, to an extent not usually acceptable to ministers or sunday-school teachers: "god must have very long, long legs, and he stands in the middle of the world. he can look this way or that way any time he pleases. that's why he is everywhere. "
are parents going to accept these explanations? or are they to tell children that such ideas are wrong, that religious belief and the reality of life belong to two different orders? if they take the latter view, how are they to tell children that religion will have anything to do with a life and a universe which are increasingly described in scientific terms? if they take the former view, how can they face the question as to whether god is also in the ugly things that children of school age must have seen?
most american parents i know tend to gloss over these questions, and have no effective reply to their children's mechanistic statements about god. yet a child whose preschool years are marked by idealistic simplicity in which everything is consistently right or wrong, true or false, must be confused by the new situation in which the once authoritative and positive words of the. parents become vague, facts are at variance, and ambiguity is everywhere. that is why a "god is dead" movement can arouse so much public attention. i have no figures to indicate whether its adherents are predominantly young, but this is probably the case. theologians will undoubtedly be able to invent arguments showing that standard bearers of the "god is dead" movement do not mean god is dead. for our purposes this movement is merely another symptom of confusion and doubt.
chinese children face no such problems. in the first place, religion in china, as we shall see later, is much more matter-of-fact than it is in america. christianity and judaism depend upon fixed dogmas which in turn must depend upon constant interpretation to relate them to the actuality of human existence. chinese creeds have a few simple dogmas plainly tied to life's immediate problems, such as, if one has eye trouble the goddess of eyesight will help; or dogmas needing no extended argument to be convincing, such as, that ancestors and their own descendants have a community of interest. chinese religion is nontheoretical, utilitarian, or based on self-evident truisrns that require no defense. it is unlikely to come into conflict with other chinese values or beliefs.
secondly, the american child is from birth conditioned to attach himself to one parental authority, to one set of truths, and to one style of life that is absolutely right. to maintain this singleness of life, it is inevitable that he will want to synthesize his knowledge of science and religion.
the chinese child is from the beginning, conditioned to a multiple parental authority, to many points of view, and to the vicissitudes of a life in which circumstance dictates inconsistency, doubt, and compromise. it is almost inevitable that he should compartmentalize his experiences. even if a medicine based on scientific experiments is proven to be more efficacious than offerings to gods, why should he not use both tools?
finally, with their attitude of active superiority, most americans who give themselves to science have a tendency to deny and to disprove all other avenues to truth. but with their attitude of passive superiority, their chinese counterparts have no comparable concern.
in exactly the same way, chinese worshipers of one god did not care about the blasphemous. for the chinese will say, "if you are bad the gods will punish you. why should i usurp the gods' place?" for practical reasons, most americans do live with conflicting standards. but i have not found any american counterpart of this kind of chinese reasoning. this attitude explains why, when the modern schools began to campaign against idolatry and superstition (meaning a traditional chinese religious beliefs), few educated chinese youngsters came into conflict with their parents. nor do i know of any chinese parents who withdrew their children from the schools that taught agnosticism or christianity. in brief, there were no difficulties caused solely by the fact that the home and the modern school taught sharply different things.
the second difficulty facing the american child in school, at least among the middle and upper-middle classes, is the gap between his idealized childhood world and the real world. the latter is no longer the protective environment of the family nursery, with supportive parents to buffer the outside world. the new surroundings may be beautiful or ugly, comforting or cruel; the child discovers that some of his schoolmates have a lot and others little. even if he is talented and very bright, he may still have trouble, for the exceptional child often faces social ostracism by his less gifted peers. but if he is not, his misery will be an entirely new experience. if he is from a lower class while his associates come from better circumstances, or worse still, if he belongs to a religious or racial minority, he is now in for wounds which he never thought god or santa claus would ever allow any human to inflict.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
social needs and values
the impact of these new forces on the american child is strong because of the values placed by the culture on self-reliance. very early in life the american child learns to think in terms of private property. he appreciates the difference between what is his and what is not. at school age he begins to become aware that what belongs to his parents is out of bounds to him. his basic needs are provided by the family, but he begins to earn some money, if only from his parents, or to handle a weekly allowance. soon he is aware that after eighteen or twenty-one years of age his parents will have no obligation to support him in any way. this is the foundation of a businesslike relationship between american parents and children which assumes increasing clarity as the years go by.
