From @UGA.CC.UGA.EDU:owner-china-nt@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Wed Aug 10 01:47:55 1994 Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 01:36:58 -0400 Reply-To: ccf-editor@ifcss.org Sender: China-Net From: ccf-editor@ifcss.org Subject: Chinese Community Forum (CCF), Issue #9442 Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu To: Multiple recipients of list CHINA-NT ==+==+==+== C h i n e s e C o m m u n i t y F o r u m ==+==+==+=== Wednesday, August 10, 1994 (Issue No. 9442) +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Chinese Community Forum (CCF) is an e-journal published on China-Net. CCF is dedicated to the discussion on the issues related to the Chinese community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Editorial Board of CCF. Contributions to the discussions and suggestions of new topics are very much appreciated. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= # of Table of Contents Author | Lines ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== --*-- China Watch --*-- 1. 1989 Poll Shows Chinese at Odds with Communist Party..P. Massonnet 46 --*-- Human Rights --*-- 2. Universal Human Rights: Far from Reality .............. Daniel Yau 57 3. Inalienable Human Rights: Empty, Yet Worthy .............. Bo Peng 80 --*-- It is Our Language --*-- 4. Linguistics, Languages and Chinese Dialects ........... Wing C. Ng 134 --*-- Letters to Editors --*-- 5. Democracy and China's Reality ........................... Tian Xia 48 6. Purchasing Power Parity .................................. C. Yang 26 ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== -- From The Editor -- What were in our country fellows' mind back home five years ago? A newly published survey by China's Academy of Social Sciences brings back the picture, which may be of interest to you. Then, five years after, what are we thinking now? Mr. Yau and Dr. Peng share with us their views on Human Rights, an ever controversial topic. You may agree/disagree with them, but why don't you also tell our readers what you think about it? Maybe, Human Rights will only have its value when there is such a controversy. Mr. Ng's article on Chinese language brings us another interesting topic, which again reminds us of the vast diversity of our culture. But isn't it also amazing that something keeps us together in one culture? You may want to say more after reading this thought inspiring article. Following Mr Ng's article, we present you two letters to the editors. Finally, in order to make CCF a more colorful forum, we want to diversify our topics. We are sure that every one of us has much more to tell than those "serious" talks on politics, democracy, human rights and so on. Therefore, we come up with a list of topics for our upcoming issues. Take a look and see if you have something to say. * My Childhood Dreams (Tell us what you dreamed about when you were a kid, and how much your dreams have come true.) * What am I? (Many people coming back from home visit told us that they were not regarded as Chinese anymore by our country fellows, but we are not considered as Americans here either. What are we? We are sure you have much to say regarding this frustration.) * I Have Trouble with My Kids (Those who have kids born or educated here will find this an interesting topic because of the cultural as well as generational gap between "we" and our kids. Why not to share with us?) * This is What Our Community Should Be (Tell us your ideas on what a Chinese Community should look like in this country.) The list can go on and on. We very much appreciate your contribution on these as well as any other topics, however serious, humorous, crazy, joyful, sad or whatever. After all, everyone has something to tell, and everyone wants to hear something. Isn't that why the CCF is here for you? So, pick up something and let people feel what you feel; as many say, feelings are only there to be shared with. ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 1. 1989 Poll Shows Chinese at Odds with Communist Party .. P. Massonnet 46 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Five years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, China's Academy of Social Sciences has published for the first time results of a 1989 survey clearly illustrating the political divorce between the Chinese people and the communist party. The survey of 2,200 people in 13 towns and villages just before the democracy movement erupted, was published under the title 'Study of the political consciousness of Chinese Citizens." It showed that only 46.7 percent of Chinese thought politics were a "good thing." A total of 65.9 percent considered the aim politics to satisfy the people's needs, but 20.9 percent looked on politics as a "power struggle involving a minority of individuals." Asked whether they thought the public had the power to influence government policy, on issues such as inflation, 32.9 percent said no, 42.1 percent did not know and only 19.7 percent responded positively. The Chinese feel so little involved because there is a lack of political openness with many people believing their involvement in public affairs serves no purpose, said the