TRANSCRIPT
0:08
So the top three things I’d say that are very different about China compared to the West that I don’t think you’re going to get on a visit.
You have to live in China to understand.
The first thing is that they think very differently, and I learned this as a teacher in school teaching students in the West.
0:29
We learn that if we want to understand the phenomena, we look at the parts instead of the entire thing.
We look at the parts of that phenomena and we try and understand the relationship between the parts of that phenomena.
And when we understand that, say through science, we feel we understand the entire phenomena where Chinese will look at the whole phenomena just holistically.
0:57
They’re not looking at the parts, they’re just looking at a massive complexity.
So to them, I think that makes them a lot less arrogant about what they think they know compared to Westerners.
Yeah, I know these three things.
1:13
So I understand this whole phenomena and end of story where Chinese will go.
No, that’s way more complex than those three things.
And from their point of view, it’s actually immature to think that you can understand something by just knowing a couple parts of it.
1:31
So literally like that’s traditionally is seen as immature way of thinking and thinking that you can understand something just based on logic too.
Logic is key to the West.
Chinese, it’s more like circular, it’s like, yeah, circulars cycles, so repeated cycles.
1:52
So they’re they’re focused on change.
They’re looking at the world is constantly changing, whereas in the West we’re kind of much more stagnant.
We’re kind of we tend our surprise by change.
I don’t think we focus on change as part of life as much as the Chinese do.
2:11
They just it’s part of their system yin, Yang and so on.
What’s that whole symbol and what it’s about is, is how to deal with change things and that things are parts of other things.
So opposites, so Chinese understand opposites.
2:26
We have this idea of logic that you can’t have in one phenomena, you can’t have two opposing things you it has to be one or the other.
So this is all part of our thinking.
And that has helped us create, you know, make some great inventions, but it’s also hindered us too.
2:47
We can’t deal with things that are in oppositional forces, for instance, where Chinese can with the way they think.
So anyway, that’s the first thing.
And the second thing for sure is the lack of importance we in the West seem to give to history because history is not.
3:07
So because we’re all from different places.
We’ve moved around.
I think we’ve lost that sense of history and the importance of history, Whereas in China is very much alive, like what happened 2000 years ago.
You can see today on the streets in some way like that that kind of thinking what was written by Confucius 2500 years ago still exists in modern China.
3:32
And when you read articles on China by academics even, you rarely see them bring in the history.
And there there’s a book that needs to be written about that.
And maybe that’s what I’ll do one day.
3:47
It’ll be certainly challenging and so to understand that importance of history.
The third thing I think is the relationship with nature.
Western civilization is the only civilization that separates humans from nature, mental to the way we think.
4:08
And there’s a theory is that that’s how we develop science.
So the idea is that’s how we develop the sense of an objective reality.
So a reality that’s separate from what each of us perceives subjectively.
So, you know, if we just think the world is subjective, there’s no point in me arguing with you because you’re going to have a different perspective than me, and each of them are subjective.
4:34
So what’s the point in arguing, right?
You’re just, I’m saying my thing, you’re saying everything.
We’re never going to come to agreement.
But with this idea of something separate from both of us that subjective, we can have an argument.
4:50
I can argue that I understand that objective thing better than you can and if I can do that you will start listening to my interpretation of what I think is objective reality.
So that’s all related to separating.
There’s human things and non human things or nature is separate than humans.
5:12
So this is what allowed theoretically the development of science.
So it’s a way of thinking doesn’t necessarily mean we’re more advanced as it was just the way the Greeks developed for thinking.
And another theory about this is that it debating, debating amongst the Greeks was very big and this is where people got a different sense or developed logic and you also had a lot of mixing of different cultures so they learned about different ways of perceiving things.
5:46
And so this is just so it’s just rooted in our history in the West and we developed a certain way.
Whereas Chinese, they all live together, a whole bunch large number of people living together living in families.
You start interacting, you learn how to get along with each other.
6:05
So this thing about not telling the truth, we’re so dedicated to telling the truth in the West, whereas in China they tend to maybe avoid it when it gets uncomfortable.
So the latest thing would be, you know, the youth unemployment rate in China.
6:23
So they just want to avoid the issue because it makes people feel uncomfortable.
And the number one thing is harmony.
You want to maintain harmony with people.