we must outline the social needs of the human individual before we are able to see clearly the results of the two patterns of parent-child relationship. although we are accustomed to think of human beings as entities, each human being is always tied to a web of fellow human beings. i use the word "tied" advisedly, for every human being must live in association with other human beings. this is why solitary confinement is one of the most severe punishments man can suffer and why, as we shall see later, rehabilitation programs such as alcoholics anonymous, alateen (for children whose parents are alcoholics), al-anon (for spouses of alcoholics), encounter in manhattan and palmer drug abuse program in dallas (both organizations to combat narcotics addiction), are all based on dependence on some form of group affiliation for the client.
this kind of "cure" created the following predicament for the husband of a reformed alcoholic, described in his letter to ann landers:
through alcoholics anonymous my wife has been sober for nearly five years. my problem is an unusual one. when she was drunk she was home all the time. now, i hardly see her anymore. when i come home from work she is getting ready to go to an aa meeting. she rarely returns before midnight.... (honolulu advertiser, january 22, 1980)
what do human beings seek among their fellow human beings? they crave satisfaction of one or all of three social needs - sociability, security, and status.
sociability embodies the individual's enjoyment of being with other human beings: to see them, to rub shoulders with them, to hear them, to speak with them, to complain to them and to listen to their gripes, to gossip, and to engage in various degrees of body contact with them. the closest sociability is the intimacy between a man and a woman. the loosest sociability is new year's eve on times square. between these extremes we have cocktail parties, dances, fox hunts, family gatherings, conversation between friends, seminars and conferences, coffee klatches, and psychotherapy sessions.
security signifies the predictability of the individual's human environment, now or in the future. it has two components. first, every individual wants to be certain that an assured number of his fellow human beings are his intimates and share with him certain aims, thoughts, or action patterns. second, in time of need he can count on their sympathy and support just as they can count on his. these are what we in daily speech express in terms of loyalty, faithfulness, fidelity, or devotion. every individual needs to have some fellow men in whom he can confide his worst thoughts without the fear that they are going to despise him or draw away from him. when he speaks or expresses himself or acts, he needs to have a fair certainty regarding the kind of reaction he will receive. the highest security is that of the armed forces in peacetime, when the individual's movements and even recreation are well regulated. the lowest security is that of riots or war. between these extremes are many human associations that affect one's sense of belonging to a group: friendship, clubs, cliques, political parties, church or temple, gang, honor society, or residentiial group.
status provides the individual with his sense of importance among his fellow men. it is the rank or comparative position occupied by the individual in his group, and of the rank or comparative position of his own group vis-a-vis other groups, with the specific attitudes, duties, and privileges associated with it. status can be seen in sports, in economic pursuits, in the professions, in academic achievements, in politics, among churchmen as well as hunters. it is felt by students no less than by warriors. the chinese concepts of face and of propriety, and the american sensitivity to prestige and superiority are all familiar expressions of the same need. the utmost concern for status is to be found in a caste situation, where inter-dining or even sight of the lower groups carries pollution. an example of almost total lack of concern for status is to be found in some monasteries such as those of trappist monks where all distinctions are conscientiously removed. but even the trappist monks must regard their form of devotion as far superior to that of other orders.
the drug and alcohol rehabilitation groups mentioned before and those like them satisfy all three social needs. they provide ample company for the lonely. their highly regulated programs make the human relation very predictable. and the more each such group distinguishes itself by size, by visibility or whatever, the higher the sense of status it confers on its members vis-a-vis the people outside it.