survey, directed by Zhang Mingshu, a researcher in political science at the Academy. It noted, in contrast, that two thirds of people in western countries believed they could influence governments when they were unhappy with decisions. For most Chinese, participation in political life means discussions in the work place. But 7.2 percent say they were ready to organise independently, 2.8 percent were prepared to write to the country's leaders and 3.1 percent to demonstrate publicly. The people's inability to change things peacefully is underlined in the poll by a question about corruption. More than two thirds of people questioned said they were "revolted" by first-hand experience of corruption involving cadres. But they do nothing about it. These responses are even more interesting considering that China, early in 1989, began its umpteenth national crackdown on corruption, political observers noted. (Forwarded by Zhaohua. Source: Agence France Presse English Wire) ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 2. Universal Human Rights: Far from Reality ................ Daniel Yau 57 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a recent issue of the Chinese Community Forum (#9440), Mr. Ming Cheng made a genuine effort to distinguish the difference between the concepts of Individual Rights and Human Rights. To me, forgive me for my stupidity, I still could not see the bottom line Mr. Chen tries to set up. Suppose the freedom of speech is the absolute bottom line and inalienable rights of each and every member of a community, as many of us believe. Does this mean that each and every member of the community can say (not do) whatever he or she wants? Guess so. Now, let's say I have a black colleague whom I dislike very much for whatever reason. If I would say to him "you bastard Niger, blablabla...", can you guaranty that I would not be sued, or at least be fired? Or do you think I should not have such a freedom to make such a speech? If I stand at the bottom of our 16-storey building and shouting loudly, without any reason, that the building is going to explode in 2 minute. The consequence of my "speech" was several dozen people jump out of the window and get themselves killed, am I responsible? If I agitate people, who trusted me, to go out to kill, to set fire, to bomb, or to overthrow a government I do not like with whatever mean they like, do I get this freedom? Remember, I have not done anything yet. I only said something, just like the old blind Shiek in New Jersey. Apparently, agitate hatred, promoting violence and spreading rumors can not be part of free speech. Then we are saying the free speech can not be the bottom line because there is a limit on such a right. I would say another right could be more down to the bottom than free speech: the right to live. Yet, look at the debate about the abortion right, I lost my confidence on that too. People from different cultural and religious background apparently have different understanding and meaning on life. Can you see anything more fundamental than life and death? Even the rights to live and to die can not be regarded in unison, how can any other human rights being universally respected without considering the cultural, religious and social background? Once, President Carter was lecturing Deng Xiaoping about human rights. Deng asked Carter: "Does human rights include the right to move, to live wherever one wants to live? "Yes, of course." Carter said, loudly, thought he finally got the message crossed. "Good, then, you will have 100 million Chinese in your country tomorrow." Deng said. Carter was speechless. The concept of universal human rights, at its most, is a beautiful ideal, a beautiful dream. Maybe it would be achieved when Karl Marx's old dream could be realized (From: an100289@anon.penet.fi) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Inalienable Human Rights: Empty, Yet Worthy ................ Bo Peng 80 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ain't life grand? I mean, with rights? Inalienable rights, universal rights, right to free speech, right to kill, right to sue, right to die... Obviously, some rights need to be protected while some others must be taken away, or at least exercized with caution. What's the bottom line of all this mess and fuzz? I'm especially fascinated by the resounding tone of "inalienable rights" and "universal rights." I figured I'd better have a good reason before I talk in such absolute terms. Let's define the set of inalienable rights as follows: Set A: the rights that must be protected regardless of the circumstance. Just for the heck of it, let's define the set of God-forbidden rights: Set B: the rights that must be forbidden regardless of the circumstance. The union of A and B doesn't equal to unity -- there're some rights that must be considered on a per-case basis. Let's call that Set C. Naturally, the content of A is different in different societies with different cultural contexts. For example, a prisoner in US sued the state government because he was given creamy peanut butter while he'd prefer crunchy ones, with tax money. Many civil-rights lawyers would go a long way in defending his right to