So we do it all the time.
In the West.
We don’t really care about harmony.
We’ll just tell the truth.
6:38
No matter how ugly and insulting and hurtful it is, we’ll tell it because we think that’s important and that’s OK.
I mean it’s it’s a way to look at the world.
But the Chinese, it’s all about the relationships because they live so closely together.
6:55
So my relationship with others around me is the number one thing above truth.
So I say things to enhance, maintain.
It’s not the purposely manipulate or anything.
It’s just to make people feel OK, harmonious, not lose faith.
7:14
So this is all part of it.
So, so this whole connection to nature, you see it in different pet birds that I’ve seen or maybe that the men might carry, but especially I felt it from reading about cricket fighting.
7:32
Just the story.
And this still happens to this day.
Like cricket fighting’s been around for.
At least I’m trying to think from 600, yeah, at least 600 and probably earlier.
So we’re talking 1400 years it’s been around.
7:50
So it’s still happening.
And so traditions like to just blow your mind.
It’s like 1400 years you’ve been doing this.
Well guess what?
When they have a cricket fight in modern day Beijing, I read an article, you know, maybe a a couple years old, is that they don’t want the cricket to kill the other cricket.
8:11
When they have cricket fights, they have special rules.
They stop the fight once they won.
Cricket puts the other cricket upside down.
So the winning cricket is laying on his back and if he’s holding the other cricket upside down, he’s won.
8:28
So they don’t wait until the cricket actually tries to kill the other cricket.
They actually stop the fight because they care so much.
The crickets.
The crickets are in their poetry and have been for like 1000 years.
8:44
Can you imagine that?
Poets writing about the sound of the cricket and reminding them of maybe loss or the oncoming of winter because crickets come out in the fall.
It’s just so romantic and so LinkedIn with nature and it’s and I think in the West how we have bull fighting, like that’s the antithesis.
9:07
It’s like horrid what we’re doing to slowly kill the bull and he bleeds to death and they won’t even kill a cricket in a cricket fight like that, says everything so profound difference.
9:23
And this is from an Agricultural Society, so that’s not gone.
There’s all these traditions that developed out of this Agricultural Society that still carry weight in China and this whole idea of harmony.
9:38
For instance, merchants in the pecking order, traditional pecking order of China.
And this is a couple, 1000 years old.
Scholars were at the top, then it was farmers and then artisans and then merchants.
9:55
So the merchants were the lowest of the four different occupational groupings.
So scholars were the highest because of their education and so on.
So it’s still that’s still very much alive.
That is not gone at all.
This is why I love China.
10:10
I was treated like a a scholar as I was and and honored everywhere I went because I was a scholar.
But farmers are second.
Can you imagine?
It’s an Agricultural Society, so that that definitely makes sense.
10:27
So farming and part of farming is the discipline that you have to learn when you’re raising animals or raising a crop.
You can’t forget one day to water the plants or to feed the goats or whatever.
10:44
This is a responsibility and it’s thought that one theory is that This is why Chinese civilization has lasted for so long.
Is that in the farming world you learn really good values that you don’t learn in an urban environment.
11:03
Urban urbanites basically get, yeah, just compromised in their values by living in an urban environment, especially if you become wealthy.
But it’s seen as that you’re inculcating good values in a farming community.
11:20
You’re learning every day, make sure you feed the goats, make sure you water these plants, make sure you take care of the fish.
And so this is a responsibility and so it makes you remember.
So when you think of it historically, you’ve had this merit based system where anyone could rise up in the bureaucracy of the government if you were intelligent.
11:45
So anyone could write the test to become a scholar official in in a dynasty and they would have them from urban areas and rural areas that didn’t matter.
So this is in bread and again in China, maybe I’m going on to a fourth point, but where you don’t have a class system.
12:08
So this is actually very different.
We’re used to having a class system in the West where we think certain people are better than others.
But China has that idea of some people being better than others, but they’ve achieved that.
12:24
They’re not born that way.
You’re not born into nobility.
If people like, say me as an academic, they respected me because I had improved myself by studying so much and getting a high degree.
12:40
So This is why I was honored.
It’s not just I was white.
I mean, maybe that’s a little bit of it, but not really.
It was really that I was a scholar.
I had invested in improving myself.
