The Wu Way 無為

The number of juvenile crimes in China has risen from 33,000 in 1998 to 80,000 in 2007, according to a BBC report. Robbery, theft, intentional injury, rape, and gang fighting are among the most frequent crimes the delinquents commit. What are the reasons behind the rising juvenile delinquency in China? This essay focuses on the psychological causes for the fore mentioned crimes.

First, robbery, theft and fraud reveal a robber’s intention to get desired things through illegal means. The young generation born in 1980s and 1990s faces far more material attractions, such as computers, cellphones, and mp3s, than the previous generations. And they are given more than former generations. They are used to asking for more and getting more. But their parents’ limited ability could not satisfy their children’s unlimited desire for more. The delinquents’ committed robberies suggest these kids did not acquire and act on the social values that encourage success through hard work.

Second, intentional injury and rape indicate a disrespect of the well-being of others, besides a serious crime. Those delinquents show an extremely self-centered view of the world, in thought and action. In the delinquents’ mind, they are the only people who have feelings and rights. They lack an adequate capacity for emphasizing with others.

Third, gang fighting shows a belief in solving problems through violence. Society should provide multiple paths for peaceful resolution of disputes. In addition, society, community and family should model settling disputes and venting emotions through peaceful means.

Further reading:

China Youth Crime ‘in Rapid Rise’ - BBC

Crimes by Juveniles rise, China says - New York Times

The Civilization Office of the China People’s Congress Central Committee announced Friday the assistance plan to 14 of the 53 national moral models who are in financial difficulty. The plan involves paying 24,000 RMB to 100,000 RMB to the models for their life assurance, housing cost, tuition, living expenses, daily necessity cost.

The moral models were selected in September and they were divided into five categories: helping another person, acting bravely for a just cause, being honest and trustworthy, working hard and “making great contributions”, and showing filial piety and love to their parents and family members.

While rewarding moral models are positive steps to form a social environment of recognizing honors and disgraces, upholding justice, and promoting harmonious society, we need to be aware of the reasons leading to immorality and morality in promoting the overall well-being of a society.

Common sense tells us — confirmed by research — that people’s behavior is normally guided by their thoughts. Moral behavior is also affected by moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development suggest stages are critical, as they consider the way a person organizes their understanding of virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these into a moral choice.

The goal of moral education, it then follows, is to encourage individuals to develop to the next stage of moral reasoning. Kohlberg held that moral education required more than individual reflection, but also needed to include experiences for people to operate as moral agents within a community. Kohlberg and his colleagues developed the “just community” schools approach to moral development which entails full participation of community members in arriving at consensus and establishing collective norms which express fairness for all members of the community. When members are responsible for determining and enforcing rules, they will take pro-social behavior more seriously.

Studies also show that the authority must be perceived as legitimate to gain obedience for its claim. In an experiment, eighty percent of the participants refused to comply fully when a cleric instead of the experimenter assumed command. Similarly, a government official who is not perceived as legitimate leader would less likely to persuade people to follow what she of he espouses. Officials are natural models for common people. When they corrupt, they are bad models of benefiting only oneself.

Another question is why these moral models would be in such an impoverished situation in the first place. They are nice and hard working people.

Does a campaign really solve the moral problems in China?

Curious? Watch for future posts when Jun answers this question.

Imagine doing jail time — or worse — just because you were related to the offending party.

If you want to understand just how far collectivism goes in China, look no further than lianzuo — or collective responsibility. Throughout China’s 2,000-year feudal history — from at least 7th-century BC all the way to the turn of the 20th century — people were guilty by association. That is, if you were a blood relative or close business associate of the guilty, you would be taking a fall along with them. This China Daily article refers to it as families that hang together — and we don’t mean “hanging out” in the modern sense, either.

The interesting thing is, group responsibility still has a hold on Chinese culture today — even if it is considered a little unfair.

