Regarding the line-cutting/cheating he talks about.
I like to distinguish between "culture" and something vaguer, which is what type of equilibrium someone is trapped in. I started to think this way when I lived in Argentina. Argentina is very corrupt, but just across the river is Uruguay...the least corrupt country in Latin America by some metrics. Argentines and Uruguayos are culturally quite similar (the relationship is analogous to that between the US and Canada), but one country is much less corrupt. I mused about this to my Argentine friend and he said "The difference is that in Argentine politics, if you're not corrupt you'll get destroyed." (This is kind of exaggerated but it gets the point across.) So while the cultures are similar, individuals in each country find themselves in different equilibria: if you're the only corrupt person in a group, you'll get caught and ostracized; if you're the only uncorrupt person, you'll get forced out (the same thing happens to police departments in the US). It is impossible for an individual to change the equilibrium.
Likewise with standing in line: Chinese immigrants to America preserve much of their culture for a while but don't cut lines; if they did they would be called out for it, being among the few who do so. But if everyone around you is blatantly cutting, then maybe you'll do it, too.
You should look into Richmond BC or Vancouver Canada. Lots of Chinese and lots of corruption associated with Chinese population, especially tax evasion, money laundering, immigration fraud, illegal business. The only line cutting however is when the fire department is giving away free road salt or there is a sale at the Coach outlet store.
I'll go a step further about line-cutting in China: People seemed to actually want a queue.
I lived in Chengdu 2011-2016 (and am happy I did) with my wife and three children.
Very very often there would be a mob instead of a queue, notably at a weighing station during shopping for fruits & veggies. I noticed that almost always, the force of example crystallized a queue.
All I had to do was visibly step behind someone near the front, and people would follow my example. A queue would form, and members of the queue would start enforcing it on new arrivals.
In short, people secretly wanted a queue, but they hadn't yet formed one.
You make some good points, but let me add there are two meanings for the term "culture" The narrow one is things like language and the arts. The broader one, which is what anthropologists study, is the entire workings of the society, which includes the sort of equilibriums you describe.
The thing is I guess that I would normally think of "culture" to mean differences in how people think about things. And you can fall into different equlibria without people having to think of things differently.
I believe it's much more about tribalism. There's a lack of civic bond between strangers because the idea of nationhood sits above individuals. That's why you see people completely ignoring the existence of others, while being overprotective of their own kins.
> "The difference is that in Argentine politics, if you're not corrupt you'll get destroyed." (This is kind of exaggerated but it gets the point across.) So while the cultures are similar,
Wouldn’t you characterize that as a significant cultural difference. Accepting corruption can be viewed as cultural.
I would view it this way.
You can define culture many ways obviously, but my point is that you can distinguish behaviors that move with the individual to other places and those that are part of stable equilibria, where one's choice only makes sense in light of others' choices. The latter are like n-player "Stag Hunt" games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt
As an example, Singapore accepts a lot of Malays and Chinese every year (and most people are Chinese), but the country has "an obsession with queueing" (https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/no-time-wait-line-star...) and is very orderly w/r/t traffic laws and such.
The n-person subgame Nash equilibria come from simple environmental constraints - the sheer number of people in India or China and the number of available seats in your commuter subway. The cost of not cutting the line is proportional to the number of participants. I'd argue it's a very different experience in say, Newcastle, UK where trains are historically on time, predictable, not as crowded, as opposed to trains in China being unpredictable, late, etc.
And, re: culture, well game theory tells us that free-riding is a learned outcome of repeated games. Singapore gets its past learning from a hundred years of British colonialism.
> The cost of not cutting the line is proportional to the number of participants.
But if people en masse don't cut in line, there's no cost at any scale, right? Imagine a culture where no one cuts in line. Then you don't lose by not cutting in line.
Remembering my experience in Singapore years ago. I usually went across roads at pedestrian crossing with a few exceptions at Little India, where I followed the crowds and went straight across the roads. People do follow the crowds around.
I never thought quite as broadly as the author, but what he says is consistent with one thing I observed -- driving and pedestrian behavior.
In China drivers and pedestrians are both better and worse than those in the US. I found drivers and pedestrians both to be much more aware and had more agency about what they needed to to be safe.
Whereas in the US we assume a lot more that the rules of the road are going to be followed, and they are. In China you shouldn't assume that a given rule of the road is going to be adhered to, especially if there is any indication that it might not be (if that makes sense).
This results in the US looking a lot more ordered on the streets. But it also results in some situations in the US where it seems like people are brain dead. I personally prefer the US in this regard, but I was also raised in it.
The downside to China's way is that driving is A LOT slower because you have to assume no one is following the rules. I've been a passenger in China where there were multiple near misses but was averted because the actual driving speed is low. This is the same in many areas of life and industry: if you can safely assume everyone follows some standard, you can optimize but arriving at that set of rule and rule following behavior takes time. China is very much in the "move fast break stuff (sometimes literally)" phase.
Having driven in both countries, I totally agree, with one slight caveat.
In the past, I had the opinion that due to individualism versus collectivism, US drivers tend to take things a lot more personally.
If you accidentally cut someone off or honk at them, US drivers feel it's a direct assault on them. I've witnessed and even personally encountered some scary road rage in the US, but never in China.
However, after finally having the chance to drive in New York, I realize that it's actually a city versus suburban driver/pedestrian culture.
I was quite amazed by how driving in New York City was so similar to driving in a Chinese city. Where it's more of a "dance" between cars, pedestrians, and other vehicles like bikes.
> I was quite amazed by how driving in New York City was so similar to driving in a Chinese city. Where it's more of a "dance" between cars, pedestrians, and other vehicles like bikes.
My experience tells me that is just a matter of scale and goes for a lot of "willingness to get confrontational". When $THE_SITUATION happens once every month you can initiate a fight or at least threaten, when that happens 4 times a day, you either stop or will be stopped.
I experienced a similar disparity when I visited India. From a western perspective, it was very chaotic, with no obvious rules and no real consistent system.
Everything just sort of flowed around everything else, there was a cacophony of honking and shouting and cars/bikes just wedging in themselves where they wanted to go.
As someone from northern Europe, all of this just didn't make sense to me.
Yet somehow, I did not witness a single crash during the week I was there, not even a minor love tap.
