Andre, Thanks for the response. I see. I was watching a documentary type program on this Chinese musician that lives in China. I didn't watch but about 15 minutes of it, but what caught my eye was he was talking about how uncreative the youth are in China. He would go to different regions in China and go to different schools and meet different youth in places and they were uncreative. He talked about these students of music that could play amazing music but it was all instructional based music. They couldn't make any music on their own. They had to memorize the notes of a song that already existed. He said that's what he mainly found around China. Obviously there is creativity, for this guy was creative and other people come out of China that are creative, but the main theme in China is institutionalization. That's why I love the woods. So wild, so creative, so much more reliance on yourself instead of an institution.
woods ----- Original Message ---- From: Andre Broersen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 9:45:48 AM Subject: [MD] Re; chinese language patterns Woods, you expressed an interest. I have lost the thread. I am going to disappoint you anyway...maybe. I do not want to persue this Chinese language thing any longer. Your questions stimulated me into persuing the issue further and the more I found out the more it confirmed my frustrations sometimes of working here i.e with my students and colleagues. They have the greatest difficulty with abstract thought ( this is what I found confirmed in articles I found on the web). But it remains complicated...I mean Chinese people are not really stupid but..... . I'll give you an example: When I ask my students to "imagine" something they look at me blank...when I ask them to summarise a text of ,say 500 words I get a summary in 1000 words!! I am not convinced that this is only due to their difficulties learning another language. Their language and their thinking ( not necessarily related) is very 'concrete'. They have wonderful poetic expressions to describe things and situations but the "reality" is different. In Pirsig's terms it is part of the hypnosis. Their education system has not changed over the last 2000 years ( still based on Confucian principles and content!) and is only slowly changing. Put this in an ideology which emphasises social harmony at all costs ( Hu Jintao, the current chairman, is scared to death of the prospect of China following Russia i.e. falling to bits...hence their reassertion in Tibet) thereby suppressing any individual expression of opinion, initiative, creativity, etc, etc, i.e. anything to do with even a remote response to Dynamic Quality. It is really a human tragedy on a grand scale which has been taking place here since gawd knows when. But it is frightening. Why? Because they are hugely patriottic ( at least on a par with the U.S) and very proud and....they'll blindly do anything they are told to do. So there you go Woods. Hope this puts things in some sort of perspective for you. As for me...I'll enjoy my remaining time here and then return to my books, music and other static expressions of DQ. I miss them so much. Kind regards Andre Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