sue, while admitting this particular case is trivial. The right to sue is one of the holiest rights in America. But I doubt such a right would ever be protected in China, be it under the good'ol Emperor, KMT, CCP, or que se ra. So, if we were to avoid making arbitrary judgement on superiority among different cultures, the only way to define universal rights seems to be the minimalist approach: take the common of all A's from all societies. Then, the arguments around the validity of universal human rights boil down to the question of whether (A1 x A2 x A3 x ...) is null. I punched the question into my little hot-air-powered HR calculator. "Not only A1 x A2 x ... = 0, rockhead, "it boomed out while grinning with half of the LCD panel, "but also A1 = A2 = ... = 0!" The sky dimmed for a moment. Then I thought the damn gadget might be right. I mean, what kind of rights must be protected REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES? Did I hear "free speech"? Once I heard in a TV talkshow that a lady faints whenever she hears the word "sex." If a jerk keeps saying the three-letter word to her, shouldn't she sue for harassment and win? OK, I faint whenever I hear the expression "down with CCP"... Even the right to free speech has to be considered on a per-case basis. Similarly, Set B is also null. Every right should be protected under some circumstances while forbidden under others. Everything belongs to Set C. However, it's still very worthy to talk about the null set of inalienable rights. Because there must a "default" setting for everything, the presumed status of things before any argument is made. In America, the presumption is people have all the rights. Then you argue why such and such rights should be forbidden in such and such kinds of circumstances. You can do everything unless there is a law prohibiting it. Null set A. In China, the presumption is nobody ain't got no rights to begin with. Then you argue why such and such rights should be granted, please please pleeeeeeze. You'd better not try anything unless there is an order allowing it, in which case it still could be risky. Null set B. It's the similar situation regarding the presumption of innocence and that of guilt in law enforcement. Neither is correct, of course. But it makes a big difference which incorrect one is chosen. Society A has a better HR condition in general, while adopting the presumption of no-rights, than society B with the presumption of rights. I would probably prefer society B to live my busy and short life. (From: bo@saavik.stanford.edu) ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 4. Linguistics, Languages and Chinese Dialects ............. Wing C. Ng 134 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I find linguistics to be a fascinating field of study. I am not a professional linguist, but I read quite a few books on the subject. As a Chinese from Hong Kong, I wondered as a child how my language relates to my cousins from other provinces, to my Chinese ancestors in history, and to more distantly related peoples. I found some of these answers in my amateur studies, and I want to share them on this forum. There are sure to be inaccuracies in my account from the scientific linguistic point of view, and so please bear with me. The Western discipline of linguistics was started by Europeans coming into contact with the languages of India, especially the ancient language of Sanscrit. People noticed that there are many similarities between Sanscrit and the ancient language of Latin. Scholars pursued these features, and eventually came to the grand "Indo-European" synthesis that most of the European and Persian-Indian languages are related, and that these diverse peoples ultimately are descendants originating from a compact community probably located in Eastern Europe north of the Black Sea, say 5,000 years ago. The linguists then applied these techniques to the other languages of the world, and classified them into groups. In particular, the Chinese language is classified into the Sino-Tibetan group, whose members include Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, and many minor languages in the Tibet-Burma-Himalaya region. The study is based on the similarity in the basic vocabulary and grammatical structure, and excludes the borrowed words. So even though Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese superficially look very similar to Chinese, (and one can read a Japanese newspaper and understand much of its contents,) these similarities are due to loan words that were borrowed during historic times because of close cultural contacts. Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese are not related to the Chinese language. Most scholars say that Tibetan and Burmese are closer to each other than either is to Chinese. Some say that Chinese and Tibetan are closer to each other. I look at the Tibetan vocabulary and there are many words which are similar to some Chinese counterpart, simply by casual examination. Scholars have compiled extensive lists of words with common ancestry in these two languages. Here is a list of the numerals in Mandarin, Cantonese and Tibetan; the family relationship is self-evident: yi yat chi er yi nyi san saam sum si sei shi wu ng nga liu luk truk qi tsat du"n ba baat gye jiu gau gu shi sap chu Ng (man-five) is my family name. I find it gratifying that the "ng" sound is very ancient, and is even still retained in the Tibetan pronunciation of "five". What is clear is that Tibetan probably split off from Chinese about 4,-5,000 years ago. The Tibetan word for Chinese is "rgya". I have a personal theory, utterly unsupported by other linguists, that this word is related to "xia" (summer). Xia is the name of an ancient dynasty in China, and is also one of the words Chinese used to call themselves. It is possible that the split-off occurred sometime in the Xia dynasty. Linguists speculate that, among the Sino-Tibetans, the Chinese moved east, the Tibetans moved south-west, while the Burmese moved almost directly south. They reconstructed that the original Sino-Tibetan community may be located somewhere near the Qinghai Lake. Similarly, linguists reconstructed the path of migration of the Malayo-Polynesians and some concluded that they all originated from Taiwan. Chinese language was not written in a phonetic script, and this posed a problem, but not an insurmountable one, it seems, for Chinese have ancient poetry that used rhymes. From study of these rhyming words, linguists were able to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation of words up to the Zhou dynasty, which reconstruction primarily uses the rhyming scheme in the Shi Jing (Poetry Classic). As a result, we have fairly scientifically reliable way of knowing how Confucius spoke! The consensus is that Chinese people even in the Zhou dynasty spoke differently in different regions, but these dialect differences were not as large as those today. As the Chinese speaking people spread from the Central Plains, they intermarried with and assimilated the locals in the South, who might have spoken a Thai-Zhuang language. There was a song recorded in the Zhou dynasty of the locals in the South, transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters, that did not make any sense. Modern Chinese scholars took the ancient Chinese pronunciation of these characters and matched them against the Zhuang language, and succeeded in deciphering the meaning of the song in the Zhuang language, an amazing feat in my opinion. The various Chinese groups in the south-east hilly regions became isolated from the Central Plains, and their dialect differences became more and more pronounced. Apparently these isolated groups tended to be conservative linguistically: they tended in their separate evolution to keep more of the ancient features of Chinese than the main group in the Central Plains. The Min (Fujian) groups seem to retain the oldest features, of the Han dynasty. One of the features of Han Dynasty of Chinese is that there was no "f" sound, and that is kept in the Min dialects. The name "Buddha" is now "fotuo" in modern Mandarin, but it was exactly accurate in Han dynasty Chinese, when those characters sounded like "byut dha". Also, "o" was an addition to Chinese sounds after Han, all "o"s used to be "a". The Chinese language probably underwent a big change during the Nan-Bei Dynasties period of nomadic invasions from the north. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, a rhyming book "Qie Yun" was compiled, which attempted to regulate the rhyming schemes in poetry, and to have the rhyming scheme apply to all the major dialects at the time. So they classified any words as rhyming only when they rhymed in all the major dialects, not just in some standard Chinese of the Central Plains. As a result, the resulting rhyming scheme is extremely detailed, and modern linguists discover many details of the various dialects at the time. A big wave of immigration into Guangdong took place in the Tang dynasty, and again, linguistic conservatism ruled in subsequent developments, and as a result, the Cantonese (Yue) dialect retained many of the features recorded then in Qie Yun. A by-product is that Tang period poetry sounds especially good in Cantonese, being closest to the Qie Yun scheme among modern dialects. So roughly speaking, to find out how Han dynasty Chinese sounds like, ask a Fujianer; to find out how Tang Chinese sounds like, ask a Cantonese. There was another wave of invasion from nomads in the north in the Song dynasty, and the Chinese language in the Central Plains undertook yet another major change. This is reflected most prominently in the loss of p,t,k endings (which correspond to Ru Sheng) in the main Chinese group. These endings are however retained in many of the southern, more isolated and "conservative" dialects. The big changes were recorded in the Yuan Dynasty in Zhongyuan Yinyun, which again is supposed to regulate rhyming, now in the Yuan Qu's. The Yuan Qu rhyming schemes are quite different from the Tang rhyming schemes, and the effects of losing p,t,k became clear in that some of these Ru Sheng words were used to rhyme with Ping Sheng words. The Koreans, being in the north, modified their pronunciation of their Chinese loan words in accordance with these sound changes, while the Vietnamese maintained the old sounds, which were also