The Chinese have a mob mentality. They themselves don't even know what they are rioting about, most the time. The internet is learning that it is about an accident in between a guard and a worker at 10pm. Trust me, the internet is learning this fact before a majority of the rioters are. If you can really call them rioters, as it is more like a 2000 man parade with about 5 people actually rioting (see the video). No one is in uniform so it is safe to assume these are off shift workers.
The last riot at Foxconn started with a dispute in between a worker and a local restaurant owner. Ended with a 1000 man riot. Nothing to do with Foxconn worker rights.
Such riots can't be equivocated with workers flighting for greater rights. They aren't. They want more money. Most the disputes are about broken promises of overtime work, as the workers make their best money from overtime. The workers don't live anywhere near the factories. They just work there for a few years to take money back to the villages where their families and friends live. They want money to improve families living conditions, not the factory that they don't give a damn about. They would trade factory conditions for more money almost any time, as the factory conditions are just temporary for them. They want to reach their goal of saving $X, go home, and enjoy their lives with their family and friends.
What I am saying is not universal in China. The Chinese government controls migration and in some locations factories can only employ local people. In such factories labour costs are much higher and workers do receive much better working conditions. This story is not about such a factory.
"The Chinese have a mob mentality." Uhm, racist flag anyone? Are you really seriously accusing the Chinese of being any different than us? Would you say that someone could look at our behavior in the past decade, and say that we don't also exhibit the same jingoistic behavior?
The Chinese citizens are certainly socially notably different from Western nations; it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture, and to assume that they are just the same as us just because biologically they are no different is silly. People are a largely a product of their upbringing; Americans 50 years ago certainly are different than Americans today.
Several of my friends have spent years working in China and they all comment about how almost no one believes in individualism in the same way that the average American does; that they don't care about civil rights or liberties (or give lip service to such ideals). That really does sound "different than us" to me.
"The Chinese citizens are certainly socially notably different from Western nations; it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture..."
Probably not. Why would it be 100% cultural and 0% biological? Because it makes you uncomfortable to admit any other possibility? I'm sorry, but reality doesn't care about your comfort level. It could be 100% cultural and 0% biological, or 90/10, or 50/50, or 20/80. I don't believe that the 100/0 scenario is very likely, because--despite your baseless assertion to the contrary--there are in fact real biological differences between East Asians and Europeans (or East Asians and South Asians, or any other racial group).
Obviously I can't say for sure, all I can speak to is anecdotal evidence that racially Chinese in America observably seem the same as Caucasian Americans in my experience. Even if there is some genetic difference, it seems clear that the vast majority of the difference is cultural and not genetic.
"Even if there is some genetic difference, it seems clear that the vast majority of the difference is cultural and not genetic."
This is just a rephrasing of the original baseless assertion. The relative contribution of genetic and cultural factors to group differences is not at all clear.
You appear to be arguing that local cultural factors when growing up are not responsible for the vast majority of differences in individual cultural behaviour when compared to genetic differences. From this it would seem safe to assume that you believe that a lot of cultural behaviour is not learned, but is encoded within the genome as some form of cultural predestination, which is then presumably expressed at the neuronal level while growing up. This would seem to fly in the face of pretty much all studies into brain plasticity and childhood development, and also makes no sense given the range of genetic diversity of the population we are discussing, which is one that contains well over a billion people.
What is your position then? As you seem to be just criticising other people's positions without putting forward what you actually think the situation is. If your position is just that we just don't completely know the situation, then that is fair enough, but that doesn't mean that all possibilities are equally likely.
My position is that a 100% culture, 0% biology explanation for group differences is highly unlikely given the fact that statistically significant biological differences do exist between "races" (groups that were geographically isolated from one another until several thousand years ago). Yes, I'm just criticizing, but it's a criticism that needs to be heard. We've allowed ourselves the comfort of believing that there are no inherent differences between groups of people for too long, and, basically, science says otherwise.
Except my response that you flamed me for I specifically said that it could be true that it is not 100% cultural 0% biological. If you are purposefully trolling, it's really lame. If you aren't purposefully trolling then you are trying so hard to push your political point that it is indistinguishable from trolling and isn't going to convince or enlighten anyone.
Watch the video of this riot ( http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDUzOTYzMzQ0.html ) and tell me that it isn't clear signs of mob mentality. The pictures of the damage look bad but when you see the video it looks like a social gathering with people laughing (e.g. ~0:35) and nothing really going on, other than a handful of hooligans causing damage.