so far we have spoken about needs shared by americans, chinese, and human beings in all societies. returning to our earlier discussion of the two differing patterns of parent-child relationships, we shall come to some interesting results. the first human group in which the american or the chinese individual satisfies his social needs is the biological family consisting of parents and siblings. this is where, as every reader knows, he has so much of his siblings' and his parents' - especially his mother's - attention, that he sometimes wishes that they would leave him alone. this is where his every move and what he eats are so regulated that often he purposely does the opposite of what he has been told or refuses to eat food his mother offers him. and finally, this is where he first vies with his siblings for parental favors, but his parents, if they are wise, will make sure that failures are covered up and successes are praised, so that he may not suffer from an inferiority complex.
however, the self-reliant orientation makes it impossible for the american child to continue satisfying his social needs in the kinship group. even before school age the american child, because of the american customs concerning cribs, separate bedrooms, baby-sitters, and the american emphasis on peers, has already frequently and clearly led something of a separate existence from his parents. still, since he is very much under the protective care and supervision of his parents, the best the american child can do at this stage of the game is to sometimes hide his activities from his parents and to unite with his siblings as a defense against his parents. the horizontal gravitation toward siblings is the beginning of opposition between the young and the old, which anticipates the generation gap to come later. the exclusive nature of the average american family makes it inevitable that, for the young child, his parents are the only great man and woman in existence. therefore parents still figure greatly in the boastful world of youngsters. i once heard the son of a naval petty officer telling his playmates how absolutely useless the army and the air force were. more recently i saw a cartoon of two boys, the bigger of whom said to the other, "my father has been a father longer than yours. " but by the time he is in second grade, the american child begins to realize that socially he and his elders are separate individuals.
having been taught to rely on himself from the beginning, he is now ready to explore the wider world on the same basis. yet his social needs prevent him from being independent of other human beings. when the american child, driven by independence training, wants to make it on his own, he must seek another group to substitute for the group at hand. this means that the american youngster, at school age, must learn to transfer his allegiance from the kinship (and kinship-connected) group to a group composed of his. unrelated peers, the gang. even siblings of the same sex cannot figure for long in this group. for, while siblings are better than parents, they are still connected with a group that he has not made on his own. the american child must, therefore, gravitate away from a group in which he has been deeply entrenched without trying, in favor of a group in which his membership is subject to change without notice. furthermore, his place in the latter group is often adversely affected by the closeness of his relationship with the former. the net effect of .his allegiance to the gang is the systematic undermining of his relationship with his parents.
this is not a question of love or lack of love for his parents. even if he loves them, his needs for sociability, security, and status among his peer group must take precedence over his feelings for his elders. it is not even that he misunderstands his elders. rather, the urgency of his own social needs precludes his acceptance of their communication. to make it on one's own is truly an all-pervasive american value. even the superhero "spider man" [in a 1980 story line] of the comics is trying desperately to make it on his own, as peter parker, without the aid of his web-slinging powers.
thus, many american children give up music lessons despite parental protests, because the gang considers such skills to be sissi fied. many american children shun foreign languages regardless of their ancestral background, because their linguistic prowess is derided by their playmates. i have known chinese children raised in the united states who spat at anyone who dared talk to them in chinese, and children of french origin who tearfully told their parents that they couldn't possibly continue to speak french. one wealthy german couple hired a german governess to speak german with their son, who was of course learning english in school. soon the governess gave up because she could not make her charge follow any orders except in english. conflict can develop over many matters - hair, dress, hours, sex, and drugs. the american child has to flout parental wishes because of his fear of rejection by his own peers. the more insecure he is about this, the more he must conform to the standards of his peer group at the expense of those of his parents. the american school child's insecurity is easily matched by that of, his parents. american parents, as we have mentioned, have complete control over their children. while consciously grooming them to be independent, they have unconsciously never doubted that the youngsters are inseparable parts of themselves. for by independence, they really mean that the youngsters can do those things for themselves of which the parents approve, but not others which the elders frown on. in this they are, of course, safe as long as the children are young; small children can be manipulated reasonably easily. they can coax the little ones to take care of themselves, but at the same time be fully certain that such independence does not go far. yet the situation is never stationary. the infant can be satisfied with a bottle or when he is picked up and held. at three or four, a male child may be placated by having a haircut like daddy's or a female child by being dressed like mommy. but at each successive age level, as his physical and mental powers grow, the increasingly autonomous little individual demands fuller freedom to do things on his own, and in his own way.