And that’s where they will honor someone who is better you.
12:58
And everyone has a chance to do that.
It isn’t a class thing at all.
So this is critical in China.
So anyway, getting back to the scholar officials, it was thought that because you have so many from rural areas who’ve learned these really good values, they help check the corruption of the urban scholar officials, the ones who grew up in the city.
13:25
And so rural areas and farms are seen as where the best values live in China, values that perpetuated Chinese civilization, which in China is sacred, like anything that perpetuates the civilization literally is sacred.
13:45
Like that’s why they have the culture they do.
That’s why it still exists.
That’s why it’s so good.
You know, and treating people, you know, the kindness and so on is that they have respected their farmers, whereas in the West, I don’t think we do.
14:04
We don’t give, I would say our farmers, I think farmers all over the world learn those good values.
You’re forced to, but we don’t honor it in the West and in China they do.
So that’s maybe a fourth point about the difference between China and the West, another of the big things that the West needs to learn about China.
14:30
When I listen to all the warmongering going on now in the media, I absolutely think it is totally from the West.
It is not coming from China.
It’s invented in the Western mine about China.
So this again are Westerners that really don’t have a clue about China and they’re applying their Western thinking, read US thinking to each situation when they’re dealing with China.
15:00
So they’re bringing their Western mindset and assuming Chinese are thinking the same way.
And I’ll guarantee you they are not.
You are wrong.
If you want to find peace in this world, you study China.
15:16
You study China’s history.
It’s no mystery.
It’s not like a superior people.
They’ve just been through a heck of a lot more war than probably any of you have any of your countries in the world like there.
15:31
The bloody history of China is unbelievable.
Millions died, starving, killed throughout history like it’s in the millions that are white dirt in one war.
Kind of kind of numbers.
15:47
And so do you really think a civilization that remembers the past, that that’s part of their culture is to remember what happened in the past?
Do you really think they’re all ready to go to war?
There is no way that is the last thing China wants.
16:07
Why do you think Confucius rose up?
Why do you think it came about?
There was hundreds of years of war before Confucius came along.
He was part of the Hundred Hundred Scholars period of Chinese history, so the golden age of Chinese philosophy.
16:29
And they were called the 100 schools of thought.
Sorry, that’s it.
So the 100 schools of thought period, and this is, I believe, lasted something like 600 years.
So this would have been maybe 1000 BC to 400 BC very roughly.
16:48
Um, so anyway, quite a long period where you had not necessarily hundreds of scholars, but you had dozens, literally dozens of scholars promoting a some new idea to basically end the hundreds of years of war that were going on between different warlords.
17:11
So finally there was an emperor who put pulled everyone together.
So that’s when China started, you know, and that was in the, what, the year 256 I think or 226 BC.
And and Confucius came around what, something like 450 BC?
17:31
And so Confucius, his idea of thinking rose up above all the others, all the dozens of other ideas that were going on at the time.
And to give you an idea, Yang Yang theory would be 1A school of Yang Yang.
17:48
There was another called legalism.
Daoism would be another.
Those are just examples, but there’s many more.
You know Sun Zoo and his Art of War.
So there was a whole other thinking about war.
There is all these different thoughts and they were kind of fighting for supremacy, these ideas and it was Confucius who really won out his thinking.
18:12
But Confucius was taking ideas from up to I believe almost 1000 years before he was born.
So he was drawing from the past and what he thought were superior ways of being from the past, superior periods of governance.
18:34
And so he was basically writing those down, writing things down that had been operating for hundreds of years.
And so he was just a recorder.
And he says that himself.
If you do his readings, he just says that’s all I am.
18:49
I’m a recorder of history.
I’m not a creator.
They’re not new ideas.
I’m just recording new what has been going on for hundreds of years that I think is is important to have a good, harmonious society.
19:06
And so not everyone jumped on Confucianism right away.
He had to die and his students.
It wasn’t until a few 100 years later at the beginning of the in the Hand dynasty, the Han Dynasty, which is the dominant ethnic group of China, the Hand.
19:24
It wasn’t until the Han Dynasty that Confucianism really started to become stronger in government, and it was all about how to create harmony in society.
So it outlines in great detail how a father interacts with the son, how the son interacts with the mother, how two brothers interact with each other.
