Chinese v. Western History: A Few “Mental Party” Highlights

I mentioned in my “back from the dead” post that I’ve been swimming, on alternating days throughout this closing semester, in the history of China and the history of “Western Civilization” (irony quotes due to the fact that it really starts in Mesopotamia, Persia, the Levant, and Egypt, none of which are “Western”), and what a mind-party it’s been for the constant pricking of our so-often over-inflated opinion of Europe. I just want to throw a couple of examples that have been the life of that party — for this teacher, at least. My students haven’t had the good fortune of taking both classes, so they missed these lovely juxtapositions.

1. Myths of Pre-History

The Monotheistic West: The world was made in six days. A man and woman were created in a garden with magical trees and talking snakes. They didn’t have to work until they broke a rule that made all of us die in the end. Then they had to start farming.¹

Non-theistic China: Long before the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1150 bce), during which the Chinese invented their writing and Chinese history begins, there were five dimly remembered “Pre-Xia Emperors” (the Xia is a so-far legendary dynasty due to the lack of solid evidence it existed; the same was said for the Shang until the last century, so we may be in for a surprise if an archaeologist gets lucky in the future). Those legendary emperors just ruled, and presumably they had even more dimly-remembered ancestors stretching back into oblivion. What these emperors did to make them remembered, according to legend, was to give the following “gifts” to Chinese civilization: “fire, agriculture, animal domestication, calendrics, writing, and flood control.”²

The party moment? Those five legendary emperors are some seriously impressive, reality-based myths. They commemorate nothing less than the major accomplishments of our species that brought us out of caves, into farming villages, and finally into civilization. Call them the mythological history of the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. Then ask if Western monotheism’s foundational myth comes even remotely close to that sort of scientific accuracy.³

2. Moral Frameworks

The West: Zoroastrianism and Christianity (and later Islam) both posit a Manichean, dualistic moral framework. The universe is a “cosmic battlefield” between the forces of a “good” god and the forces of an “evil” one. Humanity’s job is to choose sides in this war, and suffer the punishment for choosing wrongly. It’s a black and white world.

China: There’s the Yin, and there’s the Yang. While the Yin is primarily black and the Yang primarily white, they each contain a seed of the other in their cores. They also merge in a harmonious whole. Humanity’s job is to behave in harmony with both of those forces, neither of which is “good” or “evil,” but merely natural. There are no gods outside of this order and no sides to choose. There’s just a Way — a Tao — to follow to try to keep things balanced. There’s a lot of gray in this world. I think they must scratch their heads at the easy moral and metaphysical certainties of many Westerners.

The party moment? One of the most remarkable aspects of life in Asia — for this Westerner, at least — is the absence of holy wars, holy warriors, suicide bombers, abortion doctor assassinations, and so forth. Airports in East Asia are much easier to travel through, with few-to-no soldiers patrolling for terrorists.

3. Political Frameworks

Obama is surely thinking, “At best, I’ve got eight whole years to make my mark and turn this country around.” The Chinese response to the Tiananmen Square protesters, by contrast, was to say, in essence, “Don’t be impatient. The Party has had only eight years to turn this country around.” The Chinese see politics from the perspective of their 3,000-year dynastic history, in which it was not unusual for rulers to hold the Dragon Throne for decades. To them, eight years is just getting started — and that’s what Deng Xiaoping seemed to want the protesters to understand when they were demanding radical (for the Chinese) political reforms after “only” a decade or so of China’s economic reforms.

Maybe the Chinese taxi drivers I chatted with in Shanghai during my six years there were trained to say, after learning that I’m American, “We’re a 4,000 year old country. America is very young.” Training or no, what they say is true, and Westerners don’t get this. Because of that history, in which the average age of a single dynasty is 300 years — longer than the entire age of America, in other words — the Chinese have the Long View. Deng Zhou Enlai gave us an example of that when, asked if he thought the reforms brought on in 1789 by the French Revolution had worked, he answered — 200 years after that event — “It’s too soon to say.”

It’s all just so hen hao….

1. Though this might offend some, it really is the basic plot of Genesis, looked at objectively. [↩]
2. Rhoades Murphey, A History of Asia, p. 45. 1996 edition, I think. [↩]
3. I’m aware of the myth of Pan-Gu, of course — the cosmic giant whose corpse morphed into trees and rivers and mountains and so forth, and from the maggots infesting which evolved human beings. But I don’t think most Chinese, outside of the most back-water peasant old wives, ever believed that. And even if they did, it just shows, among other things, that the Chinese have a sense of humor about the importance of humanity. And we could stretch it and note there is a hint of evolution in that “maggots to man” detail. [↩]

1. Students with Eyes, Let Them See: 27-Year-Old Chinese Blogs His Way to Fame
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3. Too Cute Video: Sleepy Chinese Student
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