sometimes, after the child's entry into school, the american parents, having been used to confining youthful antics within a playpen, suddenly face a serious threat to their control. their children have figured too largely as part of the satisfaction of their own social needs. they have seen and cuddled their children every day. they have watched and directed the youngster's habits and speech. they have praised and been proud of their progeny's performance. and in a this they have had an exclusive and strong hand. now they are faced with the prospect of seeing little of the children, of having less to say about how they act, and even of being less proud of what they do. it is not unnatural that they feel threatened. the more they have been accustomed to having complete control, and the more their children have helped satisfy their social needs, the harder it is for parents to relinquish this control.
american parents feel threatened not merely because of reluctance to relinquish control. their society is one in which each succeeding generation ruthlessly replaces the previous one; once the children become independent, parents have no honored place in their children's lives. school age gives the parents a preview of the children's future independence and of their own progressive decline from a position of dominance. this is a prospect or transition that few human beings can take with equanimity. the children's departure from the close, warm circle of the family thus creates a cloud of insecurity in the shadow of which both parents and children henceforth move. consequently, instead of welcoming the prospect of their children's ultimate independence, many american parents experience increasing anxiety as their youngsters progress. some parents, as their children grow away from them, declare that they are glad to be free and that they would not have it any other way. perhaps so, but such declarations are frequently necessary for the protection of parental pride. on the other hand, more american parents try, in one way or another, to hold on to the parent-child bond. the results are not at all certain. in infancy, the simple formula of more attention-greater attachment and less attention-diminished attachment undoubtedly works in most cases. but children at school, under pressure to be both independent and to be themselves with the gang, are a different matter. some succumb to an increase in parental charm. their love for their parents increases, and the calls of the gang go unanswered. these children are described derogatorily as being tied to their mothers' apron strings and if they continue this close attachment will in later life be known as "poor marital risks." here american parents face a dilemma. though wanting their children to be close to them, they are worried when their children are unpopular with their peer group. most youngsters reject parental affection in favor of that of their own playmates, and they must do so with an ever-increasing sense of rebellion. well-adjusted american children advance in a direction.determined by their way of life much earlier: a way of life characterized by strong emotionality and the encouragement of individual predilection.
chinese school children and their parents find life much easier in this respect. having always been a part of the real world, the children are now prepared to deal with this same reality on a broader basis. they are not shocked by injustices, slights, or untruths, because they have already experienced or learned to expect these trials. at twelve or fourteen, most of them are not merely acquainted with their, future places and problems in society - they are already full-fledged members of that society.
this realistic orientation is furthered by the chinese ideal of mutual dependence, which is the exact opposite of the american spirit of self-reliance. we have already noted that the chinese son has to support his father; the chinese father is likewise obligated to support his son. this reciprocity is a social contract that lasts for life. the idea of a legal will is alien to chinese thought, for a chinese father's assets, no less than his liabilities, go automatically and equally to his several sons before or after his death.
the chinese child learns about his permanent link with his parents in diverse ways. for one thing, he never has to manage an allowance. he is free to spend whatever he can get out of his parents; the idea of earning money from one's parents is considered laughable by chinese. consequently, while necessity causes poor chines children to appreciate the value of money, youngsters from wealthier families rarely learn this.
the social tie between chinese parents and sons is equally automatic, inviolable, and life-long. this proverb expresses the of the pattern: "first thirty years, one looks at the father and the son; second thirty years, one looks at the son and respects the father." that is to say, while the son is young the father's social status determines that of the son; but later the son's social status determines that of the father.
