Anti Socialism

This week I find myself pondering a conversation that took place around a rather beautifully carved tree trunk of gargantuan proportions that had been made into a very elaborate and very decorative tea table. Such items are not rare in China, but this particular one was one of the most impressive examples of the form I have yet come across. The subtle planes and curves had been carved and created in such a way as to allow any liquids that escaped from the processes of tea making and consumption to flow gently and gracefully down to a drainage point. Within the design there were temples and stairs, elaborate paths and gardens, hints of creatures and men. In an odd way, it reminded one of an M.C.Escher creation – one of those gorgeously illogical illusions wherein the stairs seem to forever lead upward but somehow manage to simultaneously descend in a never ending spiral.

There were several of us gathered around this table in the vestibule of a martial arts school. The son of the shifu, who went by the wonderfully prosaic English name of 'Stan', felt the need to enlighten me as to the fundamental nature of the peoples of the East as opposed to those of the West. According to Stan, those of us from the Western hemisphere are physically much stronger than those from the East. To make up for this perceived lack, those from the Eastern parts, and particular the Chinese, are able to compensate by employing their superior intelligence.

An interesting theory I thought, though perhaps not fully supported by such things as facts or scientific evidence (or even logic, for that matter). Stan seemed quite enamoured of this theory however, and went on to elucidate the finer details of his challenging concept. He pointed out that the Chinese, unlike Westerners, were often 'naturally' very poor at team games, such as football or basketball, but made up for this lack by being very, very good at such individual pursuits sports as ping pong and badminton. The reason for this apparently was that unlike their rather slow-witted Western counterparts, the Chinese were far too bright to be limited by such dull considerations as the good of the team.

The others sharing the delights of both the liquid libations and and the conversation with me, all of whom were of exclusively Chinese decent, could be seen nodding sagely at this point, in full agreement apparently with the underlying gist of Stan's theory. Thus encouraged, our host went on to point out that this was why the Chinese made such poor drivers. Their intelligence quickly determined that there was little to be gained by following the rules of the road when it would be far more advantageous to simply look after one's own needs so, unlike Western drivers, they felt themselves unconstrained by such restrictive notions as giving way, signaling, stopping at red lights or pedestrian crossings, and so forth.

Although much of the conversation was by this stage striking me as almost surrealistically absurd, there was a germ of truth contained within his words (a very small, undeveloped and microscopic creature to be sure, but a germ nevertheless). There does seem to be an individualism to the Chinese people that totally belies the notion of communist automata that they are painted as by some in the West. Indeed, the individuality here is often so pronounced that it spills over into the most extreme of anti-social behaviours. The thinking seems to be that if you or those in your immediate group can gain advantage, then the effects on others is of little or no consequence or concern. This breeds an indifference, even a callousness, that has to be seen to be believed at times.

A few common examples may serve to illustrate my point. Currently I am residing in a small flat in a sub-district of the City of Dongguan. My days are fairly long, as befits a slow moving flaneur, often leaving at around eight in the morning and only returning at around ten at night, by which time I am usually somewhat tired and in need of some sleep, or at least the semblance of a decent rest. Oft times though, this desire is thwarted by the drivers of cars in the quiet street outside. Even the slightest notion of something that might possibly impede the manic momentum of these drivers is enough to draw loud, prolonged and repeated sounding of the horn from them. Bearing in mind that at two o'clock in the morning, they are often the only car moving along the lane and all that is bothering them is the sight of some distant person wandering home or the odd stray cat (the notion of simply slowing down seems to be an anathema for such folk). The horn will be sounded full blast, maybe three or four times, without the slightest heed to the hundreds of people trying to sleep in the nearby flats. Whether it be 3 am, 4 am or 5 am, seems to be of no import.

At other times, one's attempts at much needed repose will be disturbed by the sound of people having discussions in the street outside, often seemingly at the tops of their voices, no matter what the time. Not the slightest consciousness apparently of their impact on the wellbeing of others. Such a notion would seem to be a foreign concept, perhaps one of those awful Western ideas like freedom, democracy and an independent judiciary that Xi Jinping recently alluded to.

Added to these assaults on one's tranquility, we are also blessed within the small block I am occupying with the presence of a young couple who perhaps are not exactly ideally suited to each other. They have a developed a liking for coming home at three in the morning or so, and proceeding to have loud and vicious arguments, often accompanied by shrieking and the throwing of objects at one another (sadly, at such a time in the morning, I sometimes find myself wishing that these objects would actually hit their intended targets occasionally...). I enquired of a multi-lingual friend as to the nature of the argument, what exactly was the awful calamity that raised such splendidly splenetic passions, and was told that mostly the disagreements are over such things as who didn't put the top on the toothpaste or the whereabouts of the girl's nail clippers. No matter the triviality of the problem, these people can wax loud and unpleasantly for up to an hour at a time, the female metamorphising from a pleasant looking lass in the daytime to a nocturnal shrieking shrek of a harridan with a voice pitched at such a level that it shreds one's already frayed and frazzled nerves like a proverbial knife through butter.

On a recent occasion, the young man involved managed to come home very late (around 4.30 am) one morning and had, unfortunately, forgotten his key. His response was to throw bricks up at the side of the building (not for him such modern wonders as the mobile phone apparently), which thudded loudly into the the masonry before crashing down onto the metal roof of an outbuilding below. Not being entirely impressed by the lad's behaviour, and lacking the necessary words in Mandarin, I did kindly request of the young man that he go forth and multiply, or more exactly, employed an Anglo-Saxon phrase of similar meaning, but he seemed unimpressed…

These are just small personal examples of an underlying attitude that one comes across again and again in China. People are profoundly, and often very callously, individualistic. To be fair, they are also often friendly and warm as well, but there seems to be absolutely no sense whatsoever of how the consequences of their actions affect others around them, almost as if a blind spot exists in the culture, a kind of space, a vacuum where a sense of responsibility ought to be.

One last example. In this country, queuing for a ticket at a rail station is often an exercise that would try the patience of a saint. The queues are often quite long and a little ill-tempered. The ill-temper is mostly due to the fact that so many people steal in at the sides of the queues at the last moment, often thrusting money in front of the uniformed clerks (one feels sorry for these damaged souls, perhaps marred by having to deal with so many difficult people, whose main role in life seems to be to treat the customers as disdainfully as humanly possible). At times, there seem to be more people jumping the queue than in the queue itself. This creates the bizarre phenomenon of queues of queue jumpers queuing on both sides of the main queue…

Hmm, I think I should take my cue at this point and retire the blog for another week. So many examples spring to mind that one could fill pages with them, but that would readily get as tedious as the behaviour itself. China can be splendid in many ways, offering sights and experiences unique to this land, but it can also be a dismal and disgusting dystopia, a nightmarish vision of the consequences of 'progress' unhindered by any other consideration. Development it seems, when economics is the only driver, merely relates to infrastructure, not to the society itself or the people within it.

On that slightly depressing note, I think I will sign off, slink off, and treat myself to an Americano at the nearby C-Cafe. Hopefully, the upper, non-smoking lounge, will be bereft of smokers for a change, and I can enjoy a coffee and cogitate in relatively un-polluted peace...