Is China Modernizing but not Westernizing?

中国在现代化过程中并未被西化吗？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Yanan Duane

Typical Western prejudices. Foreigners never understand Chinese thought. You have me, I have you, everyone keeps a tacit understanding and does not break the balance. This is social culture, whether it is co unist or de ocratization. Traditional wisdom in Chinese culture has the ability to transcend modern politics and become a new branch and new option of human civilization. If it is merely de ocratization, it will be a great pity. Real Chinese top thinkers (such as professor Ceng Shiqiang in Taiwan) see through all this.

这就是典型的西方偏见。外国人从来就不明白中国人的思维。你中有我，我中有你，每个人都心照不宣维持平衡。这是中国的社会文化，无论是社 会主义制度，还是其他制度，都是如此。

中国文化里的传统智慧有超越现代政治制度的能力，为人类文明创造新的支系，新的选项。如果只有一个制度，会是一个巨大的遗憾。

真正的中国顶尖思想家（比如中国台湾的曾世强教授），早就看透了这一切。

Xuchen Guo

That’s a nice question. I believe most people didn’t consider this problem before.

When I saw this question, I considered a while…

As a Chinese, I can enjoy the modernized life style. Meanwhile, I didn’t feel any westernization sign such as Meiji Restoration had.

这是个好问题。我相信大多数人以前都没有考虑到这个问题。

我刚看到这个问题时，思考了好一会儿……

作为一个中国人，我可以享受现代化的生活方式。同时，我并没有感觉到明治维新式的西化迹象。

Considering from History side, This could be the result of the founding of People Republic of China in 1949 under government. Under the context of Cold War, the very new founded government had to choose one side (If they didn’t, the country will suffer from both side). chinese picked Soviet side finally.

从历史的角度考虑，这应该是1949年新中国成立后取得的成果。在冷战的背景下，新成立的政府不得不选边站队(如果他们不这样做，国家会受到两面夹击)。中国最终选择了苏联。

Since chinese picked side, they had to do what they do, including block itself from Western Countries, chinese clearly know the importance of industry and economy significance after experiencing the World War 2. Therefore, we can see the government carried out the plan named “the first five year plan”, and that was a great success.

由于中国选边站队了，他们就必须听命做事，包括与西方国家断绝关系。中国在经历了第二次世界大战之后清楚地意识到工业和经济的重要性。所以我们看到中国实施了名为“第一个五年计划”的计划，并取得了巨大的成功。

Though the following decades(1957–1976) are disaster for few generation, but their efforts did make China a strong country comparing to past. The thing we have to know that China didn’t have lots communication with Western Country so far until this period. China focused more on self-development in the initiation. The invention of nuclear bomb, launching the first satellite, great iron production all witnessed the development in this glorious but painful period.

虽然接下来的几十年(1957-1976)对几代人来说是一场浩劫，但他们的努力还是让中国变得更加强大了。我们必须了解，在这个时期之前中国和西方国家并没有太多的交流。中国在起步阶段就很重视自立自强。核弹的发明，第一颗卫星的发射，庞大的钢铁产量都见证了这段时期辉煌而痛苦的发展。

The real contact starts from the Reformation and Opening-up Policy. This is the first time for Chinese to deeply realize their life quality comparing to west; this is the first great tide of infusion of western factories in domestic industries; this is the new age of Chinese people.

中国和西方国家是从改革开放后才开始真正接触的。这是中国人第一次深刻意识到他们的生活质量和西方的巨大鸿沟；这是西方工厂第一次大规模涌入国内；这就是中国人的新时代。

Accompanies with intense contact, Chinese life was influenced by west as well, but not that much. Comparing with the accumulation from past, Chinese had a short time contact with west. Chinese tried to catch up since 1860, and the goal was achieved(sort of) after effort from generation to generation. However, during this process, the western life style didn’t entrench in people’s mind because of Chinese own ideology and lacking of communication with west.

随着中国和西方的密切接触，中国人的生活也受到了西方的一些影响，但影响并不大。

与过去的积累相比，中国人与西方接触的时间还是太短。中国人从1860年起开始努力追赶，经过一代又一代的努力，(在某种程度上)已经实现了这个目标。

但在这个过程中，因为中国自身的意识形态、和西方的交流较少，西方的生活方式并未对中国人的思想造成大的冲击。

Haoyang Li (李皓阳)

NO

Of course China is partly westernized. So it is wrong to say China is not westernized. But China will never be fully westernized.

