One of the areas of Chinese life that is difficult for Westerners to cope with is an apparent abruptness. People never say "Please" or "Thank you"; or so it seems. For a long time I fought a one man battle in shops and public places by insisting on saying, "Thank you" to all and sundry. I was always met with a quizzical frown.
I mentioned this to a long time China resident and he said a friend of his, who was adopted almost as a family member by a Chinese family, was told on one occasion not to say, "Thank you," within the family circle. It was explained to him that by using this he was, in effect, treating them as strangers. He was told to accept in silence all the normal little attentions one received! in the home as family members expect to receive them without compliments. This is the -correct way to behave, so why should you be thanked?
This reflects the community approach "the Chinese have to life. They do everything in common. There is no such thing as private space. This is true even for bodily functions as I discovered when using a public toilet.
There are no doors on the cubicles, everybody squats casually as if they were having a drink in a pub! The same long term China resident put it this way, "Westerners need private space, the Chinese have inner space."
Ancient Chinese wisdom saw clearly that we are interdependent and interconnected with one another but preserved this for the Chinese only, everyone else was outside this family circle. In the same way, Jews treated all non-Jews as Gentiles. This was an effect of the sin of Adam whereby man was divided from himself, from his fellow-men and from God. This alienation was further deepened by the Enlightenment and it is the rampant individualism that is now on offer to underdeveloped countries by the so-called enlightened West. "The unacceptable face of capitalism," to use Ted Heath's phrase from the 70s.
Reflecting on this has caused my cultural superiority to take a battering. I am learning from the Chinese what community really means. They may never have heard of the doctrine of the Trinity but their closeness to one another is a triumph of an ancient culture over the efforts of Mao and materialism, whether capitalist or communist, to divide and destroy.
Thank you for reading this far. Oops!
Fr Teddy Collinsis a Columban who teaches in China