Of course this is completely anecdotal, and I know India has a very high road fatality rate. But there is some reason to the chaos. When the infrastructure is lacking, people are surprisingly good at adapting and making things work on the fly.
Personally, I prefer the rules and predictability of western traffic, but it does tend to break down and confuse people when someone starts blatantly disregarding the rules. Indian/Chinese traffic is more adaptable, in a way.
I've lived in both and I definitely prefer walking on Chinese roads.
Most US drivers, except for those in New York, are largely unaware of pedestrians, bikes, and motorcycles. I find it much more dangerous to ride a motorcycle in the US because so many drivers don't expect it and do things like turning right without looking behind them.
However, I do generally prefer driving in the US. The only issue I have is with the police. I'm much more scared of getting pulled over by a cop in the US due to some minor infraction, e.g. having a broke tail light, than I am of Chinese cops.
The world is not down to China and the US. How about walking on French or German roads? How about cycling on a Dutch or Danish road? People there are rule abiding, very much so compared to China, and at the same time respect pedestrian and cyclists. The problem in the US is the quasi universal car dependency.
A kid chasing a ball out into a crowded street is more likely to survive in China Han the USA. They aren’t expecting it in the USA, they are expecting everything in China, and the more orderly traffic in the USA causes it to move faster and hence be more dangerous if something exceptional happens.
How droll, but of course a completely meaningless/content free comment. A more useful one: it's very easy to get traffic accident and fatality rates statistics. [1]
China has about 2X per-capita road fatalities, and almost 10X per-vehicle fatalities as the US.
Again, a lot of weird stuff happens on the road in China that doesn’t happen in the states. Everyone is on high alert when on the road (pedestrian and drivers) because they have to be.
Someone doing X being more likely to survive in China than the USA doesn’t mean the USA will have a higher fatality rate (since people just don’t do X there).
This is pretty silly. Illinois drivers ed makes a point of teaching about the "ball bounces into the street, dumb kid is sure to abruptly follow" scenario, and both of my kids ran into exactly that scenario as I taught them to drive on the streets around our house. Kids chase balls into the streets all the time.
I'm curious about how you might have ever planned to back this weird argument up with evidence. Is there some secret repository of kids-playing-with-balls evidence that you were waiting to bust out? Or were you just going to try to first-principles it?
I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff on the road in China, very close to the proverbial kid chasing a ball into the street (though it might be some farmer chasing a goat, pig, or chicken). Anecdotally, I’ve never seen something similar happen in the states.
It just doesn’t happen in the USA, people aren’t prepared for it, which is well enough since the fatality rate is still low. It will happen in China if you spend a few week there.
I also noticed this when I visited China. Drivers and pedestrians seemed much more aware, presumably out of necessity. Interestingly the road toll in China looks to be X10 worse than in the US from this wiki page, so make of that what you will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
As a speaker of mandarin (Chinese wife) and having lived in China for a year, I really resonate with this.
One thing I try to explain to friends is the observation (and generalisation) of the tier of social behaviour. In short, if the person is a stranger you are total apathetic to them. If they are an acquaintance or friend you treat them kindly at face value. If they are family... you treat them with a disturbing blind loyalty.
It's interesting that prior to Xi's leadership, you could have a conversation about almost anything in China, so long as you didn't attack the Party itself. Now, as the author points out, mere discussion of economy, business, and financial markets can put you at risk. What's especially ominous is the banning of Winnie the Pooh from media; when even harmless cartoon characters are see to be a threat to the party, you know you're walking on eggshells.
They went from being pragmatic back to being overly ideological. History forever repeats itself, even more so in China where they are not allowed to discuss it openly & objectively.
I agree to most of the things the author said (except for America being the center of the world and a moral lighthouse for everyone of course). But what I think will get overlooked by most people is the beginning where he notes that the chinese he has met in his daily life are very nice people. Do not forget that they are the same as you. It sounds obvious but I think most people don’t realize how similar we all are. Probably every deeper concern you have had a chinese and russian and american person have also had. No they do not live worried lives where they think that if they break an arm they will be bankrupt. No they are not afraid every day of government agents knocking on their door to drag their father away. The risk of each one is larger in one country than the other. But day to day people think about the same things. Every country have their introverts and extroverts, engineering types and warm hearted caring types and the discussions that one does not exclude the other. Superficially chinese cut in line because if you dont cut you get cut and i am sure you would do the same if the situation was the same for you. Unless you are the quiet introverted type, which is also the case in China. Dont forget that this person talks about governments. You should dislike Xi for what he does to the chinese people, not for what effects you fear he may have on USA (the government, not the people).
How can you still hold this belief after reading articles like this?
> It sounds obvious but I think most people don’t realize how similar we all are.
That's more sensible.
Indeed, if any person from country <x> was raised in country <y>, they are going to be generally like others born in country <y>, but only if they were raised there. This is what constitutes culture, and all groups of people on the planet do not all share the same culture, as the author pointed out.
> How can you still hold this belief after reading articles like this?
I'll push back on this. Spending time in China helped me look at myself and break down what was universally human and what was learned culture. For example, the story about the missionary giving a talk at the local English Corner about "the meaning of life"
> He said he knew what people would say having lived in China for sometime but even so was stunned at how deeply and rigidly held the belief that making money was the entire meaning of life. There was no value system. There was no exogenously held right or wrong, only whether you made money.
Yes, people espouse that. Even to themselves.
But spend some time with them and find out what makes them happy and sad, and what they want to make money for, and it's the same as a westerner (and I suspect the same as any mentally healthy human on the planet): having basic autonomy in your life, developing as a person, quality time with friends and family, helping each other, a chance to raise children peacefully and otherwise contribute to society. Those are the things people genuinely want.
I think people universally find obsession with wealth to be unsatisfying, but it's sometimes only after a learning experience. They may try it for a while, but they realize it's a socialized value, not an intrinsic one.
To overgeneralize, China as a whole is still at an earlier stage of learning about wealth than the US or Europe or Japan or Korea. But they are in the process of learning the lessons of wealth and will, I believe, get there faster than we did, simply because everything is changing faster there than it did here.
Edit: And we in the West are not done learning either!
> How can you still hold this belief after reading articles like this?
I think neolefty answered it very well. I guess i forgot to mention i also have lived in china and have a chinese wife, wich has taught me the same. Reading articles and watching the news teaches you very little about humans compared to actually talking to them, in my opinion.
