You Can Fool Some of the
People . . .
By LARRY ROMANOFF – August 30, 2020
This
article is merely a curiosity dealing with language and culture but may be of
interest to a few readers, and perhaps of occasional assistance in assessing
comments made by others. My observations were prompted by my notice of a few
persons commenting here who pretend to be something (or someone) they are not,
in particular one person masquerading as a Chinese. It isn't common, but
perhaps interesting. Let's look at a few cultural differences and see where
this takes us.
Canadians
and Americans particularly, in spite of their "melting pots" of
peoples and cultures, generally display little to no understanding of other
cultures and tend to interpret differences through ideological lenses and their
lack of a culture, usually resulting in misunderstanding or misinterpreting
comments or points of view, often arriving at conclusions that are wrong.
In your face
As
one example, a high-ranking American politician said recently that the Chinese
need to rid themselves of what she termed their "shyness and lack of
confidence". It was beyond the limits of her understanding to realise that
what she was seeing was neither shyness nor a lack of confidence, but modesty,
one of the more charming characteristics of typical Chinese and Asians
generally. American women as a class are not modest, are typically neither
"shy" nor lacking "confidence" and tend to have a bolder
"in your face" attitude compared to Asian women.
Thus,
a typical Chinese female pretending to be an American girl would probably do it
badly, and an American female pretending to be native Chinese would have no
idea how to behave and would likely fool no one. In this same context, a Frenchman pretending to be a German
cannot fool an Italian for very long. The national characteristics of
peoples are powerfully affected by their culture and religion, with traits
emanating directly from the psyche and not easily imitated. The fundamentals
are simply too different.
Judge not that ye be not
judged
As
another comparison, many nations of people, the Chinese being a prime example
(but perhaps Asians generally), do not judge others, at least not in the way
Westerners do, because the tendency to judge (as good or bad, right or wrong)
is largely a Christian trait, not a Confucian or Buddhist characteristic. We
see this in all comment sections here where judging, and often judging harshly,
is ubiquitous. It is especially easy to
identify Americans: "I don't disagree with you because you have a
different point of view. I disagree because I am right and you are wrong."
It's even worse than that because in a large number of instances "You
are not only factually wrong but morally wrong." Hence the rudeness, the
nasty personal attacks, the name-calling, the often obscene insults directed to
those presenting a differing point of view. And, usually, the greater the gap
in viewpoint the more vehement the attacks and insults.
This
is especially true of Americans of low intellect but, to be fair, the US is the
only country in the world where a full 75% of the population is below average
in intelligence. Another kind of American exceptionalism.
Spare the rod and spoil the
child
This
is also true with punishment, the Christian and Jewish religions (perhaps
primarily Christian) responding in this manner when someone is
"wrong". Confucianism and Buddhism focus on gentleness, forgiveness
and correction, while Christian Americans know in their hearts you deserve to
be pummeled mercilessly if your wrong position disagrees with their right one.
Hence the violent attacks, and they know they are righteous because God is on
their side; He wants heathens to be destroyed. It's a short step from here to
racism, isn't it?
Another
cultural attitude that is primarily Western but especially American, is the
tendency to solve all disputes with a hammer. A difference of opinion or viewpoint is not something to understand or
discuss, but to be eliminated, usually by force. Thus, if I disagree with
you, I am not only factually and morally wrong while you are correct and
righteous but I deserve to be beaten until I accept your version of the truth.
Hence, the insults and name-calling. This is so true that even if I know I am
wrong, the mere fact that I dislike what you say is sufficient to produce the
same attacks. People in many other nations, Asians in particular, are more
likely to try to understand your point of view and negotiate a
meeting-in-the-middle, while Americans, living in a black and white world, are
generally unable to do this. In any disagreement, they need a 'winner' and a
'loser', an attitude that exists almost no place else. This American cultural
attitude is not easy to disguise and the Chinese attitude is extremely
difficult to falsely imitate.
Having
"the last word" is another trait common to Americans (actually
Canadians, Aussies and the English too), stemming again from the black and
white mentality and the need for a winner and a loser. My parting shot at you
is my way of "winning". Asians almost never exhibit this
characteristic. If they feel unable to discuss and negotiate a happy medium,
they will almost inevitably (and quickly) drop the subject and will almost
never make parting provocations. Americans are generally much more aggressive,
often seeking open conflict; others avoid this and look for areas of peace
rather than war. There is also what I might call a "disguised parting
shot", where I avoid open conflict and name-calling and pretend to be
understanding and accommodating but where I take multiple cheap parting shots
as I go out the door with my halo intact. And I still win. But no Chinese have
such an attitude.
