Comment by Snargorf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Snargorf | Hacker News Reader

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Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese.

Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large.

This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to help. When the Westerner comes by and closes the manhole cover, the Chinese are surprised. They'd never consider doing anything like that, because - what's in it for them?

This is a country where people pay others to go to prison for them. If they clip a child with their car, they'll deliberately run over the child again and again to make sure he dies and doesn't create hospital bills.

I was never more staggered by rampant, blatant cheating, plagiarism or dishonesty than when I spent a semester studying in a university there. For someone raised in the West, Chinese callousness and dishonesty towards strangers is unbelievable until you experience it.

I went to a privileged American school where cheating was not uncommon. I watched at least two students openly cheat their way into Ivy League colleges, whose rich parents ensured they were unscathed when they were caught. I watched students with inferior intellect, but superior connections, finesse their way into colleges beyond their pay grade. I sure as heck hope foreigners don't judge me based on their encounters with these sorts of Americans. As a side note, none of these students happened to be Chinese.

So let's try to avoid taking the most extreme headlines ever written about modern China and painting all Chinese with a single stroke. The 1900s are over.

EDIT: Ignore this exchange. I misinterpreted the parent comment (see down below)

> So let's try to avoid taking the most extreme headlines ever written about modern China and painting all Chinese with a single stroke. The 1900s are over.

The article and headline seem balanced to me.

I find this accusation of racism common in response to articles critical of Chinese. Perhaps you misunderstand the text.

The implied word in the headline is some, not all,

"How an industry helps [some] Chinese students cheat their way into and through U.S. colleges"

Does that make it more clear? If not, then how, in your view, could this headline be rewritten to not be racist?

The fact that I was talking about a different topic aside, of course we don't expect the headlines to be balanced. The virtue of fairness is at odds with the financial benefits of controversial wording.

> The virtue of fairness is at odds with the financial benefits of controversial wording.

Agreed. You said someone was "painting all Chinese with a single stroke". I don't see that. Which words specifically do you find controversial?

Or, do you just dislike the premise of the article? In that case, if you could rewrite an article like this, how would you write it, generally speaking?

Ken47's comment was in reply to another comment, not the article. The other comment said "cheating is just part of Chinese culture" and Ken47 was disagreeing.

Oh gotcha. My bad, thanks. I read "extreme headlines" in the wrong way, but I see what he meant now, that the comment above was piecing together the worst headlines about China. Fair criticism.

I don't think cheating is a part of Chinese culture, however, gifting seems to have been as recently as 2013/2014 in education [1] [2]. In business, it's still common to give your boss a gift in order to get a promotion [3].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-china-parents-bribe-...

[2] http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/teacher-scolds-class-...

[3] https://www.rnw.org/archive/what-give-chinese-boss-who-has-i...

I got a pair of $400 Prada sunglasses as a "gift" from a Chinese student, first week of school. I was told it would be extremely rude to not accept a gift in Chinese culture. The student was very confused when a lower than expected grade was received.

Where was this? In China?

In the US

In what year? I find it hard to believe that someone studying in the US hasn't been briefed by other students that this is not part of American culture, particularly in the digital age

Assuming it happened recently, my guess is this is more the exception than the rule

Student was definitely in the 1%. His dad owns a company that's on stock market, he has his own gaming servers company in China. He wore suits worth more than my monthly salary.

That explains a lot. Kid knows exactly how business works, though maybe misses the point that gift-giving is viewed as a negative thing in the West, particularly in education. Schools' reputation for integrity of calculated grades is everything for that business.

Yeah that puts you in a really weird position. Speaking as someone who grew up with a foot in both worlds, the best way to handle it is to refuse the gift as inappropriate in American academic culture. (I'm assuming this was in an American institution.)

Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting is basically signing on for the "deal".

If a family member is visiting me and brought a gift, it would be rude to refuse beyond the culturally customary back and forth in which I put on a show of refusing. But if I were a TA and a new student tried to give me a pair of Prada sunglasses, I would outright refuse it, and possibly act insulted/offended by the thought.

> Also refusing a gift isn't extremely rude in Chinese culture if it's in the nebulous "I scratch your back you scratch mine" gray area that might be bribery. Accepting is basically signing on for the "deal".

So, the person who tells you it is rude to decline, is really just attempting to persuade you to "sign the deal".

After living in Asia for a few years, I can understand how accepting gifts from family members and pretending to decline them is a form of showing respect. I wonder how that developed and why the straightforward Western approach of simply saying, "this is an amazing gift, thank you so much" isn't more common.

Westerners do sometimes say "you shouldn't have" while accepting gifts. We only try to decline the most over-the-top gifts. I guess levels of "politeness" vary across cultures and from situation to situation. In the case of giving and receiving gifts, China's culture appears to be more polite

At any rate, similar to pushing education on other parts of the world, the act of making this a cultural norm seems to make the act lose its meaning, particularly for people outside the culture, like me.

I wonder whether government officials in China really believe in education, and how many view it as a charade. I tend to think it's only a charade when viewed as a charade, and only helpful when viewed as helpful. Education is what it is to you

This was in 2013. We had a Chinese liaison/translator who worked with us in the USA-she's the one who convinced me not to return the gift. It could be she also got a gift and had an interest in keeping it-couldn't say for sure.

