From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Advice on Academic Studies (Re: This newgroup rejuvenated)
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 00:22:22 GMT

In article <1992Sep24.215413.13027@mail.cornell.edu> Joshua Cope
<jdc1@cornell.edu> writes:
>     Hi... I'm also looking at the newsgroup. Unfortunately, I can't
>follow much of what's going on; the arguments sound like they've been
>going on for months! And much of it is tough to follow.

Here's a summary.

-cu = sense of culture
-ci = sense of citizenship
-ge = sense of ethnicity (genetics)

Note that a German-ge can be American-ci but Korean-cu.  In other words,
genetics does not determine behavior, and ethnicity does not culture.

However, many Chinese-cu, rednecks, KKKer's, and Nazis believe that
ethnicity does determine culture; for example, those bigots believe
that because a person is Japanese-ge, he/she will do the Japanese-cu
"thing".  Two examples of people who hold this view are Mr. Yong Wee
Dennis Lee (yongwee@leland.stanford.edu) and Mr. Wilbur Pan
(u58402@uicvm.uic.edu).

>I'm interested in Asian studies, especially Chinese culture, but this isn't
>quite what I expected.

My advice to you is to cease and desist if you, Mr. Cope, are studying
Chinese-cu culture with the intent to "enter" into it.

However, if you are studying it from an intellectual viewpoint as one
would study Nazism in the 3rd Reich, then do so, by all means.  When
you do study Chinese-cu culture, there are a number of questions
that you can formulate to prepare your study of that culture.  In fact,
there are far too many questions, but by answering the following 
question, you will encounter answers to most of the other questions that arise.
Namely,

    Why has Chinese society failured while Japanese & Western society
    attained heights that have never been reached in previous human history?

A fruitful answer to this question will be obtained by avoiding courses
that were created to appease Chinese-Americans in their "multi-cultural"
rampages.  These "appeasement" courses seek only to glorify Chinese
society, a society which has destroyed the lives of many people.

Do read my posts if you have time.  I try to provide short interesting
points without going into long-winded debates that eventually lose much
of the audience.  You will see many Chinese-Americans (usually
those whose parents were upperclass Chinese that emigrated to the USA)
and Chinese engaging in numerous personal-attack strategies to silence
differing opinions (including mine), but try your best to ignore the noise.

If you have a chance, do try to visit some of the poor farming communities
in rural China (which is where most of the Chinese in the world live).
There, you'll "see" the real Chinese mentality (as opposed to the hogwash
spouted by many Chinese-cu on s.c.a.a.) and discover that many of my posts are
uncannily accurate in their assertions.

>     I don't mean to beat a horse that's probably been killed many times
>over, but what is culture anyway? Many people believe that a racial
>background somehow transfers cultural understanding ...

Yes, many Chinese-cu who are also Chinese-ge believe this.

>[interesting comments deleted]

If you decide that a study of Chinese-cu culture is more than you can stomach,
then I would suggest that you try an alternative culture, like say Korean
culture.  To the credit of the Koreans, they've never committed the kind
of mass infanticide that has and probably still occurs in Chinese society
--to my knowledge[1].

It's too bad that most Chinese-cu children can't switch from Chinese-cu
culture and families to Korean culture and families as easily as you can
switch from the study of Chinese-cu culture to Korean culture.  It is really
unfortunate.

[1]  Congratulations are due to the S. Korean gov't for dropping
recognition of the illegitimate Chinese gov't on Taiwan.  It and the
upperclass Chinese had a big hand in wrecking the lives of many
underclass Chinese.

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Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american