How much has Communism changed the ancient culture of China?

[Politruk]

I sometimes wonder if the Revolution has really changed anything at all about Chinese culture.

Put another way: Is there any significant difference, nowadays, between the culture of the mainland, which has been shaped by decades of Communist rule, and the culture of Taiwan, which has not? We kind of have a controlled experiment here.

 

[Politruk]

Both the CCP and the Kuomintang declared cultural war on the traditional Chinese idea that loyalty to one's (extended) family comes before anything else. Has that changed?

 

[ChloeTzang]

I sometimes wonder if the Revolution has really changed anything at all about Chinese culture.

Put another way: Is there any significant difference, nowadays, between the culture of the mainland, which has been shaped by decades of Communist rule, and the culture of Taiwan, which has not? We kind of have a controlled experiment here.

Throw in Singapore as well. And funnily enough, you could add Thailand, whose economy is dominated by Thai-Chinese families. Indonesia too - where Chinese play a huge role in the economy, but camouflaged by having changed family names to local ones, thus blending in a little. Malaysia too, for that matter.

 

[Politruk]

And then there's gerontocracy. Traditionally in China, the most courteous way to address a stranger was "venerable old great-grandsire." Has that changed? During the Cultural Revolution, the young showed their elders a lot of disrespect.

 

[Politruk]

Throw in Singapore as well. And funnily enough, you could add Thailand, whose economy is dominated by Thai-Chinese families. Indonesia too - where Chinese play a huge role in the economy, but camouflaged by having changed family names to local ones, thus blending in a little. Malaysia too, for that matter.

What about Hong Kong? Always more Chinese than British; not Communist until quite recently.

 

[UltraChad]

Anything less than the actual borg is too much culture for Politruk....

 

[Politruk]

Anything less than the actual borg is too much culture for Politruk....

Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.

 

[UltraChad]

Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.

https://i.imgflip.com/1vqet2.gif

 

[Politruk]

https://i.imgflip.com/1vqet2.gif

Posturing won't change anything. You serve the Dark Side. Darth Donald is a Sith Lord.

 

[gxnn]

It depends how you define ancient culture.

On the face value, more young people have been Americanized, though they do not necessarily know how to speak English. But they believe McDonald and KFC are more tasty than local food or they simply assume these two brands are absolutely Chinese because they know no other things than them.

Chinese culture is open and has received a lot of foreign elements from other parts of the world. They even want to revise the English language now used in the UK and the US. If you know what Long Time No See is, you know what I mean. The recent DeepSeek seems to consolidate their conviction that they are able to do so if they want.

Before 1990s when China began the full opening to the outside world, foreign movies in China means a large variety of exports from Europe, Mexico, Egypt, Japan, India, but now the same words only mean products of Hollywood. Just give you an example.

The question you raise is an interesting one and a hard one.

 

[UltraChad]

Posturing won't change anything. You serve the Dark Side. Darth Donald is a Sith Lord.

I'm not the communist here.

 

[Politruk]

Before 1990s when China began the full opening to the outside world

Is the Great Firewall still in place?

 

[Politruk]

I'm not the communist here.

That ain't the Dark Side any more. It never really was.

 

[gxnn]

Is the Great Firewall still in place?

I don't know, but looks like it is still there unchanged or even reinforced. But there are many ways for young people today to access the other side of the world. DeepSeek is a very good example. No members of the developing team has the experience of studying outside China, but such a situation doesn't keep them from being updated with the rest of the world.

And the high officials, though they do not or cannot like America or Europe or anything related to Capitalism as they show to the public, have had their wife, son, grandson, daughter, granddaughter stay or be born in the US for a long time. They won't send their offsprings to civilized countries like North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Iran to receive the most advanced human education offered there.

The renowned Confucius Institute, a peer of the recently closed USAID, is a good place for the people having good connections to travel and stay in a foreign country to earn experience, financial aid, or credentials, especially in the industrialized countries, at the cost of governement. To fight the US is their career(source of income), to reside in the US is their life (dream).

 

[Politruk]

Is Chinese culture still as family-centered as it was before Communism?