Lol. That's nuts. You'd have ruined her rights to her gift if you returned yours ;-)

What a sneaky trick!! Who says the Chinese aren't brilliant.

> Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large.

I am Chinese and I would respectfully disagree that cheating is some part of Chinese culture. The only example you gave was basically the bystander effect in action, which you then ascribe to... cheating somehow? Moral depravity of millions of people?

Chinese callousness towards strangers is shocking. Wait till you see what some us politicians have to say about foreigners!

> I am Chinese and I would respectfully disagree that cheating is some part of Chinese culture.

I'm not sure what it takes for something to be considered part of a culture, but academic cheating is very widespread in China to the point that there can be strong resistance to local or regional efforts to curb it on the grounds that this will put those who are prevented from cheating at an unfair disadvantage due to the widespread cheating by those outside their region [1].

There's also a plagiarism problem in China, and cultural factors are a major reason for this [2]. More on the scientific plagiarism and fraud problems in China: [3] [4] [5] [6]

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/heres-the-q...

[2] http://www.npr.org/2011/08/03/138937778/plagiarism-plague-hi...

[3] http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-scientific-credibility-marred-...

[4] http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-j...

[5] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/copycat-papers-flag-c...

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?pa...

Having also spent time at a Chinese university and seen rampant cheating of Chinese students in my home country I must respectfully disagree with you.

Currently there is a major lack of ethical behavior in mainland China. Hong Kong and Singapore are nothing like this.

I sincerely hope that China will become aware of the issue and be able to improve.

I this cheating aspect of the chinese Culture very believable for several reasons. - china is a highly competitive culture (extremely densly populated, need to competing aout ressource) - china acts economically like Borg, they sold solar panels for less than the production costs to crush the European market (which they successfully did), the same is now happening with Steel btw. > I call that cheating as well - china manipulates it's own currency - china steels intelectual property notoriously

For the steel, no, if you import more ores, you will get lower prices. The production costs will lower due to large scale production.

The culture of cheating and lying in China is so bad that even the government posted economic numbers aren't trusted. I have plenty of very close Chinese friends and they would be the first to admit that the mainland Chinese culture is messed up these days, and the instinct to lie and cheat is prevalent.

Hong Kong, perhaps? Or Chinese-American?

I was really focusing on mainlanders; I've not noticed this from people born in the West. And less in Hong Kong (though still present).

I believe SolaceQuantum would still argue you're being racist by casting all mainlanders into one group

People have different perspectives on what is and isn't part of a culture. Your disagreement may come down to different definitions of culture. How many people need to perform a certain action in order for it to be considered "part of the culture"?

For an American student who has only ever met the 30 Chinese caught in this cheating scam, it might appear that cheating is part of Chinese culture. Similarly, even though you've been to China, you were probably only in one city and had limited time there.

I know what you're saying. I'm an American living in Asia. I've visited China several times. I live in Taiwan. As a foreigner living in the region farthest from home, you notice some patterns of behavior you may not like about different groups. I've also met tons of Chinese and Taiwanese who I fully understand and get along with better than those who have habits different from my own

If you put yourself in SolaceQuantum's shoes, assume the definition of culture is subjective, assume he is a mainlander who does not cheat and is trying to contribute to the definition of his culture, maybe you can see why he objects to your remarks.

The article, by the way, does not make the claim that all mainlanders or all Chinese cheat, and it does not attempt to define Chinese culture.

Countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. have the same cheating problems in their countries.

I think I know why. Asian countries value education very high. It's way out of poverty and improves your status. In that kind of culture it's no surprise that people who should not go to university want to get there.

So you have admirable cultural thing of valuing education and it comes with negative side effect where people try to get it even when they don't have the ability.

> So you have admirable cultural thing of valuing education and it comes with negative side effect where people try to get it even when they don't have the ability.

Good observation. It's not limited to Asia. There are blue collar jobs available, as Mike Rowe tells us. You can make a decent living as a plumber. But people don't want to deal with actual shit. They'd rather deal with the metaphorical variety =)

Anyway, student debt is going through the roof in the US. We may have invented the problem.

> Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture.

It's not Chinese culture. It's about penalty. During my college study, two student had to quit school at them forth year because they got caught in an Exam. No one will risk that dangerous to cheat in an Exam. If school didn't punish the cheater, this will happen again and again. I think you are filtering all positive news about China(Like most media in western country do) and judge Chinese people based on these negative news. Please open your mind.

> It's not Chinese culture. It's about penalty

I agree it's not Chinese culture to cheat. Adults know this leads to poor work performance. Why, then, does the cheating happen on a larger scale among Chinese students?

American high schools and below are more strict than Chinese schools. In the US, after four years of high school, most of us know one or two kids who were expelled for some major transgression like cheating.

Therefore, by the time Americans get to college, most of them know there are immediate consequences for cheating. Students coming from China may never have seen someone seriously punished for cheating. Rather, students are praised for giving gifts.

So, if the student is innocent, whose fault is it that Chinese students do not know the consequences of cheating? Is it the American college's fault? Or the Chinese high school's?

Someone else in this thread pointed out how lousy instructors filter out students who are not self-driven [1]

Perhaps China's plan is to just let what happens happen. Anecdotally, I feel this produces some extremely smart kids alongside some who get caught up in the feeling that the piece of paper is the most important thing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11779160

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