Hacker News Reader

Comment by fring0 | Hacker News Reader

It's funny to see more of these articles about China where westerners get their panties in a bunch when they find themselves in a similar situation most other people have been in with respect to the west. I should write a similar article about my American/European dream. I hope the Chinese are able to take criticism better than the west. Westerners can't get over their superiority complex.

View on HN

>>I hope the Chinese are able to take criticism better than the west. Westerners can't get over their superiority complex.<<

Actually, most Chinese people I've met, especially those who were born and raised in mainland China, have a massive superiority complex. In every type of discussion comparing the West to China, they keep bringing it up the fact that China has thousands of years of history, and has invented things like gunpowder. Most of them view the West - especially America - with condescension and contempt.

I've noticed the same thing - but I've interpreted as an inferiority complex. As a Chinese, I feel like the Chinese feel an incredible need to prove themselves.

After all, the 19th and 20th centuries have been one crushing defeat after another. The yearning and obsession with past achievements (like, 500+ years past) is symptomatic of a general lack of confidence in the present state of Chinese society.

You meet a lot of Chinese with a chip on their shoulders and a remarkable need to assert that China will be strong once more, along with vague threats about how naysayer countries will get their comeuppance when the time comes. This all sounds quite similar to "The South shall rise again!" - an attitude borne out of defeatism, not true optimism.

That's an interesting perspective. I'm actually Turkish, and Turkey definitely has the same king of yearning and obsession for the achievements of its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. That said, it's a bit different because Turks tend to have a real inferiority complex, as opposed to one that is disguised by the pretense of superiority like the Chinese. I wonder why this is.

Russian people of Soviet era had the same complex.

We were taught that we have best science, culture, sport, military and most progressive state. Also we were strong but good, not as "prokliatye imperialisty" ("cursed imperialists")

It evaporated in '90s, but not completely - I often hear "we were ...."

Jerome K. Jerome wrote about the same complex in British people. If I recall correctly that must be in "Diary of a Pilgrimage"

but you really had first rate scientists.

I hear that Russia still has the best mathematicians. Culturally Russia was at the forefront of music/opera - just see the famous violinist of the 20th centuary. I read though in Nathan Milstein's biography that he fled the Stalin regime which stifled art in Russia.

I do pity the guy for moving back to the UK, expecting some kind of blessing of freedom. Perhaps he has been gone too long to realize the extend to which our police state now reaches. In the past 15 years, we have reintroduced star chambers, armed the police, failed to prosecute anybody in the police force for murdering innocent citizens, introduced 'precrime' arrests to stifle dissent, and we're extraditing British Citizens for not committing crimes in Britain.

This lunacy shows no signs of stopping either. In fact, it's accelerated massively with high profile events like the royal wedding and the Olympic games used as excuses to kill political dissent and keep the population dumb.

Of course, most British people are mindlessly flag waving about the Olympic games, despite how they embody the erosion of civil liberties. The British do feel superior - their ego and patriotism blinds them to their own enslavement, just as it does the Chinese.

I know nobody will take my advice, but I'll give it anyway: Pick somewhere other than the UK (or US), because you're gonna be quite sour when you find out what you're really in for.

Is there an English-speaking melting pot that doesn't have these problems?

Maybe Singapore? English is among its official languages.

Singapore is basically a police state already.

It may be a better place to live than the US or UK however.

I'm thinking of learning Spanish for this reason.

New Zealand?

Does Australia?

They seem to keep getting lambasted on Slashdot for proposing draconian internet censorship legislation, but I don't think any of it ever gets passed... how are they on the "police state" issue?

Spoken by someone who seems to have no experience of the real world, whether in the UK or elsewhere. Still live at home do you? Do you even have a job? The UK and US may not be socialist paradises but it is far worse in most other parts of the world, especially if you are not wealthy.

Perhaps you should respond to the actual content of the article instead of what you think it will say.

I found this article fascinating, and I would love to read your take on it.

My point is it is possible to write a similarly slanted article about the west pointing out only the negative things (and they are legion). The author has had some very bad experiences in China this has colored his views and is the basis for the many sweeping generalizations and unjustified statements in the article such as 'the world does not want to be led by China in the 21st century' or 'The domestic Chinese lower education system does not educate'. Also the feelings he describes of wanting to be part of a community but never quite fitting is not unfamiliar to many who live in the west. That said, the US is still miles ahead of China (and most of Europe) in guaranteeing equal rights and protection regardless of race or origin.

Try being a raghead like me and going through transport security in Europe, then going through it in the USA, then comparing the experience. You may be disillusioned.

Just tell, how does going through transport security in China work for you?

> Westerners can't get over their superiority complex.

We don't need your racism here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com