The issues the author has about line cutting and openly gawking seemed kinda interesting. In my view line cutting happens because people have this view that their time is more valuable than anyone else's, and so they don't see it as breaking any 'rules' as such. And this isn't unique to China, you can see this in a lot of poorer south/south-east Asian countries. Kinda why driving is also a nightmare in these countries.
Gawking as well is common in a lot of places which aren't as culturally diverse as say California. If a Chinese or white person visits India, then outside of a few areas in the big cities they'll see similar behavior. Heck I could see people staring at me when I was in Charlotte, NC a while back.
I grew up in China. Line cutting has always been annoying, even infuriating, for me. The last few times I visited back, I noticed the young generations are much better in this aspect. There are rarely any improvements in this regard among my generation and older ones. So I guess we have to wait for nature taking its time.
Gawking is common in places that are not culturally diverse. I drove to many small towns in Midwest. I got stared at when I was walking around the town. Especially so when I entered local stores, diners, and pubs where everybody else was white. I could tell many store owners, waitresses, etc. were not comfortable when talking to me. I hope it is getting better.
Line cutting has always been annoying, even infuriating, for me.
Thank you for the data point! I spent 5 years in Chengdu, China and (full comment elsewhere in the thread) found it fairly easy to crystallize a line out of chaos. The only explanation I can think of is that many people feel similarly to you!
Ha, that reminds me. I have a thing for trying out good cafes, and on my way to Berkeley, I decided to stop at one in Oakland. Till that point my ambit had been more or less limited to areas where s/w companies are + touristy spots. So, I never was the only Indian around. But here I was - and I got a lot of stares during my walk from a BART station to the cafe. Which was amusing and mildly uncomfortable.
I find this comment odd. I spent many years in Oakland and saw plenty of Indians (a quick google search shows Oakland is 17% Asian). Not to mention there are at least three Indian restaurants within two blocks of 12th street/Oakland City Center BART.
I am not sure why you find this odd. This could be locality specific - I didn't tell you where exactly my walk was. Nor did I imply if I walked the same distance anywhere in Oakland - anywhere in all 78 sq mi in it - I would invite the same reactions. In fact I do believe its locality specific, because in my other visits, which were to some of the theatres, the Oracle arena etc, I did see Indians.
Also, not that it matters to my point, your quick Google search was for the Asian population - the Indian population is much lesser - you made me curious, so I Googled. Apparently 3.95% of the Asian population of Oakland is Indian - which actually comes to < 1%.
I also found your anecdote odd, as a lifelong resident of the Bay Area. People everywhere in Oakland will have generally seen and interacted with many South(east) Asians before, (and without a doubt Asians in general, and also without a doubt near BART stations and along major roads). I also specifically say South(east) Asians because at least visually many people do not distinguish between them.
Two comments have made me curious - do you think this could be locality specific (no, I do note you said "everywhere in Oakland", but still ....)?
This was not a major road - I got off any major road, and walked quite a bit to this cafe (30 min walks for me are common - this likely probably greater than that via much smaller roads through residential areas).
Being in other countries like China and France really makes me appreciate how world class the customer service is in America. Here in the US, you can tell a waiter that your not happy with a dish and they'll immediately replace it with whatever you want. You can make substitutions, you can alter the way it's cooked (within reason), etc, and they still greet you with a smile and deliver excellent service. There are many parts of the world, where you just can't do that.
American wait staff have to rely on tips rather than a living wage, which forces them to take unending amounts of crap, or else they can't pay the rent. American consumers can and do verbally (and sometimes physically) abuse wait staff, and if the staff don't sit there and take it with a smile, they get fired. I don't find this an endearing trait.
Being able to send a dish back doesn't exist because waiters rely on tips. If restaurant owners and managers didn't accept it, waiters would not be permitted to do it. It's not like waiters take a plate back to the line and beg the cooks to do another one because otherwise they won't get tipped. "The customer is always right" is why American service (in general, not just in restaurants) is customer-friendly. It has nothing to do with tipping waitstaff.
I have sent back dishes multiple times in China and gotten a new one with no problem and waiters are generally very nice (and not just to foreigners in tourist places). I guess waiters are different everywhere, restaurants are different and individual preferences are different.
are you sure those were real Chinese restaurants, not tourist trap restaurants? I was under the impression, from a local of China, that you could under No condition at all, request a dish be replaced. One chinese restaurant (a traditional one where the wait staff speak chinese) in the US wouldn't even do that.
In France, if you want a waiter, you call them over. When they have time, they'll get to you. They leave you alone because most French people don't want to be bothered a lot while they're talking and eating, or reading the paper (a sentiment I can get down with).
If something is screwed up with the food, they would first probably wonder why this American tourist thinks that the French chef screwed up the dish that their grandmother probably taught them how to cook. Then they'll listen to you, shrug, and take it back and tell the manager or the chef. One of them would decide what was appropriate.
If you told them you just didn't enjoy the dish and you wanted another one, they may ask you why you ordered the first dish in the first place, and why you think you deserve a free dish. If you ask for substitutions, they'd probably tell you no, because most chefs don't want to deal with that and often the way dishes are made preclude substitutions, not to mention backing up other orders. And they'd be in the right. It's kind of stunning sometimes how privileged American consumers can act.
A caveat to this is if you're in Paris; they can be really nice or really rude based on a number of factors. In a small town, French people are really friendly and helpful.
I'm not an American, but I am used to being able to modify an order. I don't think of this as being entitled as I am after all paying for the meal and depending on the restaurant it's not exactly a cheap meal. That being the case I don't see any reason for negotiation if I'm not happy with the meal. The only thing I'd agree with is that it'd be absurd to request another meal for free simply because the one you chose wasn't to your fancy.
The customer is always right attitude is one that I appreciate Americans having. While not as bad in Australia as some parts of Europe, the attitude here is definitely closer to "give me your money and and leave" than "what can I do to ensure you leave happy?"
From my European perspective, US customer service is simply too much. Hovering over you, with that unnerving fake-feeling politeness. It makes me feel sort of like an errant child that needs help finding his mommy.
I don't need to be coddled, it's actually rather condescending.
I much prefer the European way of letting you look for yourself and then asking simply "can I help you?", if you look like you don't quite know what you're looking for. And if you tell them "I'm just browsing", they'll leave you alone, to browse in peace. Much less stressful.
I've been to france and restaurants there and trust me, other than the lack of free water, everything is better. The food is better, you order from the menu and it comes out and turns out you don't have to pay the waiter's wage on top of that! It also results in waiters not being overly/fake friendly and constantly checking on you which I much prefer.
There is no change in the amount of time between your order and the food arriving but that's because it's dependent on the chef/how busy the restaurant is/etc.
French restaurants serve free water if you ask "une carafe d'eau". They will bring tap water instead of a bottle of mineral water. According to the law, prices should include the service, tap water, bread and other "basics": https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/Publications/Vie-pratiqu...
Also tap water in France is classified as "food" and therefore goes through extensive checks and controls. It is always safe to drink tap water in France and is encouraged.
You can gind reports on water quality in all cities and there was an article in 2017 (in 30 millions de consommateurs?) available online where you could check any city.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic. The very best and most pleasant restaurants I've ever been to are French. Alsace, to be precise. Wonderful people, absolutely amazing food.
> Being in other countries like China and France really makes me appreciate how world class the customer service is in America.
I can't speak about China, but I'm going to call you out on France as a counterexample.
I have had very good service every time I have been to France.
I speak a very little French, and executed most things in English and people were as friendly and helpful as they were anywhere in the US.
I suspect that a lot of Americans get in trouble because they don't really internalize the fact that "Hey, I'm in a different place and the norms are different. Pay attention--you might have to adjust."
Wanna see rude? Try being an indecisive Californian in the front of a line in a New York City sandwich shop at lunch rush and watch what happens.
American service must be that way because the variance in the behavior of the customers is so wide.
How many French customers ask for gluten free water with a straight face?
How many French customers request a cube of ice to plunk in their merlot?
How many French kitchens stockpile frozen nugget-shaped food items because families expect them to tailor to the needs of their screaming toddlers?
An American server will effortlessly deal with all three while politely denying entry to the woman who is yelling about the constitutional rights of her emotional support goat.
If American economy is slowly becoming Arrakis from Dune, our wait staff is the Fremen.
The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.
I've never been to France, but I have to completely disagree about China.
I've never asked to get my dish replaced, but the only times I have seen it happen are at very high end restaurants or chain restaurants, and that happened in both countries.
In general, I feel that I get much better customer service in China.
Perhaps it's because I'm a visible minority where some members of my group are not known as good tippers. So I am immediately assumed to be a bad tipper.
Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where I get bad service and thus I leave a low tip (In the past, I used to leave 20% even for bad service, just to try and defy the stereotype. But I've stopped doing it now.).
> A common one is when someone is run over by a car and pedestrians just step over the body until a family member finds the body. The video goes viral, prompts a week of hand wringing, and then censors step in to talk about Confucianism and how the economy is growing. There is no innate value given to human life as precious.
I think that's certainly the case, China is a country of vast differences between people. To the extent China has seen arguably the fastest dash of economic development in history, imagine what the corresponding, linked cultural & educational development has looked like.
In the span of several decades, half a billion people shifted from an almost zero traditional education environment in rural, very poor third-world style villages - to rapidly developing, modern, economically considerable, urban, very high density environments with intense competition and far higher education attainment.
Then imagine how wild that must be as all of these different forces and cultures collide and meld in real time, and it's essentially a population group the size of the EU trying to make an epic adaptation leap in 20-30 years. I expect it produces at times a large gap between people in regards to their personal evolution.
Lets not forget the Meiji Restoration! When it started Samurai walked around the streets armed with katanas. Japan was extremely isolated and had little to no industry. No railroads, no exports.. In ~30 years they put down 11,000 KM of railroad track, built 1500 steamships, and basically upgraded from a feudal society to an industrial one. They increased their annual coal production from nearly nothing to 20~ million tons in that time.
It would be like if the EU went from knights and castles to making fighter jets in half a generation.
This isn’t true: at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world. The potential of its people was already there and all that was needed was a peaceful environment with an enabling government.
> at various periods during world history, China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world.
Do you have any further reading on this? It doesn't strike me as too crazy of a statement - but I'd be very interested in seeing how one would go about actually quantifying it.
Wikipedia has a good summary both of the Economic history of China [1] and the Great Divergence [2] (really comes to a head with the collapse of the Qing dynasty). Although devestated by civil war and WW2, IMO China really doesn't descend into complete craziness until the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution [3] that devastated China economically, socially, and culturally (lost generation, send-down movement, red guards, etc).
First 3 chapters of Kissinger's On China do a good job, but I'm certain you could find better sources.
ED: outside getting a book, the main characteristic to look at is China having the lion's share of historical world GDP, especially during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The Spanish Empire gained much of its early wealth from Ming China's seemingly insatiable demand for the silver it found in South America - like thousands of pounds at a time.
> China has been one of the richest and educated countries in the world.
I keep hearing the same line about India as well but that does not mean that the common people were rich and educated just the upper class. So were the common people in China rich and educated in the time period which you are talking about?
If you want to go there, the same was true in the rest of the world as well, including Western Europe if we are comparing European and Chinese peasants. And yes, India has similar potential to China.
That's true, but not in the 20th century. For lots of reasons, China broadly missed the industrial revolution. By the time of the communist revolution, they had... basically nothing indigenous. There was no export industry, most people were at a subsistence level, and essentially the entirety of the social elite were foreign-educated aristocracy simply living off of assets worked by a staggeringly large underclass. I mean, sure, "the potential of its people was already there", but you can say that about anyone. Objecvtively, it was a mess.
And now their grandkids are almost as rich as Americans.
In case anyone is curious, the “various reasons” are the Opium Wars, collapse of the Qing dynasty/monarchy, World War 2, the subsequent civil war and the Great Leap Forward.
I probably wouldn’t use “a mess” to describe all those events though.
I guess what the previous OP meant by “potential of its people” is their historical culture, akin to why the Jews are generally quite successful on the whole (attributed to their culture).
China and Europe are different in many ways, but one is that after the Mongol conquest in the 12th century, China remains a unified empire run by a single Mandarin bureaucracy. There is nothing that competes with or threatens China. China does get invaded by Manchu tribes in 1644, but they don’t change the structure of the state. They learned to speak Chinese, dress like Chinese and eat like Chinese.
In Europe, no one ever succeeds in unifying it, and you have continuous competition. The French are worried about the English, the English are worried about the Spanish, the Spanish are worried about the Turks. That keeps everybody on their toes, which is something economists immediately recognize as the competitive model. To have progress, you want a system that is competitive, not one that is dominated by a single power.
I think that is the major difference. It isn’t just that China doesn’t have an Industrial Revolution, it doesn’t have a Galileo or a Newton or a Descartes, people who announced that everything people did before them was wrong. That’s hard to do in any society, but it was easier to do in Europe than China. The reason precisely is because Europe was fragmented, and so when somebody says something very novel and radical, if the government decides they are a heretic and threatens to prosecute them, they pack their suitcase and go across the border."
[...]
"I believe the fundamental reason is China’s position as a single empire, and also its bureaucracy, which is a unique and peculiar animal. On the one hand, it is very progressive, because it is a meritocracy. In Europe, the people who were in power were the sons and nephews of other people in power. But in China there’s an examination, and the people who did the best rose in the Mandarin civil service. So you’d think, “Wow, that’s very progressive.” Except if you look at what they were studying for these exams, they were simply regurgitating the classics. It was the perfect tool to keep reproducing from the same mold generation after generation.
In Europe, something different happens. People study classical knowledge, Ptolemy and Hippocrates and Archimedes, and they begin to say, “Most of this stuff is wrong.” You couldn’t do that in China. If you said “This stuff is wrong,” you failed your exam. But in Europe, the ability to challenge received wisdom is irrepressible."
China missed the industrial revolution, but didn’t lose 5000 years of development in the process. Look st how fast Germany and Japan bounced back from being bombed into oblivion? Once development is in your DNA, recovery is much easier, it’s not like starting from a mostly undeveloped country in SE Asia or Africa.
Sigh. It was hyperbole. You took, the point, right? They were the poorest of the poor, and now their iPhones jiggle in their pockets as they dance on the world stage with the big kids.
There are also a lot of news reports in China about the opposite happening. Where groups of people will get together to save someone.
There was even one incident where a group of people lifted a car up to save the girl that was run over. Or how a taxi driver jumps into a manhole to save a girl who fell in. Or how a group of delivery guys caught a child that was hanging on a several story perch. However, those news reports are rarely ever reported in Western media.
As witness to an accident in China I've seen how reluctant people are to help the injured. I've heard there can be liability for anyone who gets involved and that there's many scams, which could explain why people behave as they do.
The default behavior in China seems to be "ignore and keep moving" while everywhere else usually at least one person will help immediately. I couldn't believe that so many people could look at someone so obviously in distress, bleeding on the street, and none willing to even call for help.
And I've seen the same in the USA, and other places.
It's a big city versus small town thing. In the remote wilderness everyone helps each other. In the city it's assumed you are gong to get help from someone else.
I've seen injuries in public in other countries big cities too, and I've just kept moving because someone else is helping. The way people act in China is something else.
Giving any consideration to strangers doesn't even cross their minds and it shows in all kinds of little ways: refusal to yield any space, be it a lane on the road or part of an aisle in a store, public spitting, urination, and yes, defecation, refusal to queue or allow people to exit trains, elevators, or other vehicles before pushing in. Also, strangely, it's not the young punk kids annoying their neighbours with their load music, it's hordes of middle aged dancing aunties.
Actually, all we see are the things we see. No one has a terribly precise way of knowing what the real world distribution of good and bad behavior are, yet there is no shortage of people who believe very strongly that they do. It's one of those quirks of the human mind, but it can be overcome with effort.
I think the reference is to media reports. Perhaps it would be better phrased as All that is reported is bad things. (Which is still an overgeneralization of course, but more accurate.)
Hans Rosling says we are instinctually inclined to watch for danger (aka bad news) than for safety. Ha. Makes me ask when was the last time someone pointed out a safe thing. "Watch out, that pizza in the fridge is still good."
Edit: Source for Hans Rosling: the book "Factfulness" (highly recommended—it is really a meta-discussion of how do you talk about good news with people)
Can anyone comment on the risks of posting such an essay while still living in China? Is this considered safely within the lines, a calculated risk, or something else?
(Or has he already left China before posting the essay?)
To be fair, his blog was never exactly positive on China, and (as he states in the article) he was very wary of crossing the fine line between moderate criticism and falling afoul of the CCP.
Between the fact that he was forced out of his position, and that he says he's "grateful" not to have been detained, I imagine he feels safe enough to get a shot off as he leaves. I don't think the government would get rid of him with an ostensibly administrative dismissal, and then turn around and detain him on the back of this post, as he was about to leave the country for good; it would look heavy-handed.
Or, as you say, he could already be gone... I don't know.
I give him credit for even trying China. China is the opposite of libertarianism both culturally and politically. Even without the party, personal liberty and worth doesn't factor in much in China or anywhere where Confucianism took root. It's always in relations to others that you derive your worth. That aspect of my heritage has always sit poorly with me (then again I was raised in the US). I'm not saying one way is better than the other but for a libertarian to give it a try took some courage.
I would agree that China is probably the opposite of libertarian politically.
Culturally, I would find it hard to agree. Most people don’t give a crap about others (in a liberating and selfish manner) unless it concerns them directly.
Oh that's a very interesting perspective. I didn't even think about that. Yes there is a sense of "mind your own business" in China and that may be a more recent development. What I was referring to is more along the lines of how you've valued and viewed by people you know -- one does not have inherent value simply because he is a human and therefore the idea of human rights and individual liberty/freedom are somewhat foreign concepts to China and perhaps East Asia.
Your question is if something will happen to him? Well, it apparently already did. That was it. He got forced out of his job, probably lost his social standing and is now leaving the country. After spending nine(?) years in China he is, in the eyes of the Chinese, trash talking China and glorifying the US to get back with his countrymen. It is all pretty much in line with how Chinese nationalist rhetoric says that "arrogant foreigners" behave. So it isn't really something that challenges China's narrative.
The way to think about censorship and risk in China is to consider reach. This article is in English, and hosted on what appears to be the authors own blog. The chance of it being spread to any significant number of people in the Mainland is negligible. Suffice to say, I think he’s pretty safe.
In case it’s relevant, I’ve been in and around China since 2004.
Its not that bad, this man is still too small fry and his words have too small an impact on Chinese society. If you can imagine having a billion messages almost flying around couple seconds from the Chinese population all of which could contain obscenities, trolls, porn, memes critical of govt, and even criminal chatting then this little drop isnt really anything. I highly doubt anyone outside of Baldings' academic and blog circle even knows about Baldings' opinions.
Hardly risky. Only if it gets notoriety. If he's already intent on leaving China there's little to worry about. The regime doesn't care about a libertarian's intellectual critique. If you want to get in trouble talk about the persecution and organ harvesting of the Falun Gong, scandals involving top CCP honchos or Taiwan-related issues.
This is a fairly disorganized, highly-opinionated blog post--it would benefit most from broken down into several smaller topics (Chinese government's treatment of expatriates and isolationism, US-China relations or the current state of the US government, opinions on Chinese social culture as a whole).
Since most of the comments here are commenting on the author's cultural opinions, I'll post a quote by Anthony Bourdain here. In the quote, Bourdain was talking about food, but it applies to culture as well, and even aligns with what the original poster said about China being more 'foreign than other countries': "The one thing I know for sure about China is, I will never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time."
People in Beijing might gawk at a foreigner (I've seen it happen), and you could even stereotype people in Beijing as doing so, but I've found that to be much less common in Shanghai. And these two are prominent cities--are rural villagers more likely to act isolationist, and if so, why? Because of the Chinese government's own isolationist principles, and China's history? The author should have been exploring this aspect in a historical context rather than simply criticizing.
> Almost like the wealthy who need therapy despite living materially comfortable lives, Americans are fighting with vitriolic rhetoric in seemingly unnecessary ways.
It strikes me as the opposite of a good idea, unless he's using it to justify why the rhetoric, while "seemingly unnecessary" is actually, in fact, necessary.
I really see no reason to believe the materially comfortable would suffer from mental issues at a lower rate than those who are not materially comfortable. And, if anything, they have the resources to afford it and the luxury of time to take advantage of it.
I get your point, but you have to acknowledge that there is a gap between "suffering from mental issues" and "treatment is necessary" even in wealthy societies like America and free-healthcare societies like Britain. The best emergency room in the world has a "triage officer" whose job is to determine who needs treatment, and who is merely suffering, at any given time.
People with easy access to mental health care often think that they need treatment for whatever ails them. Similarly, people with the opportunity to worry about Big Problems and argue for whatever they believe (without consequence) often think that they need to have nasty, dehumanizing duels over temporary political phenomena that will be forgotten in a few years.
Nobody should be discouraged from finding help for their mental issues (or standing up for their beliefs), but at the same time they should understand that it may be a luxury and not a necessity.
Oh I see the point, yes this makes sense to me. Obviously it's not a black-and-white world of "crippling mental problems" versus "no mental problems", and to plenty of folks, engaging in mental health care is closer to life optimization and perhaps a luxury rather than a necessity.
I really like this piece. So many good paragraphs.
Especially the end, and specifically:
> The United States has repeatedly failed and continues to fall short of its ideals but has shown a greater sense of self correction than almost any other. In China you cannot talk about most of history, while in the United States there are constant reminders about failures and how to apply those lessons.
Wow. I do feel regrettable for what he and his family had to go through, to be uprooted like that after staying there for nine years. I hope he has had supportive friends while in the country.
What’s admirable is how he reacted to the whole situation. He doesn’t seem bitter or prejudiced in that article.
I think he touches on the many aspects of China that are not readily apparent to people who have not lived there.
Most English people tend to view China through the lens of the typical English mainstream media perspective while also lacking in knowledge of their cultural and historical background.
Since the line-cutting topic seems to be of interest, I thought I’d share some first hand experience.
Having succumbed to the need for a Big Mac a handful of times during a decade long stint in China, I became accustomed to the devolution of queuing when it was peak time. I quickly found myself pushing in and cutting others off, to make sure my order was taken.
This made me reflect on how quickly I adapted to the situation. I found that when push comes to shove, we seem to have a threshold which says “bugger it, I want my burger more than I care about being polite”. I guess this is obvious, but how easily I threw my supposed Western manners out the window was what surprised me.
I think there’s a couple of observations that are interesting, which aren’t covered in the article;
- People that tended to queue jump just hadn’t been told it wasn’t ok. If it wasn’t already complete anarchy, quite often another person in the queue would tell them off with a stern “get in line”, to which the offender would apologize and shuffle to the back of the line
- In some places they have staff that “queue-manage”. Nobody cuts the queue or complains, they just wait for their turn patiently, albeit not usually quietly
I believe China knows it has accrued some deep social issues to deal with, and that debt will need to be paid off slowly. I remember a few years back that TV and print adverts promoting “dynastic and elitist” culture were banned. I think that says a lot about the governments mindset.
I hope the above gives a little more context to anyone who hasn’t had the privilege of finding themselves stuck in a fast-food restaurant in downtown Beijing during peak hour.
Well said.
I think this describes the phenomenon perfectly.
It’s not complete anarchy, everything goes sort of situation.
There is a set of hidden rules that most people abide by.
A contrast with a typical Western setting is it doesn’t tend to gravitate towards violence (in my experience). Whereas, a confrontation could easily lead to a violent situation in most Western countries.
That’s a good point, which I should’ve mentioned as it goes hand in hand with the topic.
Despite how intense some situations can get in China, I’ve rarely ever felt physically threatened. It’s culturally abnormal to resort to violence.
Yes there’s a few nutjobs out there (sword-guy in Sanlitun), but on the whole it’s pretty incredible that such a big city, and country is relatively speaking, so peaceful.
The experiences the OP has had are priceless, and read something like a novel if someone like John Kennedy Toole had he written about living in China (comic in some respects, but also surreal). The Snow White episode in the elevator is delightful: the father having to explain to his daughter that being associated with Snow White is a good thing, and she being upset at being labeled.
The world is shrinking and being stretched at the same time.
Maybe you've never had the pleasure, or it's different in other cultures, but having experienced plenty of it first hand, it's incredibly off-putting when people point/stare/or talk about you, especially if they do so in front of your face because they think you can't understand their language.
Children like to blend in and not be noticed as different (adults too of course, but to a lesser degree than children). The label itself is inoffensive, she just didn't like the fact she wasn't seen as just another kid.
"There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist."
I am imagining that is one reason that the Chinese government is so scared of Christianity, which in recent decades has won over a great many converts, since it teaches that all human beings are the sons and daughters of God, and so should be treated with dignity and compassion.
Of course Christian societies have regularly violated this rule. But it has had a great influence, and it combined with ideas from Western philosophy to produce liberal democracy. And in fact Marxism, which is the official ideology of the Chinese government, has rather similar philosophical roots in Christianity and Western philosophy.
As a native Chinese, I want to say you are wrong. In our education from element school, we were educated as atheist, and actually I am proud of that. I don't believe God. And for Chinese Communist Party, they don't like any religion, as that the opposite of Marxism, which is core part of communism.
Very dense and impactful, for what it's worth I have also been on the receiving end of 'the foreigner in the elevator' but often people are nice and just (extremely) curious when you introduce yourself in their language.
"However, equating Beijing to Washington in many of these specific [surveillance] issues is simply non-sensical authoritarian apologetics."
Here is where you[1] are dead wrong. Collecting the data is the original sin. Once our profiles are created it is only a matter of time before they will get abused. Yes, by a (future) evil government.
[1] (the author, probably the only one reading through those 100s of comments)
In my mind occam's razor applies to the 'culture' of money over everything in China, if there is such a thing. I think theres a pretty simple explanation:
Most Chinese people have parents or grandparents who remember Mao and the great famines, or worked on or still work on rice farms in the sort of abject poverty no westerner--even a homeless one--can understand.
It's difficult to be exposed to this unless you live there for a while, preferably somewhere other than Beijing or Shanghai, and work with and interact with locals regularly.
The reality and nearness of the abject poverty of hundreds of millions of your countrymen is a fear that is utterly foreign in the so-called western world, but is very real in China. It is what everyone works to escape, and then works to prevent for their descendants.
I don't think TFA was particularly accusatory, but there was an undercurrent of judgement there that I think is unfair. If western culture was subject to that environment with such a large population I think we'd see very similar behaviour, understandably.
I also think this partly explains the tolerance to the current communist party--they have made real strides in lifting the living standards of hundreds of millions of people, and compared to still-too-near family memories of what China has been through, a little authoritarianism is a small price to pay for that.
I think China will need a long track record of prosperity before any real social or political change will happen.
1. I wonder how much the longstanding Cultural Revolution has had an impact on their culture, it wasn't that long ago. While they were breaking down as a country, USA was united and placed on top from WW2.
2. Is there an "it's working" view of the government because they're experiencing explosive economic growth. There may be some resentment towards American corporations eating up the world and our government's active involvement in every country's affairs. I could see how the Chinese government pushing back against America enabling the rise of Alibaba, Didi, Baidu, etc making up for some undesirable policies.
3. I want to hear more perspective from the youth in the cities in China.
4. I thought this part was odd:
"The tragedy of modern American foreign policy is the history of active ignorance and refusal to actively confront the Chinese norm or legal violations. The Trump administration is utterly incapable of defending the values and assembling the coalition that would respond to American leadership as they face even greater threats from China."
Trump literally just started a trade war with China. Right or wrong, he is blatantly pushing back towards China economically because of their unfair practices. It might completely backfire and might not be praiseworthy 'values', but you can't say he's not actively confronting China.
The author's clear lack of having been in the USA for 9 years. He's getting all his USA info from the media and at best people who already agree with him.
Whole thing really fell apart when he talked about USA politics imo.
Even so [the western missionary] was stunned at how deeply and rigidly held the belief that making money was the entire meaning of life. There was no value system.
Consider also how the national psyche and personal outlooks on the world have been impacted by a lifetime of propaganda celebrating Han-centric nationalism, expansionist foreign policy, and a self-appointed party leadership whose control and policies can never be seriously questioned.
As someone who spent months in China recently the elevator experience mentioned really hits home among other points. Nobody expected me to understand what they were saying and trying to hide picture taking etc. I just embraced it. If I saw someone sneaking a picture I would just ask them: 你想和我合影吗？你会记得看到一个外国白人。
If someone started talking about me in an elevator or street cart or anyplace I would say: 你想问我关于我的生活或国家的问题吗？
About the line cutting thing, does that lead to fights? If someone cuts in front of another, do they mostly accept that, or is it like the big fish eat the little ones? Do most people still stay in a semblance of a queue or does it just evolve into a pushing/shoving throng?
I don't know the author but I think it's very cynical to talk about issues in China and love for freedom, once they are no longer your employers.
And this
> In a way, I sympathize with Chairman Xi’s emphasis on rule of law because in my experience laws/rules/norms are simply ignored
My understanding is that kids with strict parents are most liable to misbehave. And same applies to people. If you run a restricted system people will find other outlets to misbehave. So, I don't think Xi requires any sympathies for what is happening.
>There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist.
Respect for the individual simply because they exist as opposed to being part of a larger group is mostly a recent West cultural thing. In most places, and throughout most of human history, what has given a person value is their relationship to the larger society.
Contrast this:
"I will use strong language about the authoritarian communist government but I do not want that in anyway to reflect upon the Chinese people."
With these sentences:
"There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in China. People do not have innate value as people simply because they exist. This leads most directly to a lack of respect for the law/rules/norms. One thing I began to realize over time is, while not German, how law, rule, and norm abiding Americans are with minimal fear of enforcement. in my experience laws/rules/norms are simply ignored. Lying is utterly common, but telling the truth revolutionary. There was no value system. There was no exogenously held right or wrong, only whether you made money. With apologies to a bastardized Dostoevsky, with money as God, all is permissible. For instance, something as simple as standing in line in many places can devolve into a knife fight given the utter lack of restraint in cutting that is so common. A common one is when someone is run over by a car and pedestrians just step over the body until a family member finds the body."
I think it’s fine, most Chinese people complain about these things too. Nobody likes a line-jumper, in any culture.
What I think is a problem is to suggest the entire Chinese populous of being money-loving but without asking how that happened. Life is tough when you have over a billion people to feed, and no government support structures to lean on in times of need. It’s dog-eat-dog because it needs to be, not because the Chinese people like it.
Regarding the not-stopping-to-help someone hit by a car; There’s pretty well known story about a bystander who tried to help, getting into deep trouble for doing so. I don’t have the link, but some creative Googling should surface the story.