I was reminded of this when proofing a manuscript for my husband’s former graduate school advisor. He wanted to examine Piaget’s idea of collective and communicable responsibility with Chinese adolescents, looking at their psychological response through a number of dilemmas. One of them included a situation where someone cheated in class, the teacher discovered it, but no one wanted to own up to their mistake, forcing the teacher to punish the entire class.

What was interesting was that, even though a majority of the adolescents considered collective punishment unjust, most showed a tendency to take responsibility for behavior in order to avoid punishment to the collective, and this tendency increased with age.

When you consider that Chinese culture emphasizes the group or family over the individual, it’s not surprising individuals would “sacrifice” for the good of the whole. Maintain the group harmony is a top priority. Plus, given that Confucianism stresses obedience to elders/leaders, it’s important to respect authority, even if the outcome is unpleasant.

From the authority’s point of view, it’s understandable they’d want to punish the entire lot. In China — even today as self-responsibility is gaining more popularity — people would, in general, rather not be the one in charge, but rather spread the responsibility around. It’s safer that way, right? As long as everyone holds a little responsibility, no one gets sacked from their job. If you’ve ever dealt with any bureaucracy, you know what I mean.

I think of the one time I almost “lost” my entire life savings in a snafu involving electronic bank transfers from one bank to another (not for the uninitiated, that’s for sure). I was caught in a ping-pong match between the banks as to who was not responsible for the mistake. Later on, I discovered it was a name input mistake — obviously an electronic, and not human, error.

Yeah, right.

There’s a fine line everyone has to tow when doing public activities in China — that line between absolute freedom and the Chinese government. I touched on this a bit in my previous post on the One China Policy.

But what if your concessions result in jail time for a Chinese dissident?

That’s what’s at stake for Yahoo, as the company is being criticized by the US Congress for turning over documents that led to the arrest of a Chinese journalist.

Here, you’ve got an interesting case of business ethics:

The committee is investigating statements Mr. Callahan made at a Congressional hearing early last year. He said then that Yahoo had no information about the nature of the Chinese government’s investigation of Mr. Shi when the company turned over information about him in 2004.

Mr. Callahan has since acknowledged that Yahoo officials had received a subpoenalike document that referred to suspected “illegal provision of state secrets” — a common charge against political dissidents.

Though you won’t likely find much discussion online, this makes me wonder if Yahoo will quietly be shunned by the Chinese, in the fears that one questionable search string could mean unexpected prison time.

Meanwhile, there’s not much Yahoo could really do to manage the bad PR. I mean, you can’t just go back in China and just say “we promise not to hand over dissidents next time!” — you’ll be on some inner politburo black list faster than you can say Tiananmen Square.

What I found interesting was how Callahan said “that in going into future markets, like Vietnam, Yahoo would aim to find a way to avoid turning over to the government information on citizens’ online activities.” Umm, if I’m not mistaken, Vietnam is also communist and also run similarly to the Chinese government. I’d love to sit in on that meeting where they figure out how.

I wrote several weeks ago about a case for Mattel apologizing to the Chinese manufacturers. In particular, I highlighted the fact that US companies often share some of the responsibility for negligence.

Today, an article in the New York Times titled Lessons Even Thomas Could Learn really hits that point home.

After all of the egregious recalls over lead in the paint, many US residents had lost confidence in toys — many of which are manufactured in China:

…by September — with Mattel recalling millions of toys — lead paint seemed to be the norm for the toy industry. As Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst, said in a front-page article in this newspaper, “If I went down the shelves of Wal-Mart and tested everything, I’m going to find serious problems.”

NY Times reporters wanted to discover just how true that claim was. Continue Reading »

We just finished off our first workshop on Asian Awareness for Northeast Ohio organizations — this time, we focused on higher education.

Many schools are faced with a decline in international applicants. Some of that may be tied to post-911 policies in immigration and general international relations. Other reasons, however, can be traced back to a specific school and how they choose to handle international students. As one of our panelists, Todd McKinney noted, when students have a negative experience at a college/university, word gets back home pretty fast and people decide not to apply.

Then there are some programs that don’t get enough applicants (but want to). One of our attendees was from the University of Akron Law School. Asians don’t make up a significant number of their applicants, but they were hoping to attract more people from Asian countries.