No. How exactly are the videos of the Chinese and Canadian riots comparable? The most the Canadians rioters are destroying stuff. The Chinese are barely seen damaging anything.
It sounds like, instead of what is commonly referred to as "mob mentality" (which has a strongly negative connotation), you are suggesting that Chinese people are drawn to large crowds.
So, you are saying the Chinese have a mob mentality, and that these people don't know what they are rioting about, are not actually rioting at all and are not all acting the same.
I am trying to work out whether you are more of a bigot than an imbecile or vice-versa. At the moment I wouldn't be willing to bet either way.
Having lived in China for two years, I think it's accurate to say that some, maybe even most, Chinese people have a mob mentality. I can't support this claim with the kind of evidence you want; there are only countless anecdotes and videos and personal experiences.
For example, a foreigner in Zhengzhou in Henan was thought to have slapped a girl on a scooter. When an angry mob formed, he locked himself in his car. Video shows hundreds of angry Chinese people yelling staring at him though the car windows. When they saw a Walmart badge on his chest, they decided that he was American and started calling him "American devil". He had to be escorted to safety by local police to avoid being dragged out of the car and beaten.
But only the smallest fraction of people there had actually seen the alleged incident. The "badge" on his chest was actually a Walmart brochure sticking out of his chest pocket. I contacted Walmart media relations and they were aware of the incident, but the man had no affiliation with them.
That, I find, is the way it typically happens. Chinese people are already angry and resentful about something, and then something sets them off. It doesn't matter if the "something" has little to nothing to do with whatever they were angry about.
Chinese people are already angry and resentful about something, and then something sets them off.
I could reply by pointing out similar behaviour in countries all over the world, it is a common human trait, not something that is somehow peculiar to China.
Out of interest, have you ever read "Orientalism" by Edward Said? As this discussion could almost be an example from it.
"I could reply by pointing out similar behaviour in countries all over the world, it is a common human trait, not something that is somehow peculiar to China."
Maybe, maybe not. I see no reason to give the privileged position of "default" to the belief that all large populations of human beings are, on average, the same as all other large populations of human beings. Women and men are inherently different. Asians and Arabs are inherently different. All groups of people are very similar to one another, yes, but there's no reason to believe that they're the same, or that they'd be the same if not for environmental factors. Why would you believe such a thing?
For one thing I never said same, I said similar. I think that the evidence strongly supports the notion that the differences between large populations is generally miniscule when compared to the differences within those populations and that if you compare individuals across populations you can find people who are far more similar to each other than they are to the average of their respective populations.
As for my specific claim that the behaviour of attacking as a mob without good information is a common human trait rather than being something peculiar to Chinese culture, I am not saying that it is a universal human trait as there certainly seem to be individuals who do not tend to do this, but I know of no large culture in which this does not happen.
[edit] Also, your example of women and men being inherently different is not as good a one as you may suspect. Hermaphrodites exist and somewhat confuse any attempt at a clear delineation.
"I think that the evidence strongly supports the notion that the differences between large populations is generally miniscule when compared to the differences within those populations and that if you compare individuals across populations you can find people who are far more similar to each other than they are to the average of their respective populations."
This is called Lewontin's Fallacy. Take height, for example. You can find a man and a woman who are both 5'2", while the average height for women is somewhere around 5'7" and for men somewhere around 5'10". Indeed, the "difference between large populations"--in this case, three inches' difference in average height between men and women--pales in comparison to the "difference within those populations": the height of a healthy adult male can be anywhere from 5' to 7'.
In other words, there can be great variation within either or both of two large populations, and yet statistically significant inherent differences can exist between the averages of those populations.
You should look at the anti-Japan riots videos from the past month. My not so clear point was that the Chinese riots have a lot less hooligans. When one talks of Chinese riots one should not imagine they are behaving like football hooligans.
The last riot at Foxconn started with a dispute in between a worker and a local restaurant owner. Ended with a 1000 man riot. Nothing to do with Foxconn worker rights.
Such riots can't be equivocated with workers flighting for greater rights. They aren't. They want more money. Most the disputes are about broken promises of overtime work, as the workers make their best money from overtime. The workers don't live anywhere near the factories. They just work there for a few years to take money back to the villages where their families and friends live. They want money to improve families living conditions, not the factory that they don't give a damn about. They would trade factory conditions for more money almost any time, as the factory conditions are just temporary for them. They want to reach their goal of saving $X, go home, and enjoy their lives with their family and friends.
What I am saying is not universal in China. The Chinese government controls migration and in some locations factories can only employ local people. In such factories labour costs are much higher and workers do receive much better working conditions. This story is not about such a factory.