We have taken part of the Buddha coming from South Asia and we took the chair and the food from central Asia, too. Half of our traditional instruments of music originates outside of China, but we finally absorbed it into Chinese culture and improve it.

We started to learn the clothes for certain usage from thousands of years ago, especially we learnt from the nomads for their clothes for horse riding. But we also fought for our own traditional costums when someone tried to change it with violence.

中国没有被西化

当然，中国也有部分被西化了。所以说中国完全没有被西化，是不对的。但中国永远都不会被完全西化。

我们从南亚吸收了部分佛教，也从中亚引入了椅子和食物。我们的传统乐器有一半来自国外，但它们最终被中国文化吸收并加以改进。

我们从几千年前就开始学习某些特定场合需要的服装，我们就从游牧民族那里吸收了骑马时适合的装束。但当有人试图用暴力改变我们的传统服装时，我们也会为自己的传统服装而战。

Besides, we also brought a lot of things out. The most important ones are the silk, the pocerlain, the powder and the compass. Our traditional drink, tea, has now become quite popular all around the world and it has even become part of English culture. The Kung-fu culture once was a fashion,too.

We offered our architecture to Japan and Korea along with our words(Chinese characters or Kanji).And we embrace any oversea country who wants to learn from us instead of stricting them with regulations and laws to keep our status up.

此外，我们也给全世界带来了很多东西。最重要的是丝绸、瓷器、火药和指南针。我们的传统饮品，茶，现在在世界各地都广受欢迎，甚至成了英国文化的一部分。中国功夫也一度风靡世界。

我们还向日本和韩国输出了中国建筑和汉字。我们欢迎任何想向中国学习的国家，我们没有用法规和法律来限制他们来突显我们的地位。

We did never say that some place is Chinese-nized or so and we did never force any place to recieve our culture, which is still what we are doing now.

So, I can tell you that, deep inside China,it is always China.But we would like to powder its face to mordernize it and willingly to partly westernize it.

我们从来不会说哪个国家被汉化了，我们从来没有强迫任何国家接受中华文化，我们现在依然如此。

所以，我可以告诉你，在中国人的内心深处排在首位的永远只有中国。但是我们愿意把国家建设得越来越美，越来越现代化，也愿意接受部分西方文化。

Andrew Weller

Yes. But as someone who trades with China and spends much of every day engaging with Chinese people it seems China is modernising at a pace Western countries can’t keep up with.

Factory production in the best factories makes the best Western country factories look like tinpot outfits.

On the contrary, with the huge worldwide population of Chinese people - trading and visiting as well as the Chinese diaspora, and the increasing necessity or desire of numerous industries to do business with Chinese people, and the consequent need to be cross-culturally competent, Western people need to be Easternising - English needs to be watered down to Chinglish, Chinese business processes complied with and Chinese cultural matters understood if not complied with.

是的。但作为一个与中国做生意、每天花很多时间和中国人打交道的人，我发现中国似乎正在以西方国家无法企及的速度推动现代化进程。

中国人在最先进的工厂里进行生产加工，相较之下西方国家最好的工厂被衬得无比简陋。

与之相反，随着庞大的中国人口遍布全世界——不论是跨境贸易、出国旅游或是侨居海外，越来越多的企业亟需或渴望和中国人做生意，由此带来了跨文化能力的需求，西方人反而需要逐步“东方化”——英语必须调整为中式英语，西方必须遵守中国的商业流程，就算无法全部遵从至少也得理解中国的文化。

Anthony M Anderson

Yes!

Modernisation doesn't mean you have to westernise. China doesn't want to become like the west. The culture of china is different than that from the western world.

是的！

现代化并不意味着必须被西化。中国不想变成西方社会。中国的文化也不同于西方世界。
 

The problem is that many western people don't understand the concept of chinese values. It was a long time ago that much of the western world has the concept of yellow peril. They indeed introduced concepts of westernisation during the Qing dynasty but nevertheless china didn't become a western nation.

问题是许多西方人不理解中国的价值观。很久以前，很多西方国家就有了“黄祸”的概念。他们在清朝确实传播过西化的概念，但中国并没有被同化成西方国家。

China for sure did try it's best to improve the standards of development under mao but nevertheless it proved that didn't work out for the nation either. But as of today, you should see how chinese cities have been transformed:

中国竭尽全力提高国家发展水平，你应该能看出中国城市的巨变：

Shanghai

上海

Shenzhen

深圳

China is still modernising and develo and it saw a massive reduction of poverty 2 years ago.

