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hitension posted:Is there a continuing civilization that is longer, though? Egypt probably.. Yeah, even if you took the mythical date of the 2900s as being true, the oldest Egyptian royal tomb is from the 3200s. There were much older civilizations but none that survive. Linking modern Egypt and ancient Egypt is a stretch admittedly, but so is connecting the PRC to the Shang dynasty. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Oct 6, 2012 |
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Oct 6, 2012 17:26
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hitension posted:Yeah, it's probably more like a 3800 year history, but that sounds kinda silly. You could round up to 4000 year history, but 4 is an unlucky number. Or something. There are certainly longer civilizations, such as the Sumerians and Egyptians. This timeline may help. China's starts with the Xia (spelled Hsia in this timeline) click for big  China's history is not the oldest, but probably longest, still surviving. SB35 fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Oct 6, 2012 |
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Oct 6, 2012 17:47
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Numlock posted:I think Americans should just start claiming a 5100 year history based on the idea that you can trace the origins of the West to Ancient Mesopotamia.
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Oct 6, 2012 18:08
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hitension posted:Yeah, it's probably more like a 3800 year history, but that sounds kinda silly. You could round up to 4000 year history, but 4 is an unlucky number. Or something. If you take Irish myth to be true, you can literally trace it back to the guy who built the Tower of Babel and invented Gaelic and also married the Pharoah's daughter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9nius_Farsaid And, as I've said, we're all barbarians. (There is almost no way this is true, except for one fact: My dad's been involved in the 1718 Genome project... and the well known Niall genome can be traced, broadly, back to Egypt and Scythia, at _very roughly_ the appropriate time period.) This is, of course, in no way a continuing history. For the West, you'd probably be looking at a tribal culture, polytheistic. The Zoroastrians are up there, but the Hebrews are older. Romans smashed pretty much everything else over the centuries. (Notice the missing bit in the Egyptian dynasties.) So to find something older, you'd have to look in areas where the Romans never reached. Ireland. China and points east. India. Middle and southern Africa. The Americas. The Americas, of course, got smashed by disease in the north, the Spanish in the south, and then the invaders kicked over what was left. Still, the west coast tribes... The Anasazi are the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, and they go back to 7,000 BCE. I don't really think you can exceed that, unless something South American beats it. Warcabbit fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Oct 6, 2012 |
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Oct 6, 2012 18:24
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bad day posted:Whenever China starts saber rattling you should look for whatever is happening internally that they don't want Chinese people to think about, is my point. I sort of agree with the steam valve theory, but I try to shy away from saying that anti-foreign outrage is always cooked up to "distract" people. Why? Because I always see professors quoted in Chinese articles (and sometimes people commenting on articles) saying that some politician's tough-on-China rhetoric is just an attempt to distract Americans from, for example, the lousy economy- and it makes me laugh my rear end off, because most people really aren't paying as much attention to China as the Chinese would like to think, and it certainly wouldn't "distract" anyone from their own economic woes. So I can't help but wonder if it sounds just as stupid and clueless to the Chinese when we say say the same things about them. Although I do think it is more plausible in China because there is, after all, centralized government department in charge of the media.
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Oct 6, 2012 21:41
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Fall Sick and Die posted:Please don't do this stupid 'Americans only have 200 years of history compared to China's 5000' it's so, so stupid. Do Chinese people seriously think America just sprang out of the ground one day without history or culture? Not to mention that Chinese people like to choose between 5,000 and 60 as it suits their particular argument.
