From the Readers

A difference in attitudes

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-04-27 17:43

Comment on “Why do polls show more satisfied people in China?” (China Daily website on April 26)

This assessment of reasons that Chinese people seem more satisfied with their lot than Americans is correct.

The expectations of people are gauged against their past experiences. After decades of prosperity, US people have this high expectation that everything has to be at a high level. Whereas Chinese people are catching up after years of being behind in living standards.

However, people in the West in general also have this higher and indeed unwarranted attitude that their government owes them something, an obligation to provide them with many rights including high living standards. That is, most Western people blame their government for the economic downturn when at the same time they are for a free market economy, which is itself very prone to large fluctuations.

Western and indeed Christian-Jewish-Islamic societies tend to believe that the sources of goodness and evil are from their god. That is, it seems people leave their own responsibility to others. Some behave badly 6 days a week and then wash away their sins by attending church on Sunday. The fact that US is a very litigious society with lawsuits for very minor matters also is indicative of their not-my-responsibility attitude. It is always a blame game against others.

Chinese psyche on the other hand is more about taking responsibility for their own destiny and do not see their entitlements as a given automatically. It is similar to their morality attitude in that Chinese generally believe that it is within people to behave good or bad.

These differences in attitude seem to extend to the satisfaction of economic performance and living standards, even though Chinese living standard is still below advanced Western nations.

Western politicians and commentators perhaps should take this contrast in attitude of people toward their own sense of responsibility into account when they assess people's attitude in China. By forcing their own sense of attitude on China is to overlook the huge differences in psyche-attitude.

However, as a caution to all Chinese in a most sincere manner. China will sooner or later suffer from some periods of economic slowdown. This is just a natural phenomenon of economic cycles. The 1997 Asian economic crisis is such an example. China will be in such a situation one day. When China becomes a matured economy, recessions will result every few years as part of the general economic cycle. Hubris is simply not wise.

JJ-Sydney-OZ on China Daily website

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