Cultural identity in Hong Kong
The ongoing resistance and negotiation between Hong Kong and Chinese culture has led to a deep division of self-identification. The city is in search of an original, native and local culture with shared values among the people. Photo: Iakov Kalinin / 123rf
What is your view on the question of East versus West?
One has to be careful in defining what is East or West. The idea of East and West was more relevant before 1945. Ever since the founding of the United Nations, the world has been made up of theoretically equal nations. On what basis they relate to each other became a different thing altogether. Countries started to align themselves based on ideology, national interests, scientific cooperation and market economy, not on the basis of whether they were East or West.
Also, what we generally refer to as the East is made up of a group of very diverse countries and cultures, from China to India to Japan and the Southeast Asian nations. They are very different culturally and politically, and none alone can represent the East.
East meets West at a glance
Beijing-born designer Yang Liu, who moved to Berlin at the age of 13, published a pocket-sized book of pictograms, East Meets West, showing how values and practices vary across cultures in the East and West from her point of view. Many intercultural trainers and language programmes have used her pictograms for their lessons or company trainings. Source: Pictogram by Yang Liu. Courtesy of Taschen.
We read in the news about these interactions taking place among different countries, about collaborations between governments, but inherently people do behave differently, depending on whether they are from the East or the West, don’t they?
One would have to distinguish between the different sets of ideas. On questions of material progress, there is probably no difference. On questions of spiritual life and cultural continuity, it varies from country to country. For China, for example, cultural continuity with the past is very important, because that is the very basis of their political system. For other countries, this is less important because their political systems have become completely Western.
Then again, when it comes to things like education, science and technology, finance, trading… it has become very hard to differentiate. All countries share the same concerns for their people. Their economic policies, industrial policies and trade policies are all about raising standards of living, and providing good education and better healthcare. And they try to achieve these by doing very similar things, for example, through industrialisation and trading, and by joining the right international organisations. These are all matters related to national security and material progress. At the macro level, all countries are chasing very similar goals today. As a result, similar economic systems and national policies are driving people from different countries to behave in very similar ways at the social level.
In your view, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of Asian and Western cultures?
For more than 70 years, nations and cultures have been influencing each other. As a result, many measurements and standards have become universally acceptable. We only need to look at various kinds of global rankings to realise how cultures and values have converged. There are GDP rankings, university rankings, airlines rankings, freedom rankings, even happiness rankings. Both Western and Asian countries can be found occupying both the top and the bottom positions of these charts. Most countries are trying to move up in ranking following the same criteria, whether they are from the East or from the West. Again, it shows that comparing strengths and weaknesses is more meaningful at the national level, rather than the cultural level.
“It shows that comparing strengths and weaknesses is more meaningful at the national level, rather than the cultural level.”
Let’s look at a specific example then: it is generally agreed that the East is doing better than the West in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Why do you think this is the case?
While this appears to be true generally, there are also Asian countries that are not doing so well, for example the Philippines; and there are Western countries that did well in controlling the pandemic, for example Australia and New Zealand.
An alternate explanation I can offer for that observation is an economic one: in the last 20 years, the middle-class population in Asia have seen their lives improving as globalisation brought economic growth and new opportunities. As a result, these societies are more stable, and their people are more likely to cooperate with their governments in controlling the pandemic.
On the other hand, the middle-class in the West have been suffering from economic stagnation for many years, except for those in Australia and New Zealand. The middle-class in the US and Europe are therefore more resistant to the lockdown orders which were hurting their livelihood even more.
Even though countries developed and grew based on the same set of rules and frameworks after 1945, wouldn’t different cultures have moved towards very different outcomes because of how people behave under different cultural settings?
I think the most important difference, which everyone notices, is the kind of political system each country produces. However, no matter what political system you have, the ways you are being measured are all very Western today. How free? How democratic? How legalistic? How well the laws are enforced? Once you become a member of the United Nations, these are all measured by the same standards, whether you like it or not. Most states have accepted this. Every nation shares their economic data with organisations like the WTO. If you study in the university, these are the things you learn. This is how much uniformity has been creeping into everybody’s lives in the last 75 years.
International rankings of Singapore
Singapore’s economy has been ranked freest in the world in the Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom, the second year in a row it topped the list. At the same time, it also ranks 160th on the 2021 World Press Freedom index. Photo: P. Kijsanayothin / iStock
I am old enough to remember it was not like this 75 years ago. Everybody had just achieved independence. There was a lot of nation-building going on, but countries were doing things in their own ways with very little comparison. But after 75 years, we are actually no longer independent in the same way. We are all moving roughly in the same direction out of necessity. As a government, if you don’t follow the same rules, your country will be poorer, you can’t keep up, your people will be unhappy, and they will throw you out.
