This post is about Asians

[kyrasantae]

Confucius thought that the Good Man should cultivate the "Six Arts". I'm not sure if this fact is explicitly taught to modern Chinese people, but if you really think about it, it seems as though the tradition has been passed down to the modern stereotypical Chinese mother and the kinds of things that they expect their kids to do:

• The Rites: Good character, proper manners, modest dress, respect for elders, stuff like that.
  
• Music: Piano, flute, violin, etc.. Must be classical instrument. Classical music is civilized, you know.
  
• Archery: Any sport that emphasizes dexterity and finesse over strength. Badminton is a good example. Or martial arts. You don't normally find Chinese kids in hockey. That's why.
  
• Charioteering: It's imperative that you get your driving licence as soon as you're able to. If you prefer to think of charioteering as a military skill, play chess.
  
• Calligraphy: YOU BETTER HAVE NEAT HANDWRITING. I think painting/drawing lessons fall under this too, since calligraphy is an art form.
  
• Mathematics: Math tutors, Kumon...this one speaks for itself. Falling under this category is also the emphasis on science-based fields in university.

When Hong Kongers heard that the area around the Fukushima reactors were being evacuated and some people there were being given iodine treatments, they were quick to jump on board the panic game and cleared supermarket shelves of table salt and soy sauce.

Wait, soy sauce?

Not only is the iodine content of table salt fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, nor that iodine treatment when not necessary is really bad for you, they seemed to miss the point that the iodine in table salt is ADDED in and has nothing to do with its saltiness. OH BUT SALT IS SALTY! SO LET'S HOARD SOY SAUCE.

Hong Kongers LIVE on sensationalism and blowing things way out of proportion. I'm not sure whether there's even a SERIOUS newspaper there (South China Morning Post, maybe?); the major daily papers (and heck, all the media) are really tabloid-y. (FYI: A Hong Kong tabloid mogul started that company in Taiwan that makes all those hilarious news animations.) Imagine a Finland where no one really reads anything but Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti. Or a Canada where everyone just reads the Sun and watches FOX News.

Especially for relatively educated diaspora in Western countries like me, HK can seem like a perpetual facepalm.

Comments

[nt-confidential.livejournal.com]

I know the bit about the Six Arts of Confucius was mostly a jokey way to introduce the post, but - if I'm going to be more serious than necessary for a moment here - I really don't see them as that continuous with the Tiger Mother parenting you're alluding to; certainly no more than the original seven liberal arts (the trivium and quadrivium) were in the western tradition.

Most of those peculiarities of emphasis (badminton over hockey, mathematics/science education, etc.) are consequences of economic and cultural circumstance more than anything, and I think they differ significantly between pockets of immigrant populations in the west. In southern Alberta, for instance, you'll notice how many Asian migrant families gravitate to ethnic branches of Christianity. Conversely, youth participation in hockey is substantially more valued in small-town communities where the sport is already idolized, and places like Ontario and Quebec where extensive networks and training programmes already exist.

Hong Kong strikes me as having come out of a commercial culture built primarily on finance, property, and speculation, hence its obsession with pragmatism (there just isn't much of a theoretical intellectual culture to play with) and rabid consumption (there's no solution to a problem you can't buy). That's what you get when you have any commercially driven urban hub with little to no intellectual/cultural support. In fact, the presence of the Six Arts is probably less noteworthy than the absence of the classical-medieval tradition.

The short version is that I think the notion of "traditional" East Asian immigrant values have less to do with tradition than you might think, and everything to do with recent circumstances of sociology and economics.