The State of Chinese Culture

When I arrived in China, over a year ago, I expected some degree of technological modernization alongside considerable continuity with the cultural past. Perhaps I should have known better considering the role of communism in the course of China's last seventy years.

Communism, however, appears to be less guilty of erasing traditional Chinese culture than modern American style liberalism and globalism. After a year of personal observations, it seems traditional Chinese culture has only been significantly purged from the younger generations. The Millennials and their parents are ignorant of the past, but the grandparents are still enmeshed in a traditional worldview.

An example of this can be seen in the older generation's perspective on Mao Zedong. Despite leading the Cultural Revolution that attempted to eliminate traditional Chinese beliefs, his reforms appear to have had little impact even on the way his population perceived him. It's common to see shrines in Chinese homes burning incense to ancestors and traditional Chinese "gods," and a Mao Zedong icon is often found alongside these. Mao simply became the latest addition to the Chinese stable of semi-divine beings one can summon from beyond the grave.

To be fair, Mao's communism did eliminate many aspects of Chinese culture. Chinese traditional architecture, for example, was suppressed for decades. Today, however, it's making a comeback in the massive reconstruction of temple sites around the country. A massive statue of the war god, and national historical hero, Guan Yu is being built across the road from my apartment among a host of new ancient style temples. The statue is 157 feet tall and meant to represent a new Chinese golden era. 

Chinese culture's greatest enemy, however, is arriving from overseas via technology. It's infiltrating the minds of young people and changing the rhythms of Chinese life. As in all societies, technology has been a massive disrupter, and it's ended millennia of customs and lifestyles. The ability to access unlimited information, travel quickly, transport goods rapidly, and enjoy nearly unlimited forms of entertainment has changed almost everything in Chinese society. Technology's power would be described as "magic" within older belief systems. 

Modern technology first arose among Western nations, and those nations have dominated its development and content. Western Civilization has mastered technological power and often uses it to advance its own ends. Since modern technology arose, the West has been influenced heavily by decadent ideologies advocating what's been regarded by traditional societies as immoral. The internet, in particular, has only become a large part of human life since the 1990s, but this was long after moral decay began saturating Europe and America and thus the internet has been shaped by the dominant decadence.

This decadent twentieth century cultural perspective was largely the product of the late 1960s American cultural revolution that championed egalitarianism, sexual liberation, and general Leftism; these values, however, are antithetical to those of traditional Chinese culture. I personally feel these recent Western "values" represent the greatest threat Chinese culture has faced. The mere presence of technology is enough to destroy many facets of culture, but the fundamental transformation of a society's hierarchical and sexual views often buries traditional patterns of life which revolve around events and relationships formed as a result of the worldview that's being destroyed by imported decadence (marriages, funerals, patriarchal family rule, honoring the ancestors).

There are other challenges. The intrusion of liberal capitalism and individualism strike at the heart of the ancient Chinese worldview. Capitalism and materialism have developed a stranglehold over the imaginations of young Chinese Millennials. Without a strong god or religion, the chief objectives have become wealth and fame. Mammon becomes god after God has "died."

The Chinese government is exceptional in its willingness to fight to preserve its population from complete globalization. It recognizes that a good deal of Western culture is decadent and unhealthy. Pornography is blocked by the great Chinese internet firewall, premarital sex is forbidden from television and cinema, homosexuality is discouraged, and democracy is presented as a chaotic foreign concept. Nationalism is rising, and it's being utilized as a way to unite the nation against individualism and fragmentation. The government has judged patriotism better than hedonism.

Despite government efforts, however, the majority of my own college students still support LGBT marriage and aspire to live like the decadent Westerners they watch on American TV dramas. I can't speak generally of all Chinese, but from what I see on a daily basis it's clear that late stage American values have deeply infected Chinese youth. Most of China's young people have very little knowledge of their traditional cultural practices. It seems to me that nearly all their old customs related to births, weddings, and deaths will be forgotten within a generation. No one under the age of thirty-five is able to recreate or even explain their ancestor's traditions.

The Chinese government isn't opposing all the forces responsible for erasing traditional Chinese culture. They are, after all, an atheistic communist party, and they're still beholden to a materialist philosophy that must ultimately worship at the altar of economic prosperity. If there's no strong religious identity nor competing value system, a country will almost inevitably succumb to a "GDP-first" mindset. This is especially true in China's case because the CCP has abandoned old school Marxism. From what I can tell, the government hopes to temper this problem by emphasizing nationalism.

There are forces currently developing that may stall or reverse the collapse of Chinese culture. Among these is the spread of anti-liberal philosophy across the internet. The world wide web is finally diversifying. It's no longer completely dominated by a 1990s worldview. The rapid rise of Christianity in China may also provide a spiritual dimension that checks the liberal ideas of individualism and materialism (although some Christian groups in China unfortunately appear to be supporting liberal politics). The resurgence of nationalism that has accompanied the decline of the American empire has led to a renewal of movements pursuing national sovereignty (as evidenced recently by an increasingly anti-EU Europe and semi-isolationist Trumpian America).

Many may celebrate traditional Chinese culture's collapse as a triumph for enlightened progressive values. I personally find it tragic. The world will lose something special if China's once beautiful ancient civilization is lost along with its uniquely beautiful expressions of life. My students have complained to me from time to time that China's modern poems, art, and architecture are "ugly" and inferior to what China produced in the past. From my shallow perspective, I agree with them. I've observed the same tragic trends in the West. The America of 1900 had a far more unique and interesting identity than America circa 2000.

Although Chinese traditional culture is deteriorating, for now, it can certainly be said that the Chinese government is doing a better job than its American counterpart at slowing the rot. It's been said that the twentieth century was about ideological conflict whereas the twenty-first century is about identity conflict. Maybe China can rediscover and reassert its own cultural identity in the coming decades.