Chinese virtue

Chapter 53 Lack of altruism (1)
In Western countries, there is a term that has gained widespread popularity: altruism.Altruism means that people start from the heart or from humanitarianism, consider the interests of others, be enthusiastic about public welfare, and oppose selfishness.Regarding this point, it is also mentioned in Confucian works, such as "Do not do to others what you do not want yourself to do to yourself", which is a good rule.Although this commandment started from the opposite side, it has become a very high moral standard for the Chinese.However, from a practical point of view, like other ethnic groups, the moral standard of the Chinese has not reached the standard required by the norms.

To see how far they differ from the theoretical code of ethics in practice, it is necessary to examine their actual performance in life.However, since the scope of the investigation cannot be infinitely expanded, there are some things that we cannot figure out, so the conclusions drawn are likely to attract criticism.From another point of view, we don't know much about the Chinese people, or we don't understand it thoroughly enough.Therefore, we will analyze Chinese people's life in detail from these aspects: family relationship, neighborhood relationship, village-to-village relationship, relationship with people outside the family, people's relationship with the court and officials, and the relationship with foreigners. Relationship.The relationship with foreigners is very important, so I put it at the end in order to attract everyone's attention.Another point to mention is that the conclusions mentioned later do not come from my impulse, but after a long period of investigation, and rely on a variety of factual evidence, which must not be ignored.

One thing not to forget is that the population of the Chinese people is very large, although floods and famines are very effective factors to restrain population growth (as can be seen in other countries), and in each dynasty of China, such disasters will occur repeatedly, However, due to the Chinese people's expectation of "spreading branches and leaves", these disasters should have had no effect in China.People always let their children marry early, and then make them have a lot of children, without any consideration of whether there is enough food to feed them.The combination of this phenomenon and other reasons has led to the formation of the most common concept of life among Chinese people, that is, muddling along, and judging from the current situation, there is no way to change this state for the time being.Even if foreigners don’t know that Chinese people don’t have extra money, they can’t get along with any ordinary Chinese for a long time.Because the Chinese are very poor until now, when they do anything, their first goal is to make money. If someone does something for you, then when he gets this errand, it already means that he has something to eat .If there is an urgent need for money in an emergency, the Chinese usually cannot afford the money, even the rich will have such a predicament.It is often believed that when a person needs emergency assistance because of hunger, no one wants to help them alone, except the rich.

Most of the Chinese who have contractual relations with foreigners will bear some debts.Someone needs money, someone wants to borrow money, so the two sides have reached a balance.It amazes me that borrowing is so risky, yet everyone can easily borrow and borrow money.The reason for this situation is that China lacks good investment methods such as savings banks. In Western countries, savings banks can provide loans to the poor to the maximum extent.

When we said that the Chinese lack trust, we have already said that one of the consequences of this kind of casual lending is high interest rates.In this kind of loan, there is usually a monthly interest of [-]% or higher, and in some special cases, the interest can be even higher, even reaching [-]% per day.

The most obvious status quo in China is poverty, which makes people unable to see the light of life.

Even a fool can see the effect of this situation on the relationship between people.

In a certain state in the Mississippi Valley of the United States, there was an official of the agricultural department who made a report many years ago on the relationship between feed and pig production.The official did an experiment in which he selected two pigs of the same age and weight and fed them separately.

One was fed two and a half pounds of food a day, while the other was fed just two pounds a day.

As a result, the pig that ate more food grew healthily and rapidly, while the pig that ate less food kept barking and asking for food.Just the difference of half a pound of food can stop a pig from squawking.It's normal, a lot of Chinese people never have a full meal, so people keep complaining.It would be really strange if there were no complaints.

These people have no effective and stable means of subsistence, eat every meal, so they don't glorify others.Under such pressure, they will form certain fixed living habits, even when the pressure of survival is not so urgent, these habits will allow them to maintain their lives at a minimum level.Under such circumstances, food and money, like the two focal points on the ellipse, become the top priorities of people's lives.