There is an aspect that if you help someone who is hurt, you are acknowledging responsibility for the trouble that caused it even if you had nothing to do with it (e.g. guilty of murder if you happen to find the body). Chinese police can be very lazy like that, but I think the first incidence of this happened in Taiwan in the 90s.
I'd respect him more if he was upfront about disliking Chinese people. Also It's quite ironic that he complains about lying right after window-dressing his own statement.
Not sure why you are downvoted, reading the 2nd paragraph you cited (and some other parts in the article), it's definitely hard to view them as comments only against the government instead of generalizing over a people. I guess since this post is mostly a rant (?), we could afford a less coherent statements. But it does feel a bit like one of those "not being a racist, but..." moments.
While his kids could speak Mandarin and went to local schools, I have a feeling he was mainly in the expat bubble so had a very skewed perspective of China and the people.
Also, it seems like people will give a pass to these types of generalizations if it's about Asians or Chinese people. To tell if something is "racist," I like to apply the Black/Jewish-Litmus Test.
Basically replace the word Chinese with Black or Jewish and see if you find it racist. If you do, then it is when you write about Chinese people.
e.g. There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in Israel... There was no exogenously held right or wrong, only whether you made money.
There is a complete and utter lack of respect for the individual or person in Nigeria...Lying is utterly common, but telling the truth revolutionary. There was no value system.
You're talking about people on Wordpress VIP vs something that is on JustHost. This likely didn't scale at all. Anyhow, you can scale Wordpress, I do it every day in Azure, but it's not something that does well on the fly. I'm not attacking Wordpress.
I am sympathetic to the discussion of the government. The emphasis on line cutting and gawking is interesting as a foreigner (experienced gawking too in Seoul) but it does seem to contradict the author's contention that the reason for leaving has nothing to do with Chinese people and culture.
I don’t believe uncivil behavior has anything to do with Chinese people and culture, it is only something that the government leads society and is less prevalent in other Chinese societies (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc...).
No, it begins with: "In early November 2017, the HSBC Business School informed me they would not renew my contract. In March 2018 they informed me they wished to sever all ties by April 1, 2018."
Explain which observations you think are racist, inaccurate, incorrect, inflammatory, and ridiculous. Don't just assert it and expect others to read your mind.
Literally every single section that talks about the citizens that isn't about politics. It's a giant hit job against the Chinese people by someone who is clearly resentful of them. The only thing he says that's nice about them is a platitude.
Speaking as someone essentially atheist (or at least, secular humanist), this entire piece is IMHO the strongest [secular] argument that can be made for Christianity's positive effect on Western values.
What positive effect has it had? I'm not trying to be combative but in history (and this was at a Catholic school) I was taught that most of the good parts of modern European political philosophy came only after it became less entangled with religion and came through the greater focus on rationality.
This is how I'm understanding it: Rationality is essentially the practice to value truthful speech. But for rationality to last in any culture, you first of all require a gut level propensity to trust complete strangers that they are indeed telling truthful things (rather than to only trust the immediate familiar environment). There is some evidence that the Catholic church did indeed bring this about, possibly mostly by banning consanguineous marriage. This way, people were forced to interact with widely different families, to open to them and to establish a culture of showing kinship behavior to people outside of the family clan. World-wide, you find such societal organization almost exclusively in parts which had substantial exposure to the Catholic church. Of course, the Catholic church was in many ways obstructive to rationality, but it did possibly provide the psychological foundation for it.
> Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD). We propose that much of this variation arose as people psychologically adapted to differing kin-based institutions — the set of social norms governing descent, marriage, residence and related domains. We further propose that part of the variation in these institutions arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies, which contributed to the dissolution of Europe’s traditional kin-based institutions, leading eventually to the predominance of nuclear families and impersonal institutions. By combining data on 20 psychological outcomes with historical measures of both kinship and Church exposure, we find support for these ideas in a comprehensive array of analyses across countries, among European regions and between individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
Thank you. My worldview is, far more often than not, based on evidence I’ve read. I hope HN does not turn into Reddit and “downvote for disagreeing with what is in fact true upon further examination”
Dude was fully employed as effectively-tenured (tenure track, theoretically) professor for a decade. The forcing out was for 100% political reasons. If he treated China as an Other, then it was with a decade's worth of experience living full-time in China.
I find it strange that the author continues to reiterate how they're a libertarian and even criticizes the "god is money" view of the Chinese, when back here in the United States the god is indeed money too, we just pretend it is not. Libertarianism requires the same practice around fiscal matters. The god must be money under libertarianism because it is every man for himself, dictated by your level of wealth. The will of the people vested in a working government defends the weak against the excesses and greed of the rich. Libertarianism does not solve this, it merely replaces a government not actually formed by the will of the people with those who have the most resources and have the asymmetrical bargaining power.
I'd imagine he's referring to the little ways in which our government and laws seem to end up going against the interests of the average consumer. Lobbyists orchestrating Congress to act against the interests of their constituents, etc. Or issues like the chairman of the FCC undoing net neutrality, when nearly every citizen is in favor of keeping it, etc. Increasingly it seems to be "of the will of the corporations", not the will of the people.
The follow up would be that the will of the people has been coopted by corporations and the 1%. They use their wealth to control the funding of politicians and bend them to their will. "Corporations are people", brings an imbalance of power.
I like to distinguish between "culture" and something vaguer, which is what type of equilibrium someone is trapped in. I started to think this way when I lived in Argentina. Argentina is very corrupt, but just across the river is Uruguay...the least corrupt country in Latin America by some metrics. Argentines and Uruguayos are culturally quite similar (the relationship is analogous to that between the US and Canada), but one country is much less corrupt. I mused about this to my Argentine friend and he said "The difference is that in Argentine politics, if you're not corrupt you'll get destroyed." (This is kind of exaggerated but it gets the point across.) So while the cultures are similar, individuals in each country find themselves in different equilibria: if you're the only corrupt person in a group, you'll get caught and ostracized; if you're the only uncorrupt person, you'll get forced out (the same thing happens to police departments in the US). It is impossible for an individual to change the equilibrium.
Likewise with standing in line: Chinese immigrants to America preserve much of their culture for a while but don't cut lines; if they did they would be called out for it, being among the few who do so. But if everyone around you is blatantly cutting, then maybe you'll do it, too.