for this reason, the sons of the powerful, however young they may be, are as powerful as their fathers, while the fathers can, even after retirement, wield the authority and status they derive from the position of their sons. once this is understood, i think the reader will even more readily see why it would not have been possible for any chinese son to write about his mother, famous or not, the way james roosevelt did about mrs. eleanor roosevelt.
this means that the chinese child not only finds satisfaction of all his social needs in the kinship group where he begins life, but he is also under no compulsion to leave it as he grows up. having been exposed gradually to the adult world, the chinese child tends always to gravitate vertically. he plays games or gambles with his elders on festival occasions; he works together with them in the fields and markets. the automatically shared community of interests between him and his parents makes it unnecessary for him to go it alone. if the child has a few friends among unrelated peers, it is condoned. but if he has many of them and their common activities interfere with his studies or family duties, his friends will be branded "fox friends and dog cronies" and he, a wastrel. on the other hand, he will be much admired as an example of a good son and a good man if he has few outside associations and devotes his entire energy toward working and pleasing his parents. popularity among peers is a condition which some chinese youngsters may enjoy, but it is not an objective toward which they must strive. because of this, the chinese have known neither the problem of the generation gap nor the fear of being known as a teacher's pet. both of these situations reflect a horizontal orientation in which the young are pitted against the old, or the subjects of authority against its sources.
consequently, while the american father who basks in his son's glory or the son who profits from his father's fame will always object to any suggestion that this is the case, a similarly situated chinese father or son has no such desire to conceal his source of strength. in case the identity of such an individual is temporarily obscured, he is likely to reassert his position in just so many words. thus, the chinese pattern of mutual dependence, as opposed to american pattern of self-reliance, provides satisfaction in being under the protection of elders. for the parent-child ties are permanent rather than transitory. it is taken for granted that they are immutable, and so are not subject to individual acceptance or rejection. secure in the shadow of their ancestors, chinese youngsters of school age have no great psychological urge to seek any alliance outside the kin group.
for chinese children, therefore, the call of their own age group possesses none of the dictatorial compulsion that it has for their american brethren. chinese boys and girls are able to get along wit their play groups without having to part with the things their parents, represent. my own experience illustrates the point. when my parents moved their home from a south manchurian village to an east manchurian town, i was for the first time in my life confronted with a dialect difference. my first-grade schoolmates spoke a dialect considerably different from mine. within six weeks, i had changed over, to the speech prevailing in school when i was there, but at home spoke in my original tongue, although my parents never suggested that i do so. this transition occurred again when i went to peking and once more when i went to shanghai. each time i acquired a new dialect. but each new dialect was merely added to the list of those my command. this pattern was true of all chinese youngsters whom i knew, even with reference to entirely foreign languages, for russian and japanese were both widely known in manchuria, french in yunnan, and english in the rest of china. furthermore, these additional dialects and languages never prevented the individual from firmly retaining his original tongue, even though he took pride in his personal achievement in speaking them.
chinese parents, on their part, have little reason for anxiety their children grow older. first, never having been exclusive masters of their children, they do not feel rejected when the children becom more independent. second, the chinese parent-child relationship is permanent. a father is always a father, whether or not he is loving or kind. a son is always a son; rarely is he disowned because he is not dutiful. lastly, chinese social organization is such that age, far from being a defect, is a blessing. chinese parents have no reason to regret their children's maturity, for it assures not a lesser role but a more respected place for themselves.
the chinese pattern of mutual dependence thus forms the basis of a mutual psychological security for both the old and the young.: when children have little need to leave home, parents have little need to hold. the result is a life-style in which individual predilections are minimized not because there is strong restraint that demands conformity, but because the emotions of the individual are neutralized since he is satisfied with things as they are.
in chapter 13, we shall see the relevance of this contrast to the problems of old age and juvenile delinquency. here it should be. noted that most american parents assert that their children present bigger and more complex problems as they grow older. the elders are most troubled when the youngsters draw near adolescence. most chinese parents see the situation entirely differently. their children become less of a problem as they become older. until the time of extensive contact with the west, the chinese did not recognize adolescence as a specific period of human development, had no exact term to designate it, and had no literature on the subject.