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Oct 6, 2012 21:42
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Grand Fromage posted:Multiple generations have passed. Everyone who was involved with decision making during the days of Imperial Japan is dead. It's over. A 25 year old Japanese person who grew up in a pacifist society with parents who also grew up in a pacifist society whose grandparents were, at best, children during the war is not responsible for what Imperial Japan did. To continue being angry at that 25 year old is ridiculous and stupid. The Chinese have taken all the wrong lessons from WW2. So many Chinese seem to believe that the Japanese are just born evil; I can't count how many times I've read things like "the little Japanese devils have perversity and evil in their very bones!" And MY WAIFU's best friend in the US is Japanese, but she can still say the most vile things about the Japanese when something flips the crazy-switch that Chinese education has implanted in her for the rest of her life. The real lesson that should be taken from what the Germans and Japanese did is that people from ANY group that allow themselves to get caught up in mob mentality and an ideology that devalues the lives of members of out-groups are capable of doing horrible things. If China took their own history seriously instead of mostly downplaying a period in living memory where teenagers beat intellectuals and landlords to death, maybe China's youth would understand this better. Instead, the standard narrative which a good many people seem to buy into despite all evidence to the contrary is that the Japanese and other imperialist countries did bad things simply because they ARE bad, while Chinese have been victimized because they are innocent and peace-loving. I think this kind of thinking is EXTREMELY dangerous.
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Oct 6, 2012 21:58
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:The Chinese have taken all the wrong lessons from WW2. So many Chinese seem to believe that the Japanese are just born evil; I can't count how many times I've read things like "the little Japanese devils have perversity and evil in their very bones!" And MY WAIFU's best friend in the US is Japanese, but she can still say the most vile things about the Japanese when something flips the crazy-switch that Chinese education has implanted in her for the rest of her life. The real lesson that should be taken from what the Germans and Japanese did is that people from ANY group that allow themselves to get caught up in mob mentality and an ideology that devalues the lives of members of out-groups are capable of doing horrible things. If China took their own history seriously instead of mostly downplaying a period in living memory where teenagers beat intellectuals and landlords to death, maybe China's youth would understand this better. Instead, the standard narrative which a good many people seem to buy into despite all evidence to the contrary is that the Japanese and other imperialist countries did bad things simply because they ARE bad, while Chinese have been victimized because they are innocent and peace-loving. I think this kind of thinking is EXTREMELY dangerous. How you don't see the contradiction between making a sweeping generalization about "the Chinese" and condemning sweeping generalizations about "the Japanese" takes a truly remarkable mind. Rather than quote the endless posts just like this in this thread, I'll just state this obvious fact which goes out the window when talking about other races: Do not make generalizations based on anecdotes. Do not even make specific judgements based on anecdotes, since perception itself is biased. Anecdotes are completely worthless, and as I stated earlier living in Asia as a foreigner is actually detrimental to making fair and non-racist judgements. Asian history and culture is complex, full of contradictions and struggle, and probably impossible to speak on from a position of privilege without serious humility. I know D&D by it's nature attracts people who feel they have the ability to speak on every subject, but please instead take the time to type out "I don't know enough to have a scientifically thorough opinion."
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Oct 6, 2012 22:25
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Baby Huey Newton posted:How you don't see the contradiction between making a sweeping generalization about "the Chinese" and condemning sweeping generalizations about "the Japanese" takes a truly remarkable mind. I thought about preempting this obvious line of attack, but I assumed most people could see the difference between statements about general trends within a society at a given point in time and immutable assertions about the immutable, inborn traits of a race of people over generations. And no, sorry, I don't agree to meeting the standards you want to set. The fact that I sometimes throw out a single anecdote as an example doesn't mean it's all I've got. I've done my share of academic reading about China, but I don't have perfect recall and don't consider posting in D&D to be on the same level as, say, writing a thesis. So sometimes I toss off an anecdote that happens to jibe with what I've read or that seems in line with large numbers of other anecdotes I've heard or experiences I've had. I think I include enough qualifiers and hedges in most of my posts to make it obvious that I don't think that every last person in mainland China is a certain way based on one thing that a single person said to me. So no, I am not going to feel bound to conduct exhaustive research before I express any kind of opinion on anything or explicitly state that I don't know everything. After all, nobody does.