Urbanisation in China
Urbanisation in China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening policy. As of 2020, 60.6% of the total population lived in urban areas, a dramatic increase from 17.9% in 1978. Among all provinces, Shanghai has the highest urban percentage of the total population. Photo: Maud Beauregar / Unsplash
As Asia catches up in its development and starts to play a more prominent role in the international arena, do you see this very Western set of international rules changing?
We expect changes because we assume East and West are very different. However, one of the big debates is that whether certain fundamental concepts are universal and accepted by both East and West. Certain values we wishfully believe belong to our own culture may not be so unique after all.
One of these, for example, is the belief that knowledge is power. People from both the East and the West agree with it. However, in modern history, the West seems to have manifested this belief more prominently by having better technology, better universities and more information. When you have better knowledge and more information, you control those who are less informed.
Power is another thing that is universal. Everybody wants it. Throughout history, every civilisation, every government and every politician fought for power. And then you have a law all historians believe in, that is, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true for both the East and the West. We will continue to see power struggles regardless of who the dominant power is.
Next, we have urbanisation. Asia has become a lot more urbanised since 1945. Some of the consequences of urbanisation, for example smaller families and lower birth rates, are mostly universal and not specific to culture. So, our culture changed not because we are Westernised, but because we are urbanised.
“What we need is to be relatively free, but with some control so that certain human instincts do not create too much instability. The challenge is to find the right balance.”
The concept of human rights is also universal. Everyone believes in it, but how do you define human rights? First of all, everyone must be well fed and well sheltered — this is basic and most important for those who have experienced famine, long periods of war and poverty.
However, the West tends to take this for granted, and believes that certain freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom to participate in politics and so on — are more important. And then you have the argument of whether social stability is more important than individual freedom. When you get to this level, the priority is different between the East and the West. It is at this level where we might see some changes, since the priority and emphasis for some universal ideas are not the same.
What lessons do you think mankind should have learned from the encounters between the East and the West in the history of civilisation?
As a historian, I would argue that there were no major differences between the East and the West until about 1800. People fought each other for power and wealth, and killed or made life difficult for those who had different beliefs. After 1800, we have liberty, equality and fraternity from the French Revolution; we have science and technology, capitalism, democracy and industrial revolution. All these came from the West and we now identify them as “Western”. However, is this a matter of who discovered them first? Could Asians have also reached a point where they developed the idea of liberty, equality and fraternity independently? This is an argument in history, and no one knows the answer.
Once these modern concepts started to spread, most people agreed with them. If you ask the young people in Asia today, for example, all of them believe in religious freedom, and agree that Black lives matter. And market economy and capitalism dominate world trade today. It goes to show that many things seemed different in the past only because people were unaware of them. Once people become aware and have time to think more broadly and deeply, many values are actually universal and people from both sides find that they have a lot in common.
Another lesson we have learned from history, I think, is that human beings do not like extremes. Most people are quite happy in the middle. So, it is important to find the middle ground. For example, authoritarian is not good, but total freedom doesn’t seem to work either. What we need is to be relatively free, but with some control so that certain human instincts do not create too much instability. The challenge is to find the right balance.
#BlackLivesMatter in Korea
About 100 demonstrators participated in a protest in Seoul on 6 June 2020 to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the US. The movement shines light on the deep-rooted racism issue in Korea and across Asia, and gets people to rethink inclusiveness. Photo: UPI / Alamy Live News
“Anger and fear are very powerful human instincts, and they are not unique to any culture.”
If we are indeed so similar, and if we have learned so much more about each other over the years through globalisation and modern education, shouldn’t mutual understanding have created a more harmonious international community with fewer conflicts?
Well, this is an interesting question. While there are more things we now have in common, government systems still operate on the basis of wealth and power, which is universal in a different way.
In today’s world, countries are run on the bases of people’s ego, desire to control and dominate, selfishness and a sense of territory. All these can be seen as human instincts in us. Intellectually, we believe in treating everyone equally, but it is also natural for us to favour our own friends or family members. We know that wealth brings power, so those who are in power want to prevent others from gathering wealth so that they can remain in power. This is universal in both the East and the West. And this is why having common values and better understanding do not necessarily bring more harmony — because the evils in us are universal, too.
The new space race
Five years after Yang Liwei, China’s first man in space, completed his mission, Zhai Zhigang performed the nation’s first-ever spacewalk in 2008. On 14 May 2021, China took a huge leap forward and successfully landed its first rover on Mars, ending the American dominance of space exploration. Photo: Xu haihan / Imaginechina via AP Images
Do you foresee the rise of China leading towards a more harmonised world because of a better East-West balance, or do you expect more geopolitical conflicts arising from more East-West competition?
This comes down to some basic human instincts which are universal. On one hand, there is the fear that China is becoming wealthier and more powerful, and may start to dominate. At the same time, there is also the anger that China, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is not playing by the rules set by the West.
On the other hand, the Chinese are frightened because they see their progress being blocked and sabotaged. They are also angry because they feel that their policies are being misinterpreted, and their political system is being viewed as a failure by some Western standards.