but the same contrast is sharpened by two more factors. for one thing, practically all americans go to school until they are sixteen, while even in 1945 less than 30 percent of chinese children received any formal education at all. consequently, for the majority of chinese, their transition from childhood to adulthood has been, up to recent decades, even less turbulent than the picture presented here.
since 1949, many movements, some better known in the west for their involvement of youths in the form of red guards and little red soldiers, have seemed to bring about drastic changes in this picture. they have certainly activated many sectors of the society formerly dormant and suppressed others formerly active. however, as we shall see in chapter 15, even today the changes have not been that fundamental.
the other factor is the concept of equality as an active ideal, which has been as important in america as it has been insignificant in china. to evaluate the part played by this concept in the american way of life, we must first examine the differences between europe and the united states.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
excerpts from chapter 4
where europe ends and america begins
throughout these first three chapters, many readers have probably asked: isn't the way of life which the author designates as american fundamentally the same as the anglo-saxon, and isn't this itself but one floor of a european civilization which formed the foundation and framework for all later developments? i must answer in the affirmative. when i speak of individual-centeredness as an american characteristic, i am reminded of the individualism of england. when i describe the emotional intensity peculiar to the people of the united states, i realize that i have characterized it by examples in art, literature, and romantic love which, without exception, had their origin in europe. but it is no less true that the american way of life has also departed considerably from that of england. many writers have given lengthy consideration to the subject. there is, however, one simple but central fact - while individualism is the basis of the english way of life, self-reliance has taken its place in america.
the initial differences between english individualism and american self-reliance are not obscure. english individualism developed hand in hand with legal equality. american self-reliance, on the other hand, has been inseparable from an insistence upon economic and social as well as political equality. the result is that a qualified individualism, with a qualified equality, has prevailed in england, but what has been considered the unalienable right of every american is unrestricted self-reliance and, at least ideally, unrestricted equality. the english, therefore, tend to respect class-based distinctions in birth, wealth, status, manners, and speech, while americans resent them.
admittedly, these are strong generalizations that in fact vary from individual to individual. but it is only in the perspective of these attitudes that we can understand the following scene. a child does something naughty. his mother punishes him. the child becomes angry and sulks. the mother cleans up the mess, and asks the child, "are we still friends?" the child grunts, "humph." the mother is satisfied. similarly it is not at all unusual for an american mother to be called a good mother because "she lives for her children," just as an american father may express his disgust with an ungrateful son by mournfully asking, "haven't i done everything for him?"
the differences between the parent-child relationship in america and that in england are reflected faithfully in innumerable other areas of anglo-american life: between employers and employees, teachers and pupils, ministers and their congregations, males and females, government leaders and their constituents, and different classes and different occupations. the most widespread expression of the american pattern is the tendency toward complete informality, which reaches its extreme in a desire to be free of all boundaries, restraints, and traditions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the rise of the american way of life
the american pattern of self-reliance and its concomitant demand for freedom from restraints evolved because of three factors. first, in the environment of an undeveloped continent the pioneers found that self-sufficiency was an actuality, a prerequisite for survival that they had not experienced in their homelands. this is the basis of the famous turner frontier theory. the self-sufficiency of those who survived produced in pioneer americans and many of those who came later an undeniable ruggedness of character, a degree of mastery over the environment, and a feeling of individual importance that provided the foundation for self-reliance.
but self-sufficiency alone, however complete, could not have been, the touchstone of the american way of life. many a chinese farmer in china before 1949 could, and in taiwan today can produce practically all he and his family need: food, clothing, housing, and even, transportation. many of his immediate ancestors migrated to manchuria, where land was cheap, opportunities abundant, and where the conditions of life paralleled those in the american west in more ways than one. the chinese in manchuria never developed an outlook even remotely similar to that of the americans because the self-sufficiency of the former was a result of circumstances, not of preference. as soon as he could lead the existence of a village landlord or an absentee landlord in some town or city, the erstwhile chinese pioneer not only ceased to be self-sufficient in fact, but he consciously tried to forget the entire experience. he would hold on to his land for land was his status symbol and his security. but the chinese have never believed that all individuals should be self-sufficient.