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Oct 6, 2012 23:08
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:I thought about preempting this obvious line of attack, but I assumed most people could see the difference between statements about general trends within a society at a given point in time and immutable assertions about the immutable, inborn traits of a race of people over generations. That's because you have no skin in the game. Generalizations, stereotypes and de-humanizing reductions of a human being to his race and/or culture have no consequence for you. People don't use evidence because it's too difficult, but because in any social science such reductions of history and culture to vague stereotypes and negative anecdotes aren't allowed. There is no evidence to use, at least using serious research. Being careful and thorough should be the minimum in a discussion, but especially when it comes to such sensitive topics is a moral requirement. You're correct though that no one does it, shows the state of D&D instead of some acceptable norm. The level of humility I'm talking about is to say "I realize that anecdotes, especially negative ones, seem casual to me but could have a hurtful effect on those human being I am othering and reducing to my own privileged perception." That the opposite reaction is what I expect and never fails to happen shows how privilege works, especially in the realm of orientalism which is not quite as socially unacceptable as racism against black people. To the mods, allowing this kind of posting is not "free" or "neutral", all it does is marginalize actual Chinese people, the exact people who would be valuable in such a thread instead of a bunch of expats with no actual knowledge and generic D&D posters who participate in every debate.
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Oct 6, 2012 23:44
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As a privileged white man, I just realized that the "Marco Polo Project" isn't in the OP and thought it might be something worth adding. http://marcopoloproject.org/online/ GuestBob fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 04:37
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I think this was brought up before, Baby Huey, but what do you consider to be a sufficient educational background to start talking about China? You've said that no expat is qualified, and you also attacked one forums poster for daring to make statements based on "poverty tourism." It seems like you've read one (admittedly important) book and are now trying to moderate this discussion. If this is not the case, please enlighten me.
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Oct 7, 2012 04:41
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:]I think I include enough qualifiers and hedges in most of my posts to make it obvious that I don't think that every last person in mainland China is a certain way based on one thing that a single person said to me. I think the fact that Chinese people's life experience can vary so widely depending on where they were born and fall on the social ladder makes it especially difficult to talk about China. I could tell you something completely true about one group of Chinese people and someone from a different city or walk of life would view it as an absolutely racist thing to say, because it doesn't jibe with the experience of the social class they are familiar with. bad day fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 04:45
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 Generalizations are necessary for normal human conversation.Not every post can be a study with demographic tabs.
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Oct 7, 2012 05:10
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Grouping and otherizing is something your brain does naturally. It's impossible for us to conceive of more than a certain number of people as individuals, so we lump them together in our minds. It's a perfectly normal thing to do, but people should try to be cognizant of it and how it shapes our beliefs and opinions. I think saying nobody should make observations unless they are the person being observed is really weird. It's cultural relativism taken to its furthest extent - we must not only strive to not judge other races and cultures, but to not talk about them at all. Because we might hurt their feelings. Also it seems like Baby Huey is likely from the privileged class (studied abroad) therefore he/she isn't really qualified to talk about this subject. Fiendish_Ghoul posted:Although I do think it is more plausible in China because there is, after all, centralized government department in charge of the media. Well the indoctrination on the Diaoyu Islands thing is being pushed all the way down to grade-school level. It's not just a few politicians and some civilians making noise. I think that's the key difference. The American government isn't producing educational toys emphasizing how China is stealing American jobs through outsourcing and giving them away to middle school students. Yet. bad day fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 05:22
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hitension posted:Yeah, it's probably more like a 3800 year history, but that sounds kinda silly. You could round up to 4000 year history, but 4 is an unlucky number. Or something. Nope, Egypt doesn't count because they're not the same blood. Their race is totally different from ancient Egyptians. This is something I've heard on at least 4 separate occasions from highly educated Chinese. Honestly, there's no current nation that can claim to have a continuing civilization stretching back thousands of years without there being very real questions about the "continuing" part. And that includes China. There's nothing all that special about Chinese history, apart from the number of people who think that it's somehow special. Daduzi fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 07:17
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Since this is the China thread, can I ask for the Chinese reaction to American-Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen's Dry Bones Project? In case you're wondering what it is, I'll let the website do the talking.Crazy Racist Cartoonist posted:
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Oct 7, 2012 08:58
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I often like to compare Jewish and Chinese culture and I could make an argument for Jewish history being as long, special and awesome as Chinese. But of course we can say that actually rabbinical Judaism in its modern form only goes back less than two thousand years. Much in the way that Chinese culture in its modern form has a much shorter history. It all depends on how you mark it. Kreplach and Chinese dumplings ARE eerily similar however. Edit: I wrote this post before seeing the Dry Bones poo poo. So this is not at all an answer to your question
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Oct 7, 2012 08:59
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LP97S posted:Since this is the China thread, can I ask for the Chinese reaction to American-Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen's Dry Bones Project? Having asked Chinese people the reaction is "what is that and why are you asking me about it?" Which I couldn't give any answer to because I have no idea what you're actually asking here.
