Why Shaming Has Lost Power in China

[Richard]

An interesting discussion.

Richard

Why Shaming Has Lost Power in China
NYT, 31 July 2010

The notion of shame -- or "losing face" -- is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the authorities often used public humiliation as a tool of law enforcement and social control, including the practice of parading criminal suspects through the streets.

But recently the Chinese government banned the use of shaming by the police, after a popular protest carried out on the Internet objected to a series of “shame parades" that forced shackled prostitutes to walk in public.

The government told local police departments to enforce laws in a “rational, calm and civilized manner.” The shaming ban applies to a range of crimes like petty theft and robbery, as well as to prostitution.

Why is the government now willing to ban this practice? What's changed in Chinese society to make shaming unacceptable?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate.../china-shaming

Why Prostitutes and Not Pimps? - Jerome A. Cohen is co-director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at the New York University School of Law and adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...ing-in-shaming

A Useful Tool for Social Control - Klaus Mühlhahn is professor of history at Indiana University and the author of “Criminal Justice in China: A History.”

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...hinese-history

The Confucian View of Shame - Gordon G. Chang is the author of "The Coming Collapse of China" and a columnist at Forbes.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...k-to-confucius

'Shaming' Won't Disappear Soon - Sida Liu is an assistant professor of sociology and law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...pear-overnight

Police Power in Chinese Life - Lening Zhang is a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Saint Francis University.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...n-chinese-life

[Pete]

Shame?

Didn't we used to have that here in America? Things done today would have driven a family from town in the 50s.

[busa]

Today it lands you your own "reality show".

[mark46th]

Losing face could be a great tool when working in Asia. It was necessary to be very careful in how it was used. Sometimes the threat of losing face was enough to get someone to do something. Sometimes it could inadvertently make an enemy.

I can't remember the name of the book I read, but a character in it, an old war horse with Asian AO experience said, " The way to get what you want from an unwilling Asian was to either embarass or confuse them."

[orion5]

Originally Posted by mark46th

I can't remember the name of the book I read, but a character in it, an old war horse with Asian AO experience said, " The way to get what you want from an unwilling Asian was to either embarass or confuse them."

I also found the opposite to be true: protect them from losing face, especially during an event they might deserve censure, and you will have a loyal friend/co-worker for life.

Especially true in my experience with Japanese. So many unique and different cultures in Asia, it's impossible to speak about them all as one entity of "Asian"....YMMV.

[mark46th]

Orion- Exactly right. That's what I meant by being careful. If you make them look good or prevent them from looking bad, it can work to your advantage. But don't think you won't get thrown under the bus because you did them one favor, especially if it will make them look good to someone higher up the food chain...Watch your 6

[Situ Shanren]

Speaking of the Chinese in particular, I've found that the weight of the cultural taboo of losing face depends a lot upon the age/generation of the individual. The loss of losing face isn't nearly as universal as it used to be. For example, most of the older generation still has a good inter-connection to Confucianist norms and will guard their honor tightly. With the younger generation however, Western and American culture is quite prolific and they tend to adopt more Western maneurisms as well. The way I observe it, as China opens itself up to capitalist and Western influences more, the old Confucianist ideals will drop more of their relevancy for them. China is doing things to combat these changes though. You can find a number of road signs and billboards there in Chinese characters, pinyin romanization, and English (mostly due to the Beijing Olympics). The Chinese government just passed a law to remove all English from such signs, and they have also outlawed all use of English words and acronyms in magazine, and book publications. It will be interesting to see how much control the PRC tries to exert over these things.

[Mike]

Several years ago, friends of mine taught English at Beijing, U.

Interesting to them was that the poorer students were hard pressed to respond in class.
The embarassment of poor performance was overwhelming to them.

Also, if there was a bicycle wreck or traffic issue, participants really went at beating the crap out of each other. Verbally and physically.

Remins me of the guys who live for newbies showing up without reading th rules.