19:48
Usually the older brother has more respect than the younger brother.
So for instance, I’m going to visit my friend.
Again, this is still alive in China, your traditional China.
My friend, my Dean of English, friend who is dying for me to come back and and to go for a few beer together.
20:09
You know, he’s in his 50s.
He’s a little younger than me.
So he calls me his older brother, you know, and we’re not related at all, but that’s how he refers to me.
He’s going to see his older brother.
And so the whole thing is part of that is that you have more life experience, you have more wisdom and so on.
20:31
So you’re to be listened to and respected, you know, before a younger person.
And so this is the way I talk when I go for dinner with him and his buddies.
He said this is my older brother you know and and everyone knows I’m not a real brother it’s just a figure of speech and and I’m usually introduced as having a PhD which is part of it which again is, is I guess a status thing And there is something about that like I’m not big time into status.
21:02
I don’t go around telling everyone.
Actually most of the time I don’t tell anyone that I have PhD.
I’d rather not and but it does give you a sense of a place in society.
So this is something that I really get from China that I don’t get from Canada.
21:20
And I think it’s it’s really, it’s maybe part of being a sense of community.
You know, I know my role, I know my status where I fit when I’m with a group of people.
And it’ll be different, of course, depending the group of people I’m with.
21:36
But you know, your place kind of thing, it’s not necessarily that you keep your place, but you have a role, you’re part of a community, you know and and I don’t think, I think that’s pretty weak in Canada.
And I think it’s pretty important to have that sense of community, to feel that you’re part of something bigger than you.
21:58
And so this is a big thing I get from China and it still lives.
It comes from Confucius 2500 years ago and my friend still uses this term.
You’re my older brother, it still lives.
22:16
And so to me, it’s special to be able to go to this civilization and experience kind of feudal or medieval times and what it must have been like, like it’s it’s fascinating.
It’s like going back in our own history because of course, in our own Western history, you know, medieval times I think were more like this than they are now.
22:40
And so it’s a way to, I think, root yourself in a community, you know, and you get new visions of maybe what Canada could be, what we can learn from this.
So this is all part of my podcast.
What can we learn from this?
This is civilization been around thousands of years.
22:58
Rome died out, Greece died out, but China didn’t.
It’s still here and it’s coming back now.
And don’t be afraid, it’s been here before.
I’m telling you, I’m looking forward to it because I think it’s gonna be a calmer, more peaceful world than we’ve had.
23:18
But at the same time, we have a lot to learn from Chinese culture.
I didn’t talk about some of the history.
My gosh, it’s not a warring country.
It’s a country that wants peace like crazy.
And to give you an idea of the culture, there are several times where some alien sort of barbarian culture took control of China.
23:43
So the Mongols, for instance, and they didn’t change a thing.
They continued the Chinese practices and adopted them, Chinese culture themselves.
And there’s a whole theory, I think we might have talked about this before is that it was appealing to nomads because they didn’t have this great sense of family that China does, right?
24:10
Where your ancestors are part of your family, You don’t forget them.
You honor them regularly.
Sometimes people will do it monthly.
I mean, I didn’t witness that, but but that’s what you’re doing at Spring Festival when you’re lighting money and so on.
24:25
You’re giving the ancestors wealth, You’re looking after them, and the whole thought is that the ancestors are looking over you.
You look after them and they’ll look after you sort of thing.
So when you die, you’re not gone.
24:41
You’re still part of the Chinese family.
They’re going to remember you year after year.
So this is a theory as to why this might be really appealing to nomads that wouldn’t have that kind of thinking.
But they just found there is a way of Chinese culture that really appealed and that’s how it’s lasted for so long because they have been occupied by other you know, barbarian groups and and Manchuria too, when the Manchurians.
25:13
So still following Chinese culture.
That’s the magic of the culture.
It is absorbed all these different ethnic, ethnic groups over the years and that’s why it has this diversity, right.
Like the diversity is built into their blood and their bones.
25:31
So it’s it’s sort of, I mean the way I conceptualize it is like what Canada might be in 1000 years, you know, with all we’re like, you know, Toronto’s the most multicultural city in the world.
We’ll give it 1000 years and we’ve all intermarried and everything and we have a common language that we follow.