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Oct 7, 2012 09:03
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Yeah I also follow the Political Cartoons thread and it seems like Yaakov has gone to one university in Sichuan and made a speech or something. I don't think anyone has been impacted at all by his project. The fact is that China doesn't really have antisemitism. Asia in general lacks the history of Jewish relations that the west and middle east have, in which firm opinions about Jewish people and Israel have been formed. Upon learning I'm Jewish, mainland Chinese have generally said: "Oh, you're so smart! Like Einstein!" I'm not even exaggerating that is the overwhelming majority of responses, word for word. In Hong Kong, it's usually "Oh yeah, Jews are really good at business, right?" There's a lot of stereotyping. In general, it seems like some Asian people read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and, instead of getting upset about a global conspiracy, thought "Wow, these guys have got their poo poo together." And then that idea has been spread throughout the Sinosphere. Israel as a country is not well understood. Though I've heard some interesting things about Israel-Taiwan relations that go back to when Taiwan was a dictatorship and South Africa was under apartheid, they had some kind of block of pariah countries going on. I certainly think Yaakov's concerns about China being 'poisoned' by antisemitism are overblown. But that's no surprise to anyone who's familiar with Dry Bones.
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Oct 7, 2012 09:11
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I think in China there is an admiration of Jewish culture because of both Chinese and Jewish cultures highly value education. Beyond that, there is probably very little encounter between the two.
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Oct 7, 2012 12:40
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Vladimir Putin posted:Beyond that, there is probably very little encounter between the two. There used to be a community of Jews in Kaifeng: enough to support a synagogue. The group dispersed during the mid C19th though and now there is nothing left. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews
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Oct 7, 2012 13:23
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There are a number of curly-haired Han Chinese from Kaifeng though.
bad day fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 13:31
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Incorrect! How can you say there is nothing left when the Kaifeng Jews are being crassly commercialized like every other religious thing in China! Israeli and American Jewish tourists are making their way there in increasing numbers to see a couple of renamed streets and hear about how hundreds of years ago there was a small community of a few hundred probably heretic Jews. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/tour/jewish/ http://jewishchinatours.com/communities/kaifeng.php
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Oct 7, 2012 13:33
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Fall Sick and Die posted:How can you say there is nothing left when the Kaifeng Jews are being crassly commercialized like every other religious thing in China! The concrete pagoda strikes again.
