Chinese Cultural Quotes & Sayings

The closer they come to transcending technique and the memorization of lines
the closer to really beginning to act, in short
the more Chinese they begin to seem. Happy now approaches Miss Forsythe to pick her up in the restaurant with a wonderful formality, his back straight, head high, his hand-gestures even more precise and formal, but with a comic undertone that ironically comes closer to conveying the original American idea of the scene than when he was trying to be physically sloppy and "relaxed"
that is, imitating an American. I think that by some unplanned magic we may end up creating something not quite American or Chinese but a pure style springing from the heart of the play itself
the play as a nonnational event, that is, a human circumstance. — Arthur Miller

On July 3, 1968, Chairman Mao issued an order calling for the ruthless suppression of class enemies. He wanted all members of the Five Black Categories to be eliminated, together with TWENTY THREE NEW TYPES of enemy , which included anyone who had ever served as a policeman before the Liberation, or who had been sent to prison or labor camp. And not only them but their family and distant relatives as well.
That's a lot of people.
Yes. Just think, the literal meaning of the Chinese characters for "revolution" is "elimination of life — Ma Jian

Today, due to the massive Chinese population transfer, the nation of Tibet truly faces the threat of extinction, along with its unique cultural heritage of Buddhist spirituality. — Dalai Lama

The Chinese sage Mencius made the analogy between morality and food 2,300 years ago when he wrote that "moral principles please our minds as beef and mutton and pork please our mouths."4 In this chapter and the next two, I'll develop the analogy that the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors. In this analogy, morality is like cuisine: it's a cultural construction, influenced by accidents of environment and history, but it's not so flexible that anything goes. You can't have a cuisine based on tree bark, nor can you have one based primarily on bitter tastes. Cuisines vary, but they all must please tongues equipped with the same five taste receptors.5 Moral matrices vary, but they all must please righteous minds equipped with the same six social receptors. — Jonathan Haidt

From the late 1830s to the Second World War, China was bullied and humiliated on a vast scale. And it was more shocking for the Chinese because they had lived with the illusion of power and self-sufficiency for much longer than the Ottomans. 'Our country's civilization,' Liang Qichao pointed out in 1902, 'is the oldest in the world. Three thousand years ago, Europeans were living like beasts in the field, while our civilization, its characteristics pronounced, was already equivalent to theirs of the middle ages.
This wasn't just some cultural defensiveness. China could trace its culture back 4,000 years, and political unity to the third century BC. — Pankaj Mishra

Chinese people today have strong demand for culture, but we need effective supply, and China needs innovative cultural products. — Wang Jianlin

The cultural and political backgrounds of the two sides diverge in important aspects. The American approach to policy is pragmatic; China's is conceptual. America has never had a powerful threatening neighbor; China has never been without a powerful adversary on its borders. Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems. Americans seek an outcome responding to immediate circumstances; Chinese concentrate on evolutionary change. Americans outline an agenda of practical "deliverable" items; Chinese set out general principles and analyze where they will lead. Chinese thinking is shaped in part by Communism but embraces a traditionally Chinese way of thought to an increasing extent; neither is intuitively familiar to Americans. China — Henry Kissinger

The weapons attacking her were a diverse mix: antiques such as American carbines, Czech-style machine guns, Japanese Type-38 rifles; newer weapons such as standard-issue People's Liberation Army rifles and submachine guns, stolen from the PLA after the publication of the "August Editorial"; and even a few Chinese dadao swords and spears. — Liu Cixin

Westerners who go native with Chinese ideas are called 'eggs' - outside white, inside yellow -, and are often systematically excluded from their expat community's activities, let alone the financial support system. — Thorsten J. Pattberg

Regardless of how successful the Fifth Generation and New Taiwan cinemas have been in the international film milieu, this (limited) recognition usually is based on two aspects: the formal or the exotic. Their works are praised as highly formally innovative (in other words, how well the have mastered the new-wave visual language of the West -- thus, our modernist language) or exotic (as revealing the mystery of an inscrutable Other). This may explain why in the United States, mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan cinemas are still perceived as a homogeneous entity called Chinese cinema, though they are products of the vastly different cultures of three geopolitically segregated regions. — Tonglin Lu

For 3,000 years the Chinese owned the concept of daxue, yet no Chinaman ever came of the idea - let alone succeeded - to elevate this word permanently into the English language. What to think of such cultural passivity? — Thorsten J. Pattberg

A number of Chinese filmmakers, including Chen Kaige and Li Shaohong, imitated Zhang's visual style in the early 1990s by multiplying various erotic images of the oriental Other for global consumption. Consequently, these films, usually sponsored by multinational corporations and catering to the tastes of global audiences, can be perceived as following the same model -- the Zhang Yimou model. To a great degree, this model also marks the end of formal experiment for the Fifth Generation directors because they must adopt a much more conventional way of filmmaking in order to meed the demand of the global market. — Tonglin Lu

There is cheese from just about every country in the world except China. No cheese from China? Maybe tofu is Chinese cheese. No wonder there was a cultural revolution. — Jim Gaffigan

The way I see it, the nineteenth century was a British century. The twenthieth century is an American century. I predict that the twenty-first century will be a Chinese century. The pendulum of history will swing from the ying ashes brought by the Cultural Revolution to the yang pheonix arising from its wreckage.
Aunt Baba, pg 226. Year 1979 — Adeline Yen Mah

From the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party, the greatest casualties of the Cultural Revolution were the Party's prestige and its ability to govern. Pg. 539 — Nien Cheng

