On Sunday, November 21, 2010 10:19 PM, Gabriel de la Cruz wrote:
Dear Mr Christopher Chan
Different points of view, remarks, or complains of any short from person to
person shouldn't be understood as serious faults to the honor of anyone, as
long as we do not involve insults. In my opinion all wounds from the
previous fire should be now cured, and I honestly don't think the current
thread even points out to the past.
I just lost context because I treated Gary's post here as a new thread.
I did not realize Jose was ranting about Garrett's displeasure with the
current state of affairs. Hence why I said "what seems to be a
sarcastic" because it, by itself, is not sarcastic but if coupled with
the rant, it could be but I was not sure. I am sure you would have
noticed that I was just trying to feel Jose out.
For whatever that might have cause disturbance for you, I should apologize.
After analyzing the situation for some time I would like to highlight the
possibility of cultural or interdisciplinary misunderstandings in the
back-end of the current conflict. Probably we are misunderstanding certain
responses as more insulting than what they really are for the one expressing
them. It is obvious that we talk the same language, but probably we are
missing the real meaning of things. In Europe the use of irony is very
frequent, for example French are specially difficult in that sense, they
could spend the whole day throwing subliminal irony over you and still be
your best friends. And yes they complain, all the time, for everything. If a
french guy mocks at you by twisting the nicest poetry, you are not supposed
to get angry but probably you are expected to pay back, but always between
the lines, not really fighting back. Another example all the way around
could be expressions like; "chéng zhǎng", if translated as "grow up" could
be pretty humiliating at some places in Europe, while is not as harsh if you
read it in Chinese.
Just for your information, I maybe ethnic Chinese physically but I sure
am not Chinese. I understand quite clearly what 'Grow up!' implies and I
have absolutely no idea what 'cheng zhang' means or rather I can only
guess at what the equivalent of 'cheng' would be in Cantonese but I am
completely lost about 'zhang'. You could say that I am more African than
I am Chinese even though I have spent the last twenty or so years in
Hong Kong.
I meet daily with designers and we appreciate non sense commentaries as it
is efficient while brainstorming, as well we like the conversations to be
free from any form of censorship or even moderation as may things could
otherwise just vanish.
You may have noticed that I specifically said we cannot have Jose or
anybody else keeping their mouths shut when they have something to say.
The relationship with respect and figures of authority are not the same all
around the world, I never had the pleasure to visit Hong Kong, but I can
share some curiosities from the time I was living in Beijing; I remember I
was hanging around Renmin University during a whole summer, I was meeting
daily one of the persons who were coordinating the foreign students, as I
was joining some interesting lectures and excursions just because of my own
interest. That person asumed I was student because of the fact I was meeting
regularly with the group of Finnish students, and kept all the way treating
me with a very official attitude, he was sweating under the sun with me but
kept all the time a perfectly correct manners, not even showing he needed
water. But one of those extremely hot days, he realized I was a faculty
member, not a student, so he suddenly relaxed completely down and was
finally able to enjoy the time together. He didn't need to show his position
anymore... We had quite much better time after this moment. This might seem
very normal for a chinese, but to me it was all a discovery!. Probably I
have been mistreating my Chinese student for years, treating him as if he
was just my self..
I have no idea what 'mainland' Chinese thinking is like but I daresay
that in some (most?) respects it would be way better than the
narrow-mindedness of a good portion of the local Hong Kong population
(local Chinese and Pakistani communities especially - strange that they
also invariably make up the poorer sections of Hong Kong) except for
maybe certain community etiquette like queuing up for a bus.
What I came to say is, we are very different, I do not think there is bad
intention anywhere in this list, people complains when they have to, but
within some limits. Respect does not take the same form everywhere, we
should just apