Chitchat Japan vs China

fupikee said:

My answers to your new questions are already contained in my reply - very much depends on history, size and population plus culture.

Again consider the facts :

1 Japan is basically a four island country with a population of only slightly over 100 million. Cannot compare to China with 1500. When you have more people, there are more diversity, more differences and people do things differently.

2 Japan has a few hundred years or can say even close to a thousand years, isolated itself from other countries. Physically, it is isolated with the islands buffeted by winds, storms and hurricanes, plus earthquake prone fault lines. Given this, it has more or less, after absorbing cultural ballasts from China, sets its own path culturally and socially for centuries, till the Meiji. It had and still is developing a very strong culturally, socially homogenous country, except in the last 50 years or so when westernised influence attacked the very essence of what constitute jappie culture and society.

China's history is more tumulous, with many peoples of different cultures and practices, separated by vast land distances, clobbered together. Many times in their history, the north and south were ruled by different dynasties at the same time. What distinguish them from other races is the fact that they share the same common writing language and nowadays, a common spoken dialect, Mandarin. Such differences of course lead to different ways of doing things - it is hard to be homogenous without raising a big hue and cry, except where there is a proper agreed system of behaviour or laws, example the feudal and Confucianism ethics.

3 Again, history told us China survived through a very difficult and disastrous Cultural Revolution. One of the greatest damages was the rejection and demolishment of the past, history, practices and culture, in particular, the more or less total destruction of the Confucian ethical system. People do not respect the elders, past practices and even the very leaders and system that it is contained in. People even question the Communist ideology, but managed to use Maoism as a base of its governance. But then, as historians said, it is incomplete and not totally ideal to govern China, such a vast diverse land as compared to the centuries old Confucian ethics built up.

Many people in China nowadays say they got no religion. Morals? maybe no, so we have businessmen who put poison into milk powder and food in order to earn big money. Money is the new ethos but if allowed to carry on will lead to disasters for the country and peoples, everyone for himself.

Somewhere in the next 50 years, China leadership will realise they need a ethnos system of governance - that is, a ideology that spells out clearly to the people, what they ought to do in managing the society and nation. Sun Yat Sen's san ming ideology is a great start, but much meat needs to be build up against the framework to enable the country to prosper in the right, morally ethical manner.

In a nutshell, such a ethos system says - here are the rules, each of you who has a role to play need to play the role properly, someone will take care of you and everyone can progress happily and prosper together. In other words, a replacement of the Confucian ethics that helped to develop Chinese Culture, but were destroyed during the cultural revolution.

4 Whilst African or European countries near to each other may share many similarities in terms of development, these again can trace back to a common history, not that they got governed by the same people. Just that they went through the historical periods together. But if you really take a closer look at each of them, they have many differences - this accounts for the diversity between the Cossacks, gypies, hungarians, blankans, polish, jews with each other. Such differences often were deadly leading to pogroms and ethical cleansing. In recent history, we see the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia - even after over 50 years of common communist ideology, once the binds are off, each race and ethnical unit went out of their way to fight their way to supremacy - resulting in genocides all over. Even now, the euro multiculturalism is a myth, and to hope to get it adopted by a united euro is a day dream....the euro is as good as dead, because no nation and ethnic group will be willing to give up the powers of governance to others, especially unelected governors in Brussels.

So I do hope with the above, there is a better understanding of why some countries and regions develop different or supposedly perceived similar patterns.

The purpose is to offer a different point of view from a broader perspective. One should not just be blindsided by mere supposed physical differences and place judgements on nations or peoples for differences and be puzzled. Such argument is just one point of view.

That is all. Cheers

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kingrant said:

Japan also has more homogeneity in culture and language than China. While China stumbled from dynasty to Republicanism to barbarians from outside to Communism, Japan had an Emperor as a unifying force.

The geography of Japan vis a vis China is also smaller..and being an island has more food resources than landlocked China except for the coastal cities.

As somebody has also said, the Japs dared not talk abt history or they have to account for their war atrocities.

China has a richer history and like it or not, historical events - bad and good - have shaped their progress.

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CABcommander said:

China infrastructure will one day be on par with Japan and Korea. No doubt about it.

But chinamen will never be the same as them because they have no shame, no class, no morals, no civil mindedness, no sense of hygiene. In summary they are a bunch of noisy dirty scams that will pollute the country they go to. Worse is their desire to earn money at all cost with no regards to human life. Remember poison baby milk.

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frenchbriefs said:

u are chinaman too arent u right down to ur genes and DNA markers,ur entire genetic blueprint is essentially the same yet u consider urself different,superior simply cause u grew up in a different environment,culture(or adopted a alien culture).perhaps one day tiongs would develop and change too as their surroundings develop.

if u look at the koreans especially the older generations,u would think they speak barbarically too and have poor manners,remember south korea only caught up economically in the late 80s and 90s,before that korea was a dirt poor country relative to the rest of the asian tigers,their gdp per cap did not even hit the 20,000s until the 21st century.

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CABcommander said:

Yeah right. Ah tiong will change their manners. Sure give and take 500 years time maybe.

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frenchbriefs said:

perhaps it takes a few nukes and icbms?is that what ur saying?and to hold the world hostage under the chinese yuan so u can blow ur economy to hell and let others foot the bill.

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borom said:

If its one on one, the japs will win .

See history
-1st Sino-Japanese War (1894/95) btwn Qing Empire and of Japan, China lost Korea, Liaodong,Taiwan and Penghu Islands.

-2nd Sino-Japanese War ( 1937 to 1945 ).The Chinese lost much of its territory, starting from Manchuria, Shanghai, Nanking, ect2 .Japan only surrendered because of US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Till today have not seen a Chinese product superior to Japanese and will not consume any food from china-you trust people who even fake baby food?

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CABcommander said:

Yeah right. Ah tiong will change their manners. Sure give and take 500 years time maybe.

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JohnTan said:

The chinks are addicted to totalitarianism, believing that it is the best way of governance. From politics to social behaviour to internet control, most chinks feel comfortable when someone is controlling them and tells them what to do. Many chinks I met have recently boycotted Korea as a holiday destination simply because of that THAAD issue and a directive from peking. It is bizarre for most people outside chinkland to buy into this crap, but there are you have, the chinks are perfectly okay with such nonsense.

In Japan, the people are governed by a federal system even during their shogun era, where the central government is strong but not exerting total control. That actually allows room for innovation and creativity.

With regards to discipline, Jap culture has also prized stoicism and quality, especially from the 1960s. Jap quality for consumer products improved mostly post WW2 period. Prior to that, most made in Jap products were known for their inferior quality.

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scroobal said:

What gives?

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JHolmesJr said:

The larger an enterprise, the less the focus on quality....they then only care about efficiencies of scale and all that bollocks.

Singapore, due to its size, used to also be about quality at one time.

The some people got greedy and stupid...and they allowed themselves to be conned by CECA.

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JHolmesJr said:

The larger an enterprise, the less the focus on quality....they then only care about efficiencies of scale and all that bollocks.

Singapore, due to its size, used to also be about quality at one time.

The some people got greedy and stupid...and they allowed themselves to be conned by CECA.

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mojito said:

Only one reason - feudalism. Same as sinkieland, no feudalism means no nobility, no nobility means no code of honour no aspirational morality. That is why you see chinkland kimland sinkland all career bureaucrats merchant class peasants no upward looking forward looking philosophy all shallow materialistic bourgeoisie. Some people some places doom to lowborn attitudes like corruption and corner cutting.

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Maximuz said:

Here's my clumsy stab at it:

- Background: Shortly after Japan was forcibly pried open to international trade in the 1850's, both the Brits and the Americans were surprised to find the Japanese to be honest, upright, courteous, and clean. This was in stark contrast to Chinese industry and the Chinese as a race, both of which they were already familiar with: dishonest, corrupt, conniving, and unhygienic. So even before the Cultural Revolution (remember, this is the 1850's), there is already a marked split in how both cultures conduct themselves.

- Of course, nobody knows what the hell was going on in isolationist Japan between the 1600's and 1853, apart from the ports of Nagasaki where only the Dutch, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Okinawans were allowed trade. It has to be said though, that the "ethos" of Shintoism, together with its later syncretism with Buddhism and Confucianism, has already held sway for about a thousand (yes, thousand) years before 1600.

- This however, is problematic. We're discussing why the Japanese ethic is towards high-quality endeavour as opposed to the Chinese-fuckall, and the syncretised Shintoism holds no clue other than one tenet of taking "pride in your work." Don't get me wrong, most of the societal norms take cue from the Shinto-Buddhist notions of not-being-a-pain-in-the-ass, "for the greater good," self-remonstration, etc etc. But it still doesn't address the Japanese tendency toward high-quality or highly creative production.

- This ostensibly brings us to what many consider the fuel for innovation: capital. Operation Golden Lily, also popularly known as Yamashita's Gold, was a systematic stripping of Southeast Asia's gold to be shipped back to Japan (giant gold statues of the Buddha were melted down in Cambodia for instance. Actually, even trivial things like gold-tipped pens were smelted), and most of the gold bars made it back to Japan. As a sidenote, a good chunk was allegedly stored in the Philippines, and Ferdinand Marcos allegedly took it for himself, after duping a hapless gold hunter. The Marcos bit is an allegation, but Ops Golden Lily was real.

- The gold after WW2 was the true fuel for the worn-out "Japan's miraculous post-war recovery," but I have an additional bit to add here: an engineer friend of mine told me that technological advances, especially in the field of electronics (i.e, Sony transistor radio) were largely due to the Japanese patent office receiving craploads of low-quality, useless patent applications such as wireless data transmission with a working distance of 5mm, and the government harshly told the research institutes to get their shit together or have their (gold-backed) funding cut. This was, according to my friend, when Japanese industry (or the electronics sector at least) bucked up their ideas and started becoming world dominators.

These are the bits of pieces that I have, and of course I'm dissatisfied because I can't figure out why the Japanese were already doing things very differently even before 1853. We were the Meat Puppets to their Nirvana, the Beatles to their Oasis, the senpai to their kohai (lit. 后辈). Heck, Hokkien was the court dialect in the Tang Dynasty (look it up if you don't believe me) and many Japanese pronunciations of the same thing are similar, and even a few words are practically identical: "shimbun," "sekai," "sensei."

My tiny assumption, after wading through all this mess, is two-fold. The first bit is on the tonal qualities of varying languages, which is commonly expressed by people saying Cantonese is more sing-songy while Hokkien is more guttural (also see the harmonic debate of 432 vs 440hz on the human psyche). The second bit is with a discovery made by, ironically, a Japanese gentleman who wrote words like "hate," "love," "generosity," and etc on pieces of paper, which were then placed in separate beakers of water. The water was then frozen and when he then started taking molecular pictures, he found wildly-varying colours and shapes depending on what word was placed in the water (again, this can be looked up).

And so I submit to you, in my estimation, that the tonal language and frequency first affects water (of which we're 70% composed of), leading to the formation of "words," or "ideals," or "concepts," which in turn gets shaped by the ethos of the age, and which in turn informs the tonal language again. Could it be the other way round in this circle? I don't know, this is all conjecture. The one defense I can put up for this hypothesis is how sometimes, certain languages are better for expressing rage (Hokkien for us), and how for example, a raving Spaniard sounds much more menacing than a raving Frenchman. And also, why do Arabs, even while relaxed (watch youtube videos) speak as if they're ready for a life of frontier brinksmanship? Does the environment shape their language, or does their language shape their environment?

Ok that's it from me.

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scroobal said:

I skipped your post after reading s few lines as I suspected it was substantive and I wanted to do it justice by reading it properly when I had time. Not at all disappointed and impressed. You must have some back ground with Japan to make these observations. The ending floored me - language, totally unexpected but the hypothesis has legs. Not far is the observation that those who speak well tend to be meticulous and do achieve things.

There was an article about a 29 year Singapore girl who set up a ski lodge in the Northern Alps and does everything herself. The fact that she did everything was very much Japanese. Its pride and honour in play. There are rest homes in coastal towns where lodge owner is usually a fisherman who catches and prepares the dishes for his guest.

Thanks for your post.

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fupikee said:

I had originally not wanted to comment anymore on the thread. However, TS continued comments in praise of the jappies made me want to respond to his views.

He again seem to time and again emphasized the jap attention to details, neatness and throughout and executed plans as reflected, even in the streets.

I ask, so what? He seem to imply, in his view, because China and the Chinese do not seem to be able to work in similar fashion as the japs, somehow, in comparison, China is more backward, maybe able to achieve less than what the japs could do….but then, at the moment, who is making great economic strides year after year and soon, or already achieved the world’s number one economy status and who is the cuntry mired in a 20 year deflationary cycle, unable to get out of it?