Perhaps the topic that most resonates in the hearts of Chinese people is filial piety.When facing the moral values ​​and beliefs of the Chinese people towards the elderly, we try to be fair, but after getting familiar with the inside story of the Chinese people, we will understand that many elderly people are not well supported .I know many such things myself, some of these facts come from the crying of the old people themselves, and some of them come from the gossip of neighbors who are familiar with the details.During the investigation, we can get a lot of information in this regard: some people will abuse their parents and even beat them.However, it should be noted that this kind of thing is not very common. Families, clans and neighbors are always critical of those who are disobedient and unfilial, although those people sometimes do not taste the bitter fruit.

In the past few years, two such incidents have happened in Hexi District, Tianjin, where I live.In one, a man beat his own mother and then shot her.Amid the accusations, the man left the house, but returned shortly afterwards, and under the guidance of his uncle, he apologized to his mother.In the end, he lived with his mother again, and never thought of killing her again.A few miles away from this village, in another village, there lived a relatively well-to-do man who killed his father with an axe just a few years after the events described above, because he felt that his His father had a poor look, and he was ashamed of himself.In the end, the man was sent to the province for trial and sentenced to death.

In the same town where the mother was shot, there was a deaf man who was very filial to his mother. For a long time, people paid attention to him, even the local officials noticed him.Later, in order to praise his filial piety, the local government awarded him a plaque and asked him to hang it on the door of the dilapidated house.

Still in the village where the mother was shot, there was a 72-year-old old woman who had fled from her hometown.She has been blind for many years, but she still insists on cooking by herself. For this reason, she has to go to many places to collect straw as firewood; sometimes she will do some needlework by herself and go to the market to exchange some pocket money.Her standard of living has reached the lowest level of the Chinese.She was able to live to such an old age, entirely thanks to the help of her neighbors.In fact, she has two sons herself, and the sons are very clear about her living conditions, but neither of the two sons expressed any sympathy for her. They have not had contact with their mother for more than 20 years.There is an old lady who is obsessed with discussing the principles of moral degradation, and she always insists on one standard: the best is the one that is realistic.For this theory, we can also draw it from the Chinese standards of filial piety.

In a conversation with an educated Chinese, I heard something like this: Among Chinese families with many brothers, nine out of ten families envy the wealth of the rich.For such a conclusion, I did not accept it at the time.And on this day, I encountered an incident, and the narration of the person concerned well verified this conclusion.

There are two brothers. The elder brother is always in poverty because he spends money without restraint.

The two inherited the storefront on the street, which was not very valuable, so when the family separated, the elder brother chose to own the family house, and gave the storefront to the younger brother, who rented the house by himself.

After a while, the elder brother ran out of money again, while the younger brother managed the store well and became rich.The elder brother was very jealous when he saw the wealth of his younger brother's family, so he planned to take revenge on his younger brother.There happened to be a foreign lady living behind the house where the younger brother lived. When the lady was walking on the street in the morning, she suddenly saw many carts parked in front of the door of the younger brother’s house, and a group of helpers carrying poles entered the younger brother’s house. courtyard.The whole thing happened like this, the elder brother hired many men who lived nearby, and just after the gate was opened, he led people into the yard and entered the younger brother's bedroom.At that time, the younger brother hadn't got any clothes on, so the elder brother pulled him from the bed and took him outside the house, beat him severely with a stick, and then blinded his eyes with quicklime, so that he could no longer engage in the business of the store.The elder brother's wife also came with the elder brother. She pulled the younger sister-in-law off the bed, beat her severely, and then threw lime into the younger sister-in-law's eyes.Those who were hired originally thought they were hired to help people move, but now seeing this situation, they understood that this was a conflict within the family, so everyone dispersed, fearing that they would get themselves into a lawsuit.

