[baybal2]

When I see Americans talking about confucianism, I want to laught.

You got it all wrong.

What you say makes no sense to a Chinese not in its literal, or proverbial sense, and talk like these usually get grannies pointing finger to foreigners on the bus, quietly giggling "oh, those foreigners thinking something on China again..."

[hyperman1]

OK fair enough. I am no American, BTW, and every culture talking about every other culture has this problem, in both ways.

Now I do see a fairly negative response here, without anything to replace it. So make us all on hacker news one of the lucky 10 000 today: What does China aspire to? What are the overarching themes in the Chinese view of the world, and how do they differ from the Western ones?

I recently learned some about the Chinese vision. If it's wrong, I'd like to learn something more.

[andor]

Can you give a better explanation?

[baybal2]

> Can you give a better explanation?

1. 99% regular Chinese citizens can't give more .... about what some ancient philosopher wrote. They have more important things to care, like earning a living. It is like telling that most Americans are... Aristotelians because few of them were of Greek extraction (even when their descendants today cannot say a word in Greek...)

2. Chinese culture was not formed by ancient dictums. The culture of China was razed with fire in seventies, and rebuilt from blank sheet. The level of "culture" of a regular citizen was reduced to just being able to read, and write, and even that was not a given.

And even before the revolution, Chinese culture people knew had zero things in common to what these people think. The man would be laughed out not only by grannies on the bus today, but equally so a century ago.

3. If there is any cultural imprint on China at all, it would be Russia. Chinese north of Shanghai are effectively indistinguishable by what is in their head from most Russians, other than them speaking Chinese.

Only a more rural, impassable, and much less well off Southern China managed to preserve few vestiges of what China was before the revolution.

To most Chinese citizens, a travel to HK, or Taiwan is a giant cultural shock. It is because them suddenly realising themselves being so much less Chinese than they though they were.

[PakG1]

> To most Chinese citizens, a travel to HK, or Taiwan is a giant cultural shock. It is because them suddenly realising themselves being so much less Chinese than they though they were.

Given that I know a lot of both Hong Kong people and mainland Chinese people, I am really not sure from where you're getting this idea.

[_m8pt]

As a Chinese person from north of Shanghai, what in the world do you mean by “indistinguishable by what is in their head from most Russians”????

[baybal2]

Similar in what their attitudes are to so many things in life. Thoughts on having a family, marriage, treatment of women, ideas on social status, work, career, material wellbeing, and down to things like hobbies, and free time spending. And their tourists... especially northeastern ones...

Everything within cultural gravity of Beijing, and Northeast has been molded very early in history of PRC, and was pretty much an attempt to copy USSR 1-to-1 before Mao cut ties.

[_m8pt]

Wow. I am a northeastern Chinese. I like Russian people, but all I can say is that this is a very surface level analysis on my culture.