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Oct 7, 2012 14:11
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Oceanbound posted:What really? I don't think that is remotely true. Yes, those terms mean Protestant and Catholic. Yes, people probably don't know the difference. Big leap to go from there to "they think Catholics aren't Christian". Koreans think that Catholics aren't Christian. They have a word for "Protestant", but literally no one had ever heard of the translation I used. Stands to reason Chinese have the same tranlsation issue. edit RE: Jews, Chinese are surprisingly anti-semitic. Every time I mentioned the problem with banks in the US, the first thing I heard was "Oh the Judeos, right?" You could call this something else, as it's probably the one thing they hear about Jews in China like "Chicago is very cold", but I was suprised at how often I heard that. menino fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 14:56
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But to them it's not anti-semitism. If you talk to people about it, they're kind of like "Jews run the banks, eh? Their people are very good with money." and there isn't this negative connotation where you would normally expect to find it.
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Oct 7, 2012 15:33
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That's been my experience in Korea. It is racist but it's not hateful, it's just complete ignorance. I don't know what you'd call it but it's not antisemitism in the way we think of it.
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Oct 7, 2012 15:35
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Grand Fromage posted:That's been my experience in Korea. It is racist but it's not hateful, it's just complete ignorance. I don't know what you'd call it but it's not antisemitism in the way we think of it. If you ever catch a Jew, he must show you the way to his pot of gold.
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Oct 7, 2012 16:21
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I find it really hard to think about racism in China in the sort of terms Baby Huey does. The things we see as symbols of evil have context. We look at Hitler and see this horrible evil thing. But in China they emphasize the war with Japan and kind of gloss over the European theater so a lot of people wind up seeing Hitler as this kind of admirable leader. Things don't have the same cultural weight. So when a 9th grader uses this as a visual aid for his report about Germany, what do you say when he comes to you asking why the other teacher was angry with him?  I mean, it makes sense. They have cars. And Hitler. And they were allies with Japan. And Japan is famous for Pikachu. So.. Hitlerchu. It reminds me of that time in Kindergarten my family went to go see a movie about Nazis with the Silverman family and afterwards all us kids made swastika armbands and marched around like Nazis. Or parents got really, really angry with us and we just didn't grasp why. So I tried to explain why the other teacher got angry. I compared Hitler to Hirohito and got him to agree that drawing pictures of Japanese atrocities on a poster for a report about Japan would be inappropriate, and that some people might see his drawing of Hitler as being kind of like drawing Japanese atrocities, and that he shouldn't do it anymore. And he understood. I think. But, I mean - essentially this drawing has no meaning. It bears no cultural weight. It's just a drawing of a bunch of stuff some kid associates with Germany. Also I suspect it's plagiarized. So when you've never met a black person before, and you're unlikely to meet many foreigners in your lifetime, you learn everything about them through media. Your opinion of black people is going to come entirely through media. It's probably not very significant to you either. Somebody will say "I don't like black people" but they don't mean anything hateful by it. I think. Probably if they met a black person they would be very nice to him/her. So it's confusing. bad day fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Oct 7, 2012 |
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Oct 7, 2012 16:21
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I would agree. The vast majority of what happened in the European Theatre of Operations and indeed the atrocities done by the Nazis on the Jews have almost no cultural weight in China. And I suspect also, the subsequent conflicts in the ME between Israel and its neighbors probably also have no cultural weight in China.
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Oct 7, 2012 16:36
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bad day posted:Hitlerchu. Kids are really aware of brands aren't they. I can't help but notice that the little guy is sponsored by both Nike and Adidas - the latter is German I suppose, but that seems like an odd fact to put in a report.
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Oct 7, 2012 23:46
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All day I dream about (the) Sudetenland.
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Oct 8, 2012 00:00
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If they don't know the context, then I guess they're trying not to. Hitler=Japan's buddy. Japan=hated enemy, slaughterer of population, decimator of native culture , creator of attempted racial empire at the expense of Chinese lives. Racial empires' ally in Europe=neutral figure? Come on, gently caress that. They learned nothing from it, if it's just a "hey important Western figure let's feature him lolololo". I get that China's not up on international standards in terms of development, but for the most part that's just willful ignorance, at that's at best. {Insert NE Asian nation-state here] is always history's victim.
