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by jimmywanger
3362 days ago
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> constant improvement and striving for perfection. This happens in every culture when pressures are pushed upon it. For decades after WWII, Japanese goods and products were considered inferior and "just good enough", and specialized in cheap things that didn't really need to be high quality. External pressures (exports) forced more precision and rigor on them. Same thing for China. Right now it manufactures many things for a low price to a low quality. Nobody really cares if a chew toy is to spec. Once things start mattering, like exporting for Apple, the cultural pressures start changing quickly. Also, striving for perfection occurs in every culture. Look back at old Chinese teachers or masters of particular arts or culture. Simply attributing the way things are in certain areas during certain times to cultures is simplistic and naive. Sure, if the market pressures were there, China could manufacture goods to high tolerances. But there is no large market currently for extremely high quality mass market consumer goods, except for computers and cell phones, which China has locked up nicely. |
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The Shaolin masters and their philosophy are pretty much gone. Today those who train just end up leaving the temples and either joining private security or the military for money. Culture and society's values aren't static. I'm describing what is reality today, and not in a past century.
> Simply attributing the way things are in certain areas during certain times to cultures is simplistic and naive.
This isn't isolated to just exports. There's fake food, specifically rice and noodles made from plastic. Dangerous blood transfusion services. There's fake and poor quality meds. These exist regardless of market pressures and demand. There's a nothing else matters but my family and I mentality and a social hierarchy model that's hard to understand unless you grew up in it; living there for a year or a few months isn't enough.