25:51
And that’s what China is, you know, because it was a whole bunch of countries like Europe at one time, it just absorbed them, Whereas in Europe they all fought each other and they still fight each other.
So it’s actually very multicultural.
26:10
And this is yet another thing the most in the West that don’t have a clue about.
You know, I talked to my friends about because I’ve met all these minorities and and I’m telling them the truth, you know, and they’re going really like, there’s actual special minority areas.
26:27
They actually use minority languages on the signage where the minority lives.
Like, how can that be genocide?
You know, like, doesn’t make sense.
Yeah, because it was all BS.
And so there’s.
And even if you look on the money, I was just listening to a guy today and they said the most ancient form of the Weeger language is on the Chinese Yuan, you know, and so it’s right written there, ancient form, Turkic language.
27:00
And so why would China do that to a group?
It’s trying to eradicate, you know, because it’s not trying to eradicate them.
That was all made-up, you know, or largely made-up or manipulated.
You know, I I have this interaction.
27:16
Some guy on Twitter was saying, Oh yeah, you’re all corrupt.
You’re CCPC shill and for the Communist Party and all this and and then I said well I guess I shouldn’t tell you about all the American teachers I worked with that decided to stay in China that are still there and don’t ever want to go back to the US And and then the the guys response was oh we all know you’re making that up and everything and you know this is how he protected his himself because I was saying something that was just a little too threatening.
27:53
The problem is, I was telling the truth.
I have several American friends in China, one married to Chinese girl.
He he never left during the pandemic.
He just stayed.
He’s from Michigan, nearby east of play football for a university in the US, and he’s a teacher, trained teacher.
28:14
He’s had a child with her, so he never left.
Another guy met a Chinese girl, moved to the States.
She wanted to move to the States, and he taught as a teacher for a year or two in the US, but he didn’t like it and he went back to China, and he’s now remarried another Chinese woman.
28:34
They just had their baby.
He’s a teacher of physics in Hangzhou and he loves China.
He’s always like every time I write about China, he’s always saying something supportive.
And despite what all the Canadian people are saying to me, criticizing me and saying I’m a shell, he’s coming in and confirming everything I said.
28:58
He said, Oh yeah, it even goes further than that.
And and then I talked to a guy who was a teacher in China and he married a Filipino girl and has moved to the Philippines.
And he doesn’t want to go back to the US And American teacher has been traveling around the world for years.
29:17
And I was talking to him and he said there’s loads of teachers that don’t want to go back to the US And he said they’re not just staying in China, they’re staying in all sorts of other countries.
But there’s lots that go to China.
So if it’s so bad, then why are people choosing yet another person?
29:38
He had a teaching, went back to Florida, he was teaching chemistry, experienced teacher, went back to Florida with his fans, you know, his families there and so on.
He was alone in China.
So he’s away from his family in China, went home and probably the main reasons be close to family.
29:57
He taught for a couple years and then he just couldn’t handle it anymore because he just said they’re undisciplined, they don’t work as hard as Chinese and I miss China basically.
And he went back.
He went back a year ago and he got a job there and but in the end he had to, he just after a year he had to leave because he’s passed the retirement age.
30:25
And so he was really, really sad that he had to leave China and go back to Florida is the last thing in the world that he wanted to do.
He was having a fantastic time in China and he was there through the rest of the pandemic and locked down.
30:41
So he was in a big lockdown, but he said the school principal would come to his home and deliver food.
And he said it’s true, the lockdowns are hardcore and so on, but Chinese people were rallying around and helping their teachers, and that’s what makes you love China, because they take care of you.
31:04
So he he said it wasn’t that bad and and so he’s back in Florida now.
He’s not very happy.
He wants to go back to China, but I think he has to wait.
He’s gonna try again anyway.
31:21
He has not given up.
He wants to go back to China.
And so there’s so many.
These are just stories, I know.
And I’m sure there’s a lot more, you know.
And so why are these people going back to the police state?
31:39
Because China has a lot to teach us about how to live in harmony together.
And I think that’s the ultimate thing that we can all learn.
That’s what hit me, you know, because again, my story of my past and challenges I went through.
32:00
I went to China and it was just like warm milk, you know, I just felt so much better.
And yeah, so really gave me hope for like a more peaceful and fair and kind society.
32:22
And so you don’t forget that.
You don’t forget that.