中国仍在努力实现现代化，仍在努力发展，近两年贫困人口已大幅减少。

Girish Bhat

Being modern has nothing to do with direction.

The West was not always modern.

It is almost always the dominant civilization that is thought to be modern.

现不现代，和西不西化并没有关系。

西方世界也不是一直都很现代。

人们认为，主流大国的文明就代表着摩登现代。

For example. When Muslim invaders dominated India, they were thought to be modern. The clothes and habits of the subjugated people appropriated many of the Muslim customs and mores - shalwar kameez, sherwani, gender segregation, purdah and a tendency towards monotheism like Sikhism.

It was the the same story during the British rule. Shirts, pants, suits and boots.

Today, it is Americanism. The future may have Sinicism.

举个例子，当MSL侵略者统治印度时，MSL文化就很摩登。印度民众的服饰和习惯吸收了他们许多的习俗—纱丽、舍瓦尼、性别隔离、面纱和锡克教的一神论。

英国统治时期，印度也吸收了衬衫、裤子、西装和靴子等现代服饰。

现在，印度又吸收了很多美式文化。未来可能也会吸收中国文化。

David Barry

Why should any country westernise?

Western countries now are not a good example to the world.

Nations can develop and modernise along their own cultural ways. China has an ancient culture and they don’t wish to be western. They can modernise in a much stronger way without adopting western culture. In fact; Latin American, African and Asian countries can all do better modernising along their cultural ways and can have nothing to do with western culture. What good is western culture; whatever that is?

为什么其他国家都要西化？

西方国家已经不是什么好榜样了。

每个国家都可以遵照自己的文化模式来发展，实现现代化。中国有古老的文化，他们不希望被西方同化。

他们可以在不接受西方文化的情况下更好地实现现代化。

事实上，拉美、非洲和亚洲各国都可以遵照自己的文化模式实现现代化，无需照搬西方文化。

西方文化好在哪儿呢？

B.T. Yang

In general, it is difficult to disassociate modernization from “westernization”. In economic history, when the middle class starts to gain upper-hand in opinion leaning, the trend is unlikely to reverse itself. When the middle class is vying for say and influence, then the process is usually affiliated with the ‘westernization’. In this case, yes, China is and will be ‘westernized’. The first sign is the 300,000 overseas China students in the US, If even 5% returns, it is still a considerable influence in sha the society.

总的来说，现代化和“西方化”很难区分开来。在经济史上，当中产阶级开始在舆论倾向中占据优势时，这种趋势就不太可能被逆转。

中产阶级争夺话语权和影响力的过程通常就伴随着“西化”。

在这种方面，是的，中国现在和将来都会被“西化”。

最明显的就是美国境内的30万中国留学生，就算只有5%的人回中国，也会对中国社会带去相当大的影响。

Cheng

Define Westernizing. China began the process of Westernization in the 1800s and early 1900s when exposed to Western colonialism.

China is already heavily Westernized as can be seen by the lack of traditional clothing worn daily.

So in what sense are Chinese not Westernizing?

If you mean closely obeying every political and moral idea that comes out of Western Europe since the early 1900s, you might argue so, but never make the argument that china is not Westernized - it most certainly is in many ways.

什么是西化。中国在19世纪和20世纪初受到西方殖民 主义的影响，开始被西化。

中国已经严重西化了，中国人日常已经不会穿着传统服装了。

那么中国人怎么没有被西化呢？

如果你所谓的西化是照搬20世纪初以来欧美的所有政治理念和价值观，你可以这么说，但绝不要说中国完全没有被西化——中国在很多方面肯定已经被西化了。

Daniel Cohort

China before 1978 was heavily influenced by Soviet Union. China imported political, economic and educational systems from Soviet Union in the 1950's. This could be compared to the Japanese imitation of China in the 7th century.

Since 1978, China started to explore its own way of development and embrace the western culture. Pop culture started to take place in the 1980's.

1978年以前，中国深受苏联的影响。中国在20世纪50年代从苏联引进了政治、经济和教育制度。这跟7世纪时日本学习中国是一个道理。

自1978年以来，中国开始探索自己的发展道路，开始接受西方文化。流行文化于20世纪80年代开始传入中国。