Heartaches by the number,
insults by the score
I
took the time to list a sample of insults posted to my article: A Few
Historical Frauds. (1) I hoped posting that list might improve the environment,
but sadly no change. If you haven't seen enough insults and want more, click on
the link and see my list at comment #550.
By their idioms ye shall
know them.
Language
also plays a large part in national characteristics in a multitude of ways, and
hence also in the identification of people and their cultural and ethnic
backgrounds. One of these is metaphors
and idiomatic cultural references. I was in a meeting where an American
couldn't fathom the puzzled looks after stating that a number was "in the
ballpark". But he was in a country that doesn't play baseball and in a
room where no one knew what a ballpark was. Idioms and slang exist in all
languages and cultures and are equally poor travelers in all of them. One
American was denigrating the ability of Chinese to comprehend English, claiming
none of them seemed to understand anything. I had difficulty explaining to him
that most Chinese will understand when you say, "I was angry", while
not everyone will understand "Like man, I was some pissed, you know?"
Idioms, metaphors, and much slang, are
deeply cultural.
Another
notable one is references to the Jewish 'holocaust'. Very recently there was a
substantial effort made in China (on Weibo posts) to create sympathy for the
Jews and their 'persecution'. It failed miserably and the posts were deleted.
Chinese have little knowledge of, and even less interest in, the suffering of
the Jews since they have had their own holocausts - which were much worse, and
the Chinese culture does not look favorably on pity-collection by whining. But
the point is that while Westerners, and particularly Jews, might make frequent
references to the Jews' 'holocaust', this is a purely Western construct and has
no meaning in China nor in much of the world. Similarly, references to Hitler
or Stalin as the poster-boys of atrocities will fall on deaf ears in most of
the world, and if Chinese want an atrocity poster-boy, they will use either
Americans or Jews, or maybe Japanese, their version of history being at odds
with much of the West. Chinese never make reference to 'Nazis' or 'Huns' and
they never refer to the Japanese as "Japs". These are American and/or
Jewish racist constructs.
Thus,
even a cursory examination of metaphors and cultural references can often
positively identify a person's ethnic background or at least negate the
possibility of some backgrounds.
From
a recent comment posted on an article here, by a person purporting to be
Chinese:
"It
is all about socioeconomic status. I can f... your daughter or your wife and
turn them against you tomorrow if I wanted to."
No
Chinese would ever express such a sentiment. Forgive me if I offended you by
repeating this.
Puella, puellae; puellae,
puellarum . . .
Another
part is language construction itself. The Cyrillic languages, as with Latin,
have declensions for their nouns which in part substitute for the prepositions
in the English language. This means the endings of nouns change according to
their use in a sentence. As an example, 'puella' means 'girl' in Latin and is
used when the subject of the sentence. 'Puellae' can mean the possessive - 'of
the girl'. So whereas in English we would say "the girl's dress",
Latin will say "vestis puellae", the change in spelling eliminating
the preposition.
To be or not to be
Another
of these is the verb "to be". English has only one such verb, but
Chinese, Italian, and some other languages have two such verbs, one literally
meaning 'to exist' and the other meaning 'to be in a place' or to have a
particular feeling. English says "I am" at the mall, which is a bit
silly because it means I exist at the mall, but the language has no other way
to express this sentiment. Italian has 'essere' - to be, and 'stare' - to be
somewhere or feel something.
We all make mistakes
These
items are important in identification because foreigners who are not fluent in
English will all make mistakes, but the kinds of mistakes they make differ
markedly according to their native language since they rely on the construction
and grammar of that language. Because Russian has the same noun declensions,
the expression is "I go store", whereas English says "I am going
to the store." The words carry the identical meaning but the method of
construction is different. Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, will do this, but
no Italians or French.
I
once had occasion to look at a letter in the hands of a police officer
searching for the 'Chinese' person who wrote it. It required only a few seconds
to know the writer was not Chinese but a Caucasian, and not a very smart one.
The writer clearly wanted to leave the impression of being Chinese but, in his
assumption that Chinese would make grammar and other mistakes in English, and
having no knowledge of languages or cultures, had no idea what kind of mistakes
they might make. The best he could do was to imitate the kind of broken English
that a sorely uneducated English person might make.
