Let’s lift the veil of Maya: the Beauty of China beyond stereotypes and false myths
Chinese people is perhaps the ethnic group on which lie the greatest number of stereotypes, prejudices and false beliefs. Who knows, maybe it’s because of the almoned-shaped eyes, or for the unique aspect of their cities, from the traditional pitched roofs, embellished with dragons and lions, to the skyscrapers, today among the highest in the world. Maybe because they eat with chopsticks or because they celebrate the New Year according to a different calendar: the fact is that our gaze towards the Eastern world is often questioning and circumspect. Moreover, the encounter with a different culture, very different from ours, inevitably generates questions, a state of uncertainty mixed with charm and curiosity. And this is not only given by the distance - geographical, cultural and linguistic - but above all by the fact that we don’t know the other and their world.
As Howard Phillips Lovecraft wrote,
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,
and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown
Only knowledge can lift the veil of Maya, unmask the false myths and defeat superstitions. That is why I will reveal the most common false myths that hover over China and I will write the true version, because a prejudice is not always something totally false, but something that contains a fund of truth; it starts from a truth, that which, however, we tend to change, often by hearsay, and then in this passage of word of mouth the irreparable is created: the news is magnified and more are added, this time untrue, which do nothing but sink the truth.
For example, the cliché that Chinese people are introverted and cold is not so true. The presence of the great wall and the mythical Terracotta Army are certainly not synonymous with barriers and ostracism, rather the opposite. Chinese people are very open to other cultures, especially the younger ones, who are totally captivated by our western mood, so as to have absorbed fashions, styles and lifestyle, including religion. In fact, there are many Chinese who follow the Catholic faith. This is not imitation, as is often thought, but it is the result of a very rapid process of development, modernization and also globalization, which sees China becoming one of the most important global economic powers today.
All this without renouncing its customs and traditions, which have very ancient roots and are still alive and respected. Like the ancient custom of drinking hot water. Yes, water is brought to a boil. In ancient times this was a mandatory practice, vital from a health point of view, since drinking water was scarce and it was necessary to sterilize the water before drinking it. Fortunately, however, the sanitary conditions have improved considerably since then but this practice has remained alive, a daily gestures now absorbed, but it still provokes, often, questions in Westerners, not only because we are not used, but also for remorse about the hygienic conditions, which have now been resolved. I remind you that, despite following a different calendar, February 5 will be 2019 also in China.
Another great stereotype: Chinese all look the same! Of course, at first glance it might seem so, given the persistence of typically Asian somatic features such as almond eyes, black hair and small stature. But maybe you do not know that there are 56 different ethnic groups in China, so 56 prototypes and millions of profiles. You can therefore find taller or smaller Chinese (one of the tallest men in the world is Chinese), you can find more oval faces, others more angular, complexions of different shades, from the milky to the white porcelain to the more intense olive; in a nutshell, everyone has their own identity, just like us Westerners. We also have our distinctive traits, such as fair complexion, medium stature and so on, so they too may have the same perception in our regard, yet just look with a closer eye and uniqueness jump out immediately. There is always a difference between seeing and looking. Nowadays these stereotypes do not even have reason for being, since we live in a cosmopolitan, globalized and multiethnic world, where the melting pot rules. Just walk along the busy streets of our capitals, as well as the Chinese ones of the most developed cities - Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Shenzhen - to come across the most diverse faces, blacks and whites, lean and fat, each with their own identity, their language and their culture. And this is precisely the beauty, the richness of diversity and uniqueness, mutual exchange and mutual knowledge, to finally break down barriers and prejudices. We must get used to the idea of a colorful world, which is the world of today, the world of the future. China is the future. Too often the idea of the past tends to dominate the current one, perhaps because the transition was very fast, sudden in some cases, certainly much less gradual than the historical and cultural evolution that has affected Europe.
In a few years, Peasant villages have been transformed into ultra-technological, industrialized metropolis and with a skyline that doesn’t lose to Manhattan. Women no longer suffer the torture of the bands on their feet, to turn them into "golden lotus", and there is no more disparity between men and women, who also hold important roles in society. In short, it’s a country that has made, in a very short time, really giant steps, has joined us in its evolutionary run and in some ways even exceeded, with amazing results.
Anyone who goes to China with Mulan's Disney ideal in mind will certainly be surprised.
Oh I forgot a last stereotype: the Chinese can not drive, which reminds me a bit of the gender stereotype about women and engines, but that's another story. The driving style is clearly always subjective. This prejudice stems from the fact that in China they simply have a different code of the road and above all very large and chaotic roads. It is not so different form London or Australia, where the left is strictly held. As we say "when in Rme, do as Romans do", customs that, as we have seen, are not so strange and odd. Let’s not forget that the most ancient civilizations are also those richest in values and ideals, in which respect for the other dominates, animals, nature, values often forgotten, but which still manage to bring the universe into harmony.
