Jottings from the Granite Studio

Every few weeks we see an article on public manners in China. I’ve written about it recently myself. It’s the LA Times’ turn today. In the run up to 2008, there appears to be no shortage of public campaigns in Beijing against ‘rude behavior’ and ‘backwards habits’ about which to write. But what the articles in the foreign media don’t address is how this notion of ‘backwardness’ is defined. Here the recent campaigns in Beijing fall into a pattern that dates back over a century.

In his book, Awakening China, John Fitzgerald argues that Chinese intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th century internalized Western critiques of Chinese society and so Western rules of etiquette, civilized behavior if you will, became conflated with larger debates about what it meant to be “modern.” Foreign criticism, much of it from missionaries stationed in China, included things like spitting, loud eating, loud talking, footbinding, concubinage, and public hygiene. Many of these same concerns, often expressed in startlingly similar language, would appear in New Culture era writings by Chinese intellectuals who cited these behaviors as evidence of China’s “backwardness” and the need to modernize.

In the 1930s, part of Chiang Kai-shek’s New Life Movement similarly encouraged Chinese to abandon backwards habits like spitting and loud talking so that China could take her place in the world as a modern nation. The CCP may not have agreed with Chiang on much, but early PRC films from the 1950s show eager young people in kerchiefs chastising elderly Chinese wearing traditional robes for the ‘uncivilized’ custom like spitting.

Even more insidious perhaps than the perceived relationship of Western etiquette and modernity was the conflation of Western standards of behavior and “civilization.” A colleague of mine from the PRC delivered a paper in 2005 on “Civilized Theater” in Shanghai in the 1920s. This new style of theater, which drew its influences from the West and from Japan, differed from older, more ‘traditional’ performances not only in terms of content and performance space, but also in the rules for the audience. Acceptable behavior in traditional theaters included loud talking during the performance, eating, spitting, smoking and other activities proponents of the new theater described as not civilized, or “bu wenming.” It was not enough to go see a performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” one must also behave as theatergoers do in the ‘rest of the world.’

Returning to the everything old is new again department, the parallels to the present day campaigns for polite behavior in Beijing couldn’t be more striking.

From the LA Times this morning:

“The Spiritual Civilizational Steering Committee of the Communist Party — yes, it’s actually called that — is on the verge of publishing a handy guide that will, according to a government newspaper, ensure that the behavior of Chinese tourists is “compatible with the nation’s economic strength and its growing international status.”

Implicit here is still a belief that certain behaviors, long accepted in China, are incompatible with the status of “modern, developed nation.” It’s not just the government either. Members of China’s urban elite fret about being lumped in with their country cousins. Everybody is worried that they will come across as “tu” or “backwards.” The last thing either the Chinese government or China’s new middle class wants is to see CNN or the BBC running pieces during the Olympics poking fun at Chinese “manners.”

Part of this is that frankly the Chinese government tends to have a pretty thin skin and has yet to show signs of having much in the way of a sense of humor. The British are famous for being able to laugh at themselves. Americans don’t need to do that, we pay Canadians to do it for us.

But the Chinese haven’t quite gotten there yet. Why? Face (mianzi) has something to do with it. But I also argue it has a lot to do with this history of internalizing foreign criticisms as part of an implicit standard of modernization, development, or even achieving great power status. This creates a difficult paradox for the Chinese: wanting respect on their own terms but at the same time using standards derived, in part, from abroad.

I’m certainly not saying that the Chinese shouldn’t think about public behavior during the Olympic games. And I do think there are certain “international” standards for good civil conduct. Forming lines instead of mob rule and not charging people different prices based on skin color seem like good places to start. But at the same time, foreigners need to be aware that this issue is more complicated than simply dropping off 1.3 billion translations of “Emily Post.” The Chinese remain prickly on this issue in part because it cuts at the heart of how ‘modernity,’ ‘progress,’ and ‘development’ get defined in China. These issues have deep roots in a past when Chinese fears about territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and foreign imperialism were not just empty CCP rhetoric but very real concerns.