The sensation of the ocean bearing my weight was the most carefree lightness I'd ever experienced. When we were halfway across the strait, the sound of an engine approached from a distance - it was probably the police coast guard. We quickly ducked under the surface of the water, exposing only the tips of our trunks so we could breathe. — Xi Ni Er

And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide. — Gerry Abbey

let us start by picturing the Japan archipelago lying in the sea by the Chinese mainland. If its proximity allowed it to become part of the Sinosphere and acquire a written culture, its distance benefited the development of indigenous writing. The Dover Strait, separating England and France, is only 34 kilometers (21 miles) wide. A fine swimmer can swim across it. In contrast, the shortest distance between Japan and the Korean Peninsula is five or six times greater, and between Japan and the Chinese mainland, twenty-five times greater. The current, moreover, is deadly. . . . Japan's distance from China gave it political and cultural freedom and made possible the flowering of its own writing. — Minae Mizumura

Thomas Yip saw that the 1855 Classification was perfect for the Chinese market because it satisfied a deep cultural itch: the need to save and display "face," particularly the forms of face known as gei mianzi and liu mianzi. Gei mianzi was the Chinese belief that you gave face or honored someone by showing him or her respect. The most frequent example was offering a gift appropriate to a person's status. Liu mianzi was the belief that you gained face by avoiding mistakes. Wise action reinforced your honor and reputation. — Suzanne Mustacich

I am amazed all over again by how magnified this project's importance has become, far beyond its being a play or an artwork. It is now a test of some kind; but of what, precisely? The incommunicability of the Chinese? If I can't claim to know my actors, I know them as well or as little as I would an American cast. I can no longer call up the notion of Chinese mysteriousness. — Arthur Miller

As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports. — Eric Hobsbawm

The contrast is striking," writes Michael Harris Bond, a cross-cultural psychologist who focuses on China. "The Americans emphasize sociability and prize those attributes that make for easy, cheerful association. The Chinese emphasize deeper attributes, focusing on moral virtues and achievement." Another — Susan Cain

In addition, historical interpretations of this period in China have been shaped by Karl Marx's writings on this subject. Despite his anti-imperialist stance, Marx often uses racist expressions, such as "barbarous"and "hereditary stupidity," to describe Chinese culture and people. — Tonglin Lu

During the Cultural Revolution, the communists came in, and what they wanted to do was eradicate all sense of traditional Chinese culture. — Gene Luen Yang

I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying. It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change. — Alan Moore

As the four girls were taking her father's life, she had tried to rush onto the stage. But two old university janitors held her down and whispered into her ear that she would lose her own life if she went. — Liu Cixin

His wife had also studied art in her hometown, and she could paint, but depending on such work for her livelihood was just not possible. As far as appearances went, she was definitely a real beauty. When she was young, she looked a little like Gong Li, but now that she was middle-aged, she had put on weight and gradually taken on more of a bell-shaped look, resembling Li Siqin. But no matter what, a wife always looks better than her balding, broadbellied husband. — Chew Kok Chang

Dare I ask Mao and his Communist Party?
I fear my throat will be cut into two pieces.
In the name of revolution, for thought crimes,
Such questions can turn me to ashes. — Zoe S. Roy

With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries ... What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. — Lee Kuan Yew

Even the favorite reviews, the audience response is the movie is too slow, deliberately slow. But for the Chinese audience, the biggest complaint is it happens too quick. I think the historical background that build into our genes is different. American people has never been occupied. The deep sadness and sentimentality, the cultural background that relates to melodrama that we relate to and grow up with, the propaganda, I didn't imagine the difference is so big. It's a very interesting cultural phenomenon. — Ang Lee

The rich fertility of China's plains and a culture of uncommon resilience and political acumen had enabled China to remain unified over much of a two-millennia period and to exercise considerable political, economic, and cultural influence - even when it was militarily weak by conventional standards. Its comparative advantage resided in the wealth of its economy, which produced goods that all of its neighbors desired. Shaped by these elements, the Chinese idea of world order differed markedly from the European experience based on a multiplicity of co-equal states. — Henry Kissinger

The biggest barrier to reanimating a flash-frozen body is preventing cell damage from ice crystals during the process. It's like what happens to frozen tofu: When you defrost it, it turns into a sponge. Oh, I guess most of you haven't head frozen tofu.' The expert, who was Chinese, smiled at the confused Western faces around him. — Liu Cixin

What we did do was got to Chinese school. Whether you lived in D.C., Ann Arbor, New York, or Orlando, if there were Chinese people, there were Chinese schools where you went every Sunday to take Chinese Language and cultural classes. Chinese people would drive hours from every direction to take their kids to school. All teachers were volunteers and the parents chipped in to keep it going. While the rest of America went to church, we learned how to read right to left. — Eddie Huang

The traditional Chinese kingdoms operated under centuries of constraints on commerce. The building of walls on their borders had been a way of limiting such trade and literally keeping the wealth of the nation intact and inside the walls. For such administrators, giving up trade goods was the same as paying tribute to their neighbors, and they sought to avoid it as much as they could. The Mongols directly attacked the Chinese cultural prejudice that ranked merchants as merely a step above robbers by officially elevating their status ahead of all religions and professions, second only to government officials. In a further degradation of Confucian scholars, the Mongols reduced them from the highest level of traditional Chinese society to the ninth level, just below prostitutes but above beggars. — Jack Weatherford