SO WHAT? The germans too are very well known as a people for being detailed, precise and execute well thought out plans. During WW2, it has been found, germans even use the ibm machines to keep track, account and execute their ‘final solution’ against the jews. Imagine six million people just sent to their deaths, in the process, all their wealth, possessions, accumulated for generations got systematically robbed by the germans. They even collected the teeth and hair of the victims for use in some way to benefit the war torn german economy. So what? Do we then clap out hands and celebrate such a fantastic feat of racial, ethnic genocide and praise the germans for such a great deed….come on, it is not easy, logistically to manage to herd six million people to their deaths and harvest their wealth in the process. Such a crime against humanity and open robbery was and still is unprecedented in human history, except when we take a closer comparison with what the japs did. The japs might have done even a better more precise job against China, Korea and the rest of Asia. Let’s take a look.

The japs, being detailed as ‘praised’ more or less were able to execute their war plans ‘perfectly’. They surprised the amerigos with a direct destruction of their hawaii naval base so that uarsesA could not use their naval power to stop the jap mighty sweep down S E Asia. When the japs execute their sook ching operations in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, it was said and observed that they had already detailed plans of how to execute such genocidal plans – they already had lists of ‘anti-jap’ locals whom they wanted to arrest and execute, even before they conquered each SE Asian country. They had plans for how the local population were to be ‘taxed’ to punish their support of ‘anti jappie’ invasion and how comfort women were to be gathered for the entertainment of their troops. All the actions which went to support and sustain the great jap drive to build their imperial empire!!! So, do we also clap our hands and say, well done jappie dogs, you did very well to rob and increase the wealth of the jappie imperials by executing this tremendous logistical deed against the peoples of Asia!!!!

Not forgetting too another seldom discussed and not well known ‘genocidal’ deed by the japs, the murders and robbing of 20 million North Eastern Chinese people during WW2. Sooner or later, some researcher is going to uncover this great feat…do we then also celebrate such great attention to details for the japs to managed killing 20 million people and robbing the resources of the North East …a deed worse or better???? than the german killing and robbing of 6 million jews???.

One must ask the question – what or how do the ordinary germans and japs feel about such abdominal deeds of mass genocide? Besides the usual excuses of ‘…I am only following orders’, ‘…I have no choice or else I myself would be harmed’…there were also inventive ones like ‘…the propaganda media machines kept us in the dark…we don’t know anything…so could not do anything…” The jap simbums ran daily and weekly contests to celebrate the ‘execution champions’ – laughable bushido warriors who were able to cut off the most heads of the Chinese victims, kill the Chinese in the most inventive and atrocious manner….” Hirohito was pictured, time and again, on page one simbum dancing in glee over the conquest of one Chinese City after another…North East, Nanking, Beijing, …..

The german presses also celebrated and reported the drive of the army into europe…each time one european country fell under german boots, they clapped….So are we still able to accept the excuse that the japs and germans do not know of these genocides? Other than following orders, I do not know, being detailed and presumably educated and knowledgeable, would the germans and japs not think for themselves….no, no, killing other people on a mass scale is a no, no….it is immoral, inhuman….just like killing dogs and cats and eating people are no…no….

If we look at what the germans and japs did in atonement of their genocides, the contrasts were stark and obvious. The germans admitted to their deeds. Straight away, they suffered the splitting of their german land into east and west, they got occupied by the soviets and the allies. They admitted their crimes against humanities, some who could be caught got sentenced to death or prison sentences…germans vowed, never ever to do such a genocidal deed again!!

In contrast, the japs had it good. The japs had their imperial system intact….hirohito continued to dance his dances in celebration of past glories in his palace. Then, the amerigos had a great idea….in order to prevent the recovery and rise of China, the spread of Chinese Communism, the jappies were given great help technologically and financially to improve productivity and drive their economy towards the successes of the 60s, 70s, 80s…so much so, jappies in turn became the gurus of the amerigos and europeans for productivity and industrial progress…this was the early amerigo ‘pivot in Asia’.

….the jappies, NEVER openly and officially say sorry to any of the countries or peoples in Asia who suffered under their imperial broken dreams…whatever compensation they offered to victims and comfort women were dispensed with reluctance and miserly. Whatever help they provided to Asian countries in improving their industry systems and productivities were investments made in anticipation of the opening of greater markets for jappie products and profits….japs NEVER SAID SORRY.….