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Oct 8, 2012 01:25
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Vladimir Putin posted:I would agree. The vast majority of what happened in the European Theatre of Operations and indeed the atrocities done by the Nazis on the Jews have almost no cultural weight in China. And I suspect also, the subsequent conflicts in the ME between Israel and its neighbors probably also have no cultural weight in China. Generally speaking, with the exception of a few notable US cultural icons, nothing that happens in the outside world that does not directly involve Chinese people has any cultural weight in China.
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Oct 8, 2012 03:04
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menino posted:If they don't know the context, then I guess they're trying not to. Whats your point here? Pretty much every country does this. Do you really think anyone in the US would know what Japan did during the war if they hadn't been in direct conflict with us? Heck, most don't know even now. I've seen plenty of people with the Japanese imperial flag stuck on their cars or shirts, which is pretty similar to sticking a loving swastika somewhere.
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Oct 8, 2012 04:54
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Whats your point here? Pretty much every country does this. Do you really think anyone in the US would know what Japan did during the war if they hadn't been in direct conflict with us? Heck, most don't know even now. I've seen plenty of people with the Japanese imperial flag stuck on their cars or shirts, which is pretty similar to sticking a loving swastika somewhere. I don't know about his point, but my point was just that most things are given meaning. Nothing is inherently offensive, it requires that a person be present in order to be offended. So if I decide to sell Black People Toothpaste (because they have white teeth) in China but not put any black people in the commercials (because they are large and threatening), why is that bad, exactly? I'm not sure I could construct a convincing argument as to why people should care, or if this is even something worthy of being discussed. Same with the Pikahitler thing. I had a difficult time explaining why you shouldn't draw Hitler in school. The more I thought about it, the more convoluted my argument became.
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Oct 8, 2012 08:00
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bad day posted:Same with the Pikahitler thing. I had a difficult time explaining why you shouldn't draw Hitler in school. The more I thought about it, the more convoluted my argument became. As long as you give him extra credit if he includes Marius van der Lubbe as Charmander and Herman Goering as Jigglypuff then its okay. [edit] You realise that there is a direct line between your inclusion of My Little Pony in one of your previous lessons and the rise of Hitlerchu.
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Oct 8, 2012 08:49
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/w...anted=2&_r=1&hp In case you guys read this news article today, I just want to point out that it is perfectly okay to talk about the bright future of our communist motherland in love letters back in 70-80s. During 70s, in cultural revolution, it was actually the only thing that you could write blatantly in the love letters. So I find it amusing that this article quotes Bo's poem to imply he had a political ambition when he was young. It is just a normal thing to write in letters back in days when you wanted to impress a girl/boy. During 70s, a typical love letter starts with "Dear Comrade XXX, Since the last time I wrote to you, our dearest Chairman Mao has being healthy and he is till working hard fo our red China! I feel so happy! Long Live Chairman Mao! All counterrevolutionary are paper tigers!" And ends with "My dearest Comrade XXX, how's your work and your study (that means learning of Mao's red book). Let's both work harder as the ordinary screws on the machine of industrialized new China, to build a better future for all the people in the world who are still suffering from the bloody capitalism". Even in 80s, this style remained, less Mao, but more "Work and Study", the hints of romance hid in "I mailed you a sweater last time, are you wearing it?" and "I will have a holiday very soon, so I will try come back to my hometown for 3 days, will you be there?"
