CONTRADICTION: "Modest" and "Proud"

In trying to express to students in class that they deserve to be proud of the good work they accomplish, I received some unexpected pushback. "Chinese people are very modest," or so I've heard from several friends in expressing how the quiet and reserved nature of Chinese folks when it comes to receiving compliments puts this feature on display.

That said, there is no doubt that Chinese folks are in many ways a very prideful people, no more so than when it comes to pride in history and culture--with good reason. Five thousand years of cultureal development (albeit a development fraught with fits and starts), with one of the world's oldest continuously-existing language systems, with a capital city spotted with ancient temples and alleyways winding among modern skyscrapers... I'm proud to be a Beijinger and I'm not even Chinese! On a personal rather than societal level, the self-effacement that comes in receiving compliments has its reciprocal: loss of face in instances of embarrassment. The nervous smiles that one sees accompanying people here when they do something as simple as drop a chopstick on a restaurant floor, or stand out for having done something minimally foolish or silly, displays a discomfort that makes even the observer squirm sometimes. This nervousness about appearances associated with maintaining face, to me, reveals something about an individual pride that seems to revolve around maintaining a "harmonious" appearance and lifestyle with people and things around you.

With that said, people here go about living incredibly stressful lives in the context of a confusing and developing city and society with an ease and grace that astounds me. Everyone here is bound by a sense that life in China is very difficult; I guess expats sometimes forget that they are not the only ones getting screwed by the system and annoyed by the crowds. It's amazing that most Chinese folks, most of the time, bear this burden with a Zen-like unflappableness that I'm still trying to approach. I believe this "unflappability" comes from a healthy lack of egotism, a kind of modesty: "I am not the center of the world, and I have to accept that there are things that are out of my control, do what I can, and move on. If I don't, I'm gonna drive myself and everyone else nuts." The Western sense of individual empowerment and agency doesn't help expats in China very much in these stressful instances, because ego usually enters into things: "I am being inconvenienced. The system is screwing me."