Comments on: “What do you want most from the West?”

By: Lesley

Lesley — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:46:02 +0000

Sorry, but both James and Joel appear to misunderstand the seed salesman. He is talking about respect from the “West” to “China”, not personal action toward another individual. Here respect = equality. Mainlanders do not feel the West treating China equally or fairly. I am surprised that a seed salesman said this – I agree with him.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:07:37 +0000

Hi, Sorry I can’t find any contact email or anything, but I just wanted to tell you we did an interview with Rob Gifford, and can make the radio programme available to you. (we’re a Chinese community radio station in London – sorry for the plug, but I did try to find an email address…)

Maybe you could contact me?

Peter

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:13:04 +0000

Sadly, I agree. At least from what I can see so far, Mr. Zhou and Mainlanders like him are never going to get what they want from “the West” because we don’t even comprehend what it is they want (face), and even if we did, we wouldn’t be all that inclined to give it (assuming we even knew how) because it seems like a silly game to us.

Even the word “respect” — I sometimes wonder if Mainlanders and North Americans operate with different ideas of that this means. I don’t really know, but I get the impression that “respect” for Mainlanders might have more to do with outward actions that give face and less to do with what the people involved really think on the inside. But when North Americans think of “respect,” at least for me, it has everything to do with whether or not I truly esteem someone for who I think they truly are, not whether or not I’m willing to make respectful public gestures to someone just because they’re a big-shot.

By: James Adams

James Adams — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:54:46 +0000

For Mr. Zhou – when he arrives in the U.S. he will be terribly disappointed when he finds he has moved from a society where hierarchy, position and age are important, to a “sibiling society” where all are equal – or strive to appear so.

He will be accepted by his U.S. neighbors as an equal, but nobody gets repected until they have done something to earn it.

By: James Adams

James Adams — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:47:02 +0000

The huge problem with this idea of respect is we have two different cultural beliefs.

In Asia respect comes from (1) age, or (2) deeds.

In the U.S. respect only comes from deeds – age means almost nothing.

Furthermore, in the U.S., no matter what you do, you will always have vocal media detractors tearing down/misrepresenting what you do.

China will never get the respect it feels it is due from the U.S. or the West.