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Oct 8, 2012 13:30
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menino posted:If they don't know the context, then I guess they're trying not to. Looks like you're not trying to understand the context here. Are you making the case that a NE Asian nation-state (Korea? Not sure what other NE Asian nation-state you're talking about - Japanese Manchuria?) is not a victim of Japanese occupation and genocide? Or Chinese intrigues back when Korea was divided into a couple of states, if you're trying to reach back that far. You do understand that Japan actually did all those things you make out to be exaggerations - slaughtering population, decimating native culture, and literally attempting to create a racial empire at the expense of Chinese (and Korean and etc) lives, right? We can debate whether this history is relevant to the current diplomatic situation, but you're actually characterizing the history of Japanese oppression as the whining of a victim. Arglebargle III posted:Since WWII Japan has been exactly as aggressive as Germany, i.e. not at all. There's no legitimate reason to suspect them of aggression. As I said, Europe has moved past those fears, but certain Asian countries have made it government policy to never let anyone move on. But if you only look at modern facts, they are not aggressive. whatever7 posted:Oh yeah? what about the textbook? I just want to lay out the concern about the textbooks a bit more. I think people are concerned about the suppression of WWII history in Japan. Part of the reason Germany is viewed as non-aggressive is because vestiges of WWII is still heavily present in its laws and culture - banning of hate speech, banning of swastika imagery, explicit recognition of war crimes, banning of Nazi parties, and a cultural shame around its history. From what I've heard about Japan, it seems like that is not present. With textbook whitewashing and visits to war criminals' shrines, there's not an explicit 'never again' that there is in Germany. Being aggressive is a pretty poor move for Japan diplomatically, right now, and the society itself has a pacifist strain, but my point is it's not difficult to imagine a shift to the right and a repeat of history if history itself is kept from the Japanese people. And to head off any tu quoque arguments about Chinese history, yes, this happens in plenty of textbooks all over the world. Warcabbit posted:I want to make one thing perfectly clear here, a communication to those outside the borders of the Greatest Country Ever. America has a good amount more than two hundred years of history. Even discounting the indigenous history, my family alone has been here for 300 years, come 2017. Paperwork still exists showing how we got kicked out of Boston pretty much instantly. I had an interesting chat about this with a friend of mine. I was watching the US elections and I realized (and feel free to correct me here) that there wasn't a preponderance of cultural aphorisms or fairy tales about rich people being evil bastards. Why doesn't Robin Hood get trotted out more often? Or some European folk story about peasants being oppressed by rich nobles? I would expect that rich == bastards to be a cultural truism. My friend, as an American and not a stand-in for all Americans, mentioned that there wasn't really any aphorisms or stories she knows in which rich people are villains. So I started thinking, when the US was established as a mix of western European colonies, where did their cultural heritage go? That was a real question, not a rhetorical one. People can definitely trace their individual American roots past the 200 year mark, but when people from as many different immigrant backgrounds as the US converge, they seem to lose their home culture. I feel like modern-day German Americans and Irish Americans don't retain their home folklore or more traditional culture, for example. Same with ABCs. I think the '5000 years vs 200 years' thing refers to how the people identify themselves. For example, people learn about American history and European history in school, as separate subjects; when you trace back your roots, the time before your ancestors crossed the Atlantic is considered to be a different time and culture, and it's safe to assume that the American sitting next to you doesn't share that cultural history, especially if they're of a different race. The descendant of a Bavarian peasant doesn't share the same culture as a that of a Yoruban farmer, for example; the difference can go back as late as 1862 when slavery was still legal. With the dominance of Han China in the Chinese historical narrative, you and your Chinese neighbor probably think each other of have been through the same stuff, same wars and famines throughout the centuries. Now that might not actually be true because of Chinese expansion, but the narrative is that they are. Actual cultural similarity could go back much further than America simply because China isn't a nation of immigrants. I'm not trying to justify the use of the 200-year-history bash on America, which is pretty infantilizing, just explaining why people would think that way. bad day posted:The American government isn't producing educational toys emphasizing how China is stealing American jobs through outsourcing and giving them away to middle school students. Yet. Debbie Spend-it-now would like to have a word with you on prime time television.  Also, pikahitler is pretty hilarious. Does the student have any other artwork interpreting European history as pokemon? Gotta catch 'em all to make the Lebensraum.
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Oct 8, 2012 16:56
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