retained by their Cantonese neighbors. Thus modern Mandarin already existed by the Yuan Dynasty, and presumably a Yuan Dynasty person's speech would be understood today by a Mandarin speaker. The effects of the Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing invasions on Chinese speech appear to be not very large. (From: wing@pegasus.com) ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 5. Democracy and China's Reality ............................. Tian Xia 48 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Editor, After reading some recent articles on CCF, I would like to make some comments here. In the issue of #9440, we read some articles which disagree with the one written by Herb Ho published in the previous issue. On the issue of democracy, disagreements in opinion should be normal. However, what appears to me uninviting is the tendency in such arguments to label someone politically, instead of laying out his/her own cohesive arguments against the other sides which authors do not agree with. Particularly, accusing the other side of being CCP-whatever seemed prevailing these days. It seems that calling others CCP-related is sufficient to prove the other side wrong and meantime conveniently prove the authors righteous. Maybe this is a political trick in the sense that accusation is the best refutation. But what else can this type of discussions prove? Judging from certain articles in the same issue, I also had a feeling that democracy is implicitly/mistakenly presumed to be just like a piece of new fancy clothe that CCP has been wilfully refused to put on. For whatever reasons, once it is right on, the problems -- human rights, corruptions, and you name it -- should disappear, and by then China should be as wonderful as whatever you believe it has been long overdue. The social progress is unconsciously believed to be just that easy, as long as the government is willing to try it. Do we lose our sense of reality of China after coming to the States, where democracy works so well? Is there any gap between reality and ideology in China's case? Maybe we can restore some sense of reality when starting to ponder why Utopia (or the day-dream like communism) does not work or even exist NOW, however beautiful we imagine it is. As an aside, with sheer size and diversity of China, it never chooses where to go -- it's ended up where it is. I hate to believe Hegel's saying "What is, is right". But he did tell a bit truth of history, that is, you can't plan the history -- it is that it is. We can blame anyone for the misery China has been in, but it won't solve the problem. Now, is the question meaningful: what if CCP or others chose a path other than communism 45 years ago? Maybe it could be asked from different perspective: Under the Chinese cultural/educational paradigm, could it be possible to be otherwise than it is? Or specifically, does such a paradigm determine the patterns of the collective behavior of our nation? ("Does this paradigm exist?" you might ask.) Anyway, we do need more deep thinking than fighting... Because, you know -- we think, therefore we are. Sorry for this rambling. (From: xxxx@xxxx.xx.edu) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Purchasing Power Parity .................................... C. Yang 26 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Editor, After reading Mr. Min Yang's article on the last issue of the Chinese Community Forum (titled "State of China Address"), I thought he might have mis-read the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). I am not an economist and can not give you a detailed explaination. Let me suggest two scenaries: If one has an annual income of $500, which is about the annual income of a normal Chinese folk in China, calculated according to the exchange rate, what would be his living standard in the US? Homeless, I suppose. If one has an annual income of $4,800, which is supposedly to be the average GNP per capita in China according to PPP, what would be his living standard in the US? Somewhere around the poverty line, little above, not too much. Forty-eight hundred dollars are about the welfare pay-check in some states (annually). Obviously, the latter would be much better a description of the average living standard of Chinese people: a little above the poverty line, but not much. Remember, the calculation based on PPP standarizes not only income, but also expenses. Then, $4,800 is really not too much, isn't it? [From: cqyang@chemistry.umass.edu] +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++ + Executive Editor: Anzhi Lai + + Associate Executive: Yinyin Xu + + Executive Moderator: Huang Tang + +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + For subscription: mail "SUB CHINA-NT Your-First-Name Your-Last-Name" + + to LISTSERV@UGA (bitnet) or listserv@uga.cc.uga.edu (internet) + + For unsubscription: mail "UNSUB CHINA-NT" to the above e-address + + For back issues of CCF: + + anonymous ftp to: cnd.org[132.249.229.100]: pub/community/CCF + + gopher to cnd.org: 2. English Menu --> 14. Community --> 1. ccf + + For contribution and inquiry: mail to ccf-editor@ifcss.org + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++