The
reason I mention this is that one person commenting on this website, pretending
to be Chinese, makes precisely this mistake, believing Chinese would make some
grammatical errors, but clearly having no knowledge of the kinds of errors they
might make. He does his best by inserting occasional and very obvious mistakes
common to uneducated English Caucasians while in other posts manifesting an
excellent command of English. The errors are actually glaring and laughable
because, while Chinese will indeed make grammatical errors, they would not be
of that nature.
I'm a Canadian, eh?
Negative
questions are another identification point, such as "You're not going to
the party, are you?". "Yes." Well, yes what? "Yes, I'm not
going." Think of the expression, "I'm a Canadian, eh?" The last
word has no use and carries no meaning. It's just there. With the negative
questions, most people read the first part "You're not going to the
party" as a statement, the remaining words merely useless emphasis, and
thus they respond in the affirmative, meaning "Correct. I agree with what
you said." Since very few languages have this negative construction, they
can be useful in identifying the speaker.
Mrs. Schrödinger's Ferrari
There
are a great many other national characteristics that affect both behavior and
language. Germans are engineers, cool, precise, no nonsense, formal and
reserved, high respect for quality. My desk can be next to that of a German
woman for five years and I will still refer to her as 'Mrs. Schrödinger'. The
familiarity of a first name is for family and the closest of friends. And the
cat.
Only the Germans could build
a Mercedes or BMW; extreme engineering,
generally faultless quality and reliability. With my Mercedes, I can go
downstairs every morning for 25 years and I know my car will start when I turn
the key. On the other hand, only the
Italians could design and build a Ferrari or Lamborghini; breathtakingly
beautiful, sinfully sexy, and stupidly fast. And, with my Ferrari, I go
downstairs every morning and have no idea what will happen when I push the
button. Similarly, only the French could design and build a 4CV, and only the
Americans could make an AMC Gremlin. This
is much more than nothing; these innate cultural characteristics affect the
most minor portions of behavior as well as the way different ethnicities speak
and write.
Hasbara and Friends
There
also exist some curiosities about Jews, most noticeable in the apologists of
events or when covering up crimes. In my mind, I seem to separate them into two
categories. Many Jewish writers produce articles and books which are exemplary
in terms of accuracy, caution, lack of exaggeration and overstatement,
revealing even of substantial felonies but at the same time non-judgmental and
non-provocative, dispassionate, quintessentially human, characteristics I envy.
A good example is Ron Unz' article on Chinese Melamine and American Vioxx. If
you haven't read it, you should. (2) But the apologists, the historical
revisionists, the Jewish Misinformation
Committee, Hasbara, (and I have no way of knowing how large a group this
is), lie with a consistency that qualifies as a template. The approach is the
same, the manner of creating facts from invisible threads and weaving these
together to form false conclusions, the universal tendency to blame the victim,
the uncanny ability to introduce irrelevancies and sow confusion, the veiled
use of shame and fear to push others off their positions. These tend to be so uniform that when they occur it is often possible
to almost instantly identify the ethnicity of the author.
Believe as if you were on
fire from within
There
is also something interesting about passion as expressed in articles or reader
comments. The passion of Americans exhibited in these pages stems primarily if
not exclusively from ideology. Many of the more fiery articles and comments are
from the primitive instincts and emotions (typical of the Right-Wing brain) in
areas touching politics, religion, racism. On these topics, reader comments are
passionate Cro-Magnon attacks as if responding to mortal danger. It may be true
that, in the case of these people, any challenge to their positions does in a
sense represent an existential threat, one to be repelled with an excess of
verbal firepower. For non-Americans (or non-Neanderthals generally), passion is
a positive reflection of a deep and abiding concern or conviction for some
topic while for typical Americans passion in a positive sense mostly reflects a
powerful desire for more bombing.
Following
from this (and from much more I haven't covered here), it can be surprisingly
easy to identify the ethnic backgrounds of some people or at least to limit the
range of potential nationality and ethnicity. And it is usually quite easy to
identify and separate real Chinese from the pretenders.
*
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney's new COVID-19 anthology 'When China Sneezes'. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com.
Notes
(1)https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/a-few-historical-frauds/
(2)
https://www.unz.com/runz/chinese-melamine-and-american-vioxx-a-comparison/
Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, 2020