Port Arthur Restaurant
As early as 1860, there was an emergence of Chinese restaurants in New York City opened by Chinese immigrants. One of the most famous restaurants in Manhattan’s Chinatown was Port Arthur, located on Mott Street, operating from 1897 to 1974. Restaurant critic George Chappell noted in The Restaurants of New York (1925, Greenberg) that Port Arthur’s “carved screens and golden dragon-work make it a splendid showplace”. Source: www.hippostcard.com
Anger and fear are very powerful human instincts, and they are not unique to any culture. This is therefore not simply a clash of cultures. When you mix anger and fear, and when both sides feel that much anger and that much fear, they can become very irrational. If they are not careful and get to that point, there will be little chance of a peaceful future.
Let’s talk a little about overseas Chinese since you are the expert on this topic. Can the Chinese migration, be it the earlier wave in the last century, or the wave in recent decades, be viewed as a form of migration from the East to the West?
Not necessarily. Southeast Asia was not part of the West although it was made up of Western colonies at one point. Thailand was never a colony, but it has quite a big overseas Chinese population.
In my view, migration has more to do with labour distribution, whether today or in the past. There were labour shortages in many parts of the world after slavery was forbidden. Slavery was replaced by coolie labour when European ships brought unskilled workers from Asia to different parts of the world. That was followed by chain migration when more workers left home to join their friends and family members abroad to help build infrastructures and to work in mines and plantations. Today, migration, or more appropriately called expatriation in some cases, happens for many more reasons.
To what extent, in your assessment, have overseas Chinese been acting as a cultural bridge between the East and the West?
It depends on which period we are talking about. In today’s modern cities, yes, some do play that role, but many of the values are already universal for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
In the early days, most Chinese migrants were less educated labourers moving from one peasant society to another very different peasant society. They lived and worked among themselves, or in Chinese mines and plantations. They were separated from the local communities and did not interact much with the local people. Later, in the late 19th or early 20th century, some of the more entrepreneurial ones started to open small shops in the kampongs or in Chinatowns, and traded with the local people. Whether or how much they shared values and beliefs with their customers back then, I am not sure. The actual assimilation into local societies happened much later.
Singapore and Hong Kong are similar in many ways – among them their East-West heritage. As someone who has lived in both places for a long period of time, which of the two do you think has been more successful in integrating East and West in their post- war development?
Hong Kong appears to have done better in the early years under British rule, and acting as a portal to the large Chinese market, especially in finance and international trade.
Home is not here but where we are
Wang Gungwu’s two-volume biography is an account of his multicultural upbringing, life under British rule, university education in Singapore and the UK, and the early years of his career as an academic in Malaysia. It is a reflection on family, identity and belonging, and on the ability of the individual to find a place amid the historical currents that have shaped Asia and the world. Photo: Grassroots Book Room
Singapore did not have those advantages after its separation from Malaysia, and had very few natural resources to rely on. Many things had to be built from scratch with much determination and some experiments. But over the years, through a lot of hard work and good governance, Singapore has caught up and overtaken Hong Kong in many aspects. This is partly because it has been more diverse in its development strategy. Besides its ports and financial sector, it has also been very aggressive in developing its education sector, high-tech research and advanced manufacturing.
In contrast, Hong Kong became less important as a portal into China when the mainland became more open. The recent social unrest and the latest political development in Hong Kong may further diminish Hong Kong’s role as an international financial centre.
In your two-volume autobiography – Home is Not Here and Home is Where We Are – you gave very detailed accounts of your early life in Ipoh and your early career as a historian and a Sinologist. Are you writing a sequel to tell the rest of your stories?
My two books are about our search for home. As my wife Margaret said at the end of our second book, home is where we are. We are already at home. There won’t be a third book.
What advice do you have for The HEAD Foundation, whose strategy is to integrate East and West in contributing to the development of Asia?
I think it is important to focus on the underlying values of things you aspire to support. Whether they are from the East or the West is less important. As long as they are good practices and good policies, and as long as they can help to improve lives in our society, they are worth supporting and advocating.
PROF WANG GUNGWU
Prof Wang Gungwu is the Chairman of the East Asian Institute and University Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is also Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University. An esteemed historian, Prof Wang has held several prominent teaching and leadership positions at renowned institutes in the world, including Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
Throughout his career, Prof Wang has also been a prolific writer. He has published numerous books both in English and Chinese, including Another China Cycle: Committing to Reform (2014) and 《1800年以来的中英碰撞：战爭、贸易、科学及治理》 (2016). Given his remarkable work, he was conferred the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, and was one of ten eminent persons to receive an honorary degree to celebrate Cambridge University’s 800th anniversary.
Prof Wang Gungwu received his BA and MA from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.
JUNE 2021 | ISSUE 8
At The Crossroads of East and West