Here are ten of the takeaway ideas we came up with from our workshop. Most of these could just as easily apply to ANY international student: Continue Reading »

I’ve never been to Macau, but I have visited Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Spain.

What’s wrong with that sentence? Well, if you were publishing something in writing in China, you’d be in violation of the one-China policy.

The one-China policy is where politics meets publishing. It’s one of those odd rules in China that creeps up on foreigners that practically view Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as separate places from the mainland. Even those of us used to the one-China policy have trouble keeping it all straight because the visa requirements vary GREATLY from one countr…er…region to another.

It’s like this: if you want to stay in print in China — or print something there — you’ve got to tow the line. Continue Reading »

Are you a university/college, business, or nonprofit? Based in Northeast Ohio — Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown and all points in between? Interested in expanding your student/customer base and doing something positive for economic development?

Consider making outreach to the Northeast Ohio Asian community a part of your plan.

We’ll show you how in three educational workshops sponsored by Asian Services in Action, Inc. and Margaret Wong and Associates:

• Education Workshop: October 12, 2007, 8am-11am
• Business Workshop: November 16, 2007, 8am-11am
• Nonprofit Workshop: December 13, 2007, 8am-11am
• Registration/Venue information for all workshops

Education Workshop: October 12, 2007, 8am-11am

Is your college or university facing declines in international student enrollment? Or do you just want to provide better service to international students, but don’t know where to begin? Learn how to make your higher institution more welcoming for Asian international students.

In this informative workshop, you’ll learn from panelists what problems exist, how to overcome them, and small steps you can take to start making change. Post-panel brainstorming sessions help you jumpstart a plan of action for your own school.

Our panelists include Rong Song, Director of International Student Services at Baldwin-Wallace College, Todd McKinney, pastor from the Chapel in the Akron area, and Asian international students from Northeast Ohio colleges and universities.

Seating is limited to 30 participants — RSVP before September 30 to reserve your place!

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Business Workshop: November 16, 2007, 8am-11am

Do you need to hire Asian immigrants, but struggle with attracting and retaining them? Are you looking to add Asian immigrants to your customer/client base, but not sure how to start?

This workshop is for you. Learn how to make your workplace environment more welcoming to Asian immigrants. Discover how to reach out to Asian immigrants for new business opportunities.

In this informative workshop, you’ll hear from panelists what problems exist, how to overcome them, and small steps you can take to start making change. Post-panel brainstorming sessions help you jumpstart a plan of action for your own organization.

Our panelists include Alan Fung, insurance agent for American family, Matt Salmon, Assistant Vice-President and Branch Manager at National City Bank, and Sudarshan Sathe, CEO of New Concepts.

Seating is limited to 30 participants — RSVP before October 31 to reserve your place!

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Nonprofit Workshop: December 13, 2007, 8am-11am

Looking for new funding opportunities? Do you want the community to see you as more responsive to minority needs? It’s time to consider programming and services for the Asian community in Northeast Ohio.

Open up funding opportunities through the creation of new programs. Enhance your position in the community by increasing the use of your facilities and services by Asians.
Elevate your reputation by being more responsive to a minority group in the community.

In this informative workshop, you’ll learn from panelists what problems exist, how to overcome them, and small steps you can take to start making change. Post-panel brainstorming sessions help you jumpstart a plan of action for your own organization.

Our panelists include Michael Byun, Deputy Director of Asian Services in Action, Jane Snider, Director of Akron Council on World Affairs, and Michelle Wilson, Akron International Friendship.

Seating is limited to 30 participants — RSVP before November 30 to reserve your place!

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Registration/Venue Information

Venue: Asian Services in Action, Inc. Akron headquarters, 730 Carroll Street, Akron, Ohio 44304-1972

Cost: $25/workshop (includes continental breakfast)

RSVP: to Ms. Mao Vue by phone at 330-535-3263 x 224 or by e-mail mao.vue(at)asiainc-ohio.org

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