the self-sufficiency of pioneer americans was rooted in individualalism, which is the second factor in the development of the american way of life. their self-sufficiency was a channel into which their individualism could flow without restraint, and which was necessary if families were to survive in a hostile environment. and unfettered individualism became an ideal that they inculcated into their children and by which they judged the worth of all mankind.
however, even the emphasis on individualistic self-sufficiency is not enough to explain the american way. the pioneers who went to australia, new zealand, canada, and africa were also self-sufficient to varying extents, and most came from lands where individualism was a dominant ideal. but they did not evolve a way of life identical or even too similar to that of america. this does not mean that some americans may not find australia or canada more congenial than india or malaysia. there were apologists for apartheid who attempted to equate the situation of the republic of south africa with that of the united states. for example, clarence randall, former chairman of the board of inland steel company, found white south africans "lovable," and "just like ourselves." (chicago sunday sun-times, february 3,1963).
the fact is that in spite of grudging white concessions in recent years giving blacks slightly more freedom and a subterfuge for racial equality in the planned so-called independent black states within its boundaries, the republic of south africa remains [as of 1981] the most racially unequal society in the world. the laws of the republic of south africa and even much of its theology still openly propound and promote racial inequality, whereas in the united states, the racists and the religious bigots are everywhere on the defensive. australia and new zealand have never developed any internal movement for equality to their indigenous population.' even today when the united states has already abolished the last vestiges of ethnic discrimination in her immigration laws, new zealand and australia still cling to their basically all-white policy.
the difference will be more understandable when a third factor in the american development, not present in the others, is considered. that is revolution. the english people who pioneered in the other lands made no sharp break from the political rule of britain, however nominal, but the american revolution, a violent political separation, permitted other significant developments. in the first place, a break from the crown meant the brushing aside of all things for which the crown symbolically stood: differences in social privileges, inequality in wealth, and class or status-based distinctions in manners. whereas the english upper and lower classes maintain their respective "public school" and lower-class accents, american speech differences are mostly geographic. whereas the english look up to titles, american law requires that no immigrant can be naturalized unless he relinquishes them. the reverential attitude of the english toward their royal family contrasts with the buddy-like atmosphere that surrounds the relationship between the american people and their president." these phenomena are most illustrative of these profound anglo-american differences.
secondly, the american attitude toward the head of the government gave a tremendous impetus to the quest for equality and made it a much more obvious point of contention in america than in england. while inequality in principle has been attacked by various social and political movements in england, inequality in fact has always been accepted as a matter of tradition and custom. in england, the impact of inequality on the individual has been greatly mitigated by his psychological tie with the past. the american, having successfully broken with the crown. for the express purpose of achieving equality and freedom, has found such inequalities to be emotionally unacceptable. this resultant intensity of american feeling about a self-reliant, equal system permeates all aspects of political, economic, religious, and social life.
this emphasis on self-reliance has caused geoffrey gorer to observe - mistakenly, i think - that the psychology of the individual american is built on a rejection of the father just as the american society began by rejecting europe. gorer errs for two reasons. first, there is little evidence that americans reject their fathers or that the american society as a whole rejects its connection with europe. on the contrary, there is, for example, a surprising degree of occupational continuity between fathers and sons, just as there is pride in kinship ties with england and in acceptance of european art, european fashions, and even european products. american aid to europe was much more massive than that to other continents. second, insofar as the psychological evidence permits, there seems to be more rejection of mothers in america than of fathers. american husbands, either because they hope to be friends with their children or because they are too busy at work, usually leave the disciplinarian aspect to their wives. this situation leads to a gre |