So what do we made of the above? Even if the japs are detailed and precise so what? Do they respect other people and humanity as a whole…seriously no. They are now trying to change their war time constitution in order to be armed….one day, their imperial ambitions will be revived again…that is the worry of the peoples of Asia.

If the japs are so good because they are precise and detailed…why is it that they are mired in a 20 year deflationary cycle? Unable to get out of the death traps? Why are they not number two or three economically like in the 70s and 80s?

The reason of course, already mentioned, they are homogenous and homogenously dense …they dare not do the necessary or anything different to save their economy. At the base level, for example, we are talking about their unwillingness to change the system, for to do so would thread on many many self and built in interests and reduction of privileges for the elites….they know it is not right…..the patronage system whereby retired civil servants who just before or after retirement get sinecures from the very organizations they monitored for legal & regulatory compliance in the past.. a big conflict of interest…yet they continued with the system…which jappie civil servant in his right mind, who at the age of 50+ or 60, does not want to have another guaranteed iron rice bowl, even if means to work for the very organizations they monitored in the past and that is morally and ethically incorrect…they don’t want to change the system, the privileges, the benefits…even if the cuntry is mired in a 20 year deflationary cycle….don’t change, don’t rock the boat…continue to enjoy your beneftis….let the cuntry be dammed!!!!

If we look at China, again we see big contrasts – they just got out of the disastrous Cultural Revolution when the initiator died in 1976…the country is mired in economic difficulties…the power that be would have let things be and continued with the system of governance. Luckily, there were enough nationalistic and country loving people around…they know to let the gang of four continue with their regime would be disastrous….they then overthrew the GOF, throw out the remnants of revolutionary elements, get rid of the in built self interests and in the process offended many many old cadres. Teng was condemned and called a revisionist, an anti revolutionary. His life was in great danger.
But the country was still in trouble, tethering on the brink of collapse by the centrally planned system. That was why the leaders bravely went on in mid to late 80s to visit various countries and try to learn how to turn in better economic results…..the result was a gradual retreat of the centrally planned system on to one that motivates the people to work hard, for themselves….if they are successful, others will follow. The rest is history…

Today, if we look at China and japs, we see a world of difference. One is rising towards world number one economy….great strides in science, technology, industry, in many cases beyond what amerigo and euros did or able to do. Space, science, patents….. In contrast, the latter is still struggling along with negative interest rates and massive printing of money to maintain the dying economy.
The big difference between the two countries is just that, the Chinese powers that be are willing to change the system, destroying built in self-interests and offending the elites – all for the better good of the country and the welfare of the people. They are revolutionaries without the violence but no less deadly against established interests.

Of course, we cannot totally blame the japs for their unwilling to change and improve. The same happens in amerigo. We now have a revolutionary who knows the problem, wanted to reform the existing system, reduce the federal reserve powers, rein in the bankers, their privileges and their robbery of the financial system. But, so long as bi partisan politics continue to exist, it will be hard for Trump to succeed in his drive to make America Great Again. The established self interests have ensured that his every move and new policy improvement is opposed and defeated. Very sad for such a country with potential……unless, they really are able to produce a great revolutionary to lead and put the country into a new and different path of development.

But China still has problems…big problems. 20 years of economic progress had produced a new class of elites and the rich, ready to defend and oppose moves to reform and improvement. Corruption and mal practices remain rampant. It is a big test for the present leadership to overcome such inertia and try new ways to improve the system and put the country towards a path of continued economic success. If they are able and willing to ensure that heads that need to roll in order for the country to progress, the heads indeed roll off the disease body, and be replaced by heads with visions and plans for greater success. No one can guarantee or know of the results in the future, but if they indeed do the right things at the present, just as what Teng did in the early 90s, then there is great hope that the potentials of China will finally be fully exercised and the country takes its rightful place as the first amongst equals amongst nations.

Finally, what of the much praised jap attention to details and great execution of plans? It is just but one feature out of the so many factors that ensure whether a country can be successful or not. All these factors need to be properly harnessed, by nationalistic, country loving leaders who are willing to challenge the norm, change the system, offend the self interests….if not the country will still remain for the next 50 years (if they can last that long) in a deflationary cycle and eventually implode towards total collapse….
Just so little for the destinies of failed bushido progenies,,,,

Cheers.

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