At around seven o'clock in the morning, the person injured in this incident was taken to the Yamen by his friends.When dealing with such cases, officials must check the extent of the injured person's injuries.However, this official likes to smoke opium, and has the common problem of all officials, that is, he does not start to deal with official business until evening.Friends saw that the eyes of the victim were basically broken, but in order to preserve the evidence of the case, they did not dare to get the lime out of the victim's eyes. This is a typical Chinese way of thinking.He was sent home at [-]:[-] p.m. after officials had examined him, and a foreign doctor was called in to clean the lime from his eyes.After a day, the matter finally came to an end.The doctor examined the lime in the victim's eyes and found that in order to remove the lime, the lime had to be loosened; moreover, the lime was mixed with tobacco, which would increase the damage to the eyes.On the whole, the condition was not serious, his eyes were not broken, but there were some bruises on his body, and there was a deep gash on his arm from a nail.His wife's eye was also hurt, but to a lesser extent than his.She was bruised and hoarse from shouting for so long.Seeing that the helpers had all run away, the perpetrators focused on the things in the house, took away what could be taken away, and smashed everything that could not be taken away.Under normal circumstances, such a case could have been tried in a very short period of time, but according to the characteristics of Chinese case trials, it is impossible to achieve this.It was several months later that the author learned all this from the younger brother, and at this time the case had already been tried many times.The older brother was put in prison for a while, while the other accomplices escaped.There were some lost clothes in the case, but they were not found in the end, and no one came forward to testify whether the clothes were stolen.Maybe a few months later, some innocuous document will mediate the matter, and after that, life goes on as usual.

In China, the moral code is concentrated in those Confucian classics and the emperor's teachings, which always teach people to know restraint, and think that restraint is more praiseworthy than forgiveness.Chinese people have strong restraint because social stability requires such restraint.There is an example that demonstrates this very well.A man was swearing in the street, he had been a rich man's servant, and he was standing at the door of the rich man's house, cursing everyone in the rich man's house.

Holding a knife in his hand, he claimed to stick the knife in the gate of the rich man's house.Faced with this situation, the rich man chose restraint, and he had to wait for the former servant to calm down his anger.Later, the servant had enough scolding, so he ran to drink, and after getting drunk, he died in front of the rich man's house.

Many times, someone will use this opportunity to extort a sum of money from the rich, but in this matter, such a situation will not happen, because the moral balance has completely tilted towards the rich, and those who know how to restrain themselves are There will be good rewards.

In Chinese life, everything has the potential to become a trigger for quarrels. To use a good analogy, there is no spoon that does not touch the rim of the pot.By chance, I saw a deserted vineyard in the next village, and thought that since this vineyard was abandoned by the owner, the price must be very cheap if I bought it, and in my hands, this vineyard You can also recover its value.So I hired a villager from that village to negotiate with the owner of the vineyard.It turned out he did a good job and the vineyard was in my hands very quickly.But in China, things like this don't end there.It was the brothers of the host family who signed the contract with me, and since people don't think things are over, they think the vineyard is still theirs.Not long after, one of the brothers decided that selling the vineyard, which had previously been run by their deceased grandfather, was an insult to their grandfather.The other brothers did not participate in the specific process, but at this time they all believed that they hadn't considered it very carefully before, and now if they want to reconcile this matter, the only way is to ask the middleman to take out his reward and distribute it to several brothers.

In all such cases, the intermediary is always in an awkward position, and they are often blamed for not cooperating to pull off a criminal deception.Especially in dealing with foreigners, because people always want to make more money from foreigners.Foreigners get cursed all the time, especially if they don't speak Chinese, and another reason is that they don't spend lavishly, and those shopkeepers or other people don't want them to.Even servants hired by foreigners suffer from this.Chinese people are usually surprised when a foreigner is being cursed and kept calm.

The usual Anglo-Saxon answer is: "So what? He can restrain himself, and of course I can." And if a Chinese is scolded and does not respond at all, it is considered to have lost his self-esteem.When a foreigner is calm in the face of swearing, he is considered ignorant, and when he is opposed to quarreling about everything, he is considered ignorant of shame.

Foreigners can easily misunderstand Chinese people, and Chinese people can easily misunderstand foreigners. The experience of a foreign friend of mine is a good proof.Once, some of his friends accompanied him to visit a bank in China.Not long before that, a serious fire broke out next door to the bank, and the friend congratulated the owner of the bank, thinking that his bank was lucky not to be burned by the fire.But when the owner of the bank heard this, he lost his temper and yelled at my friend, "Why do you talk like that!" After a while, my friend finally understood why the owner of the bank was so angry , because what he said showed that if there was a big fire, it was very likely that the bank would be burned down, and it was very taboo to say that, even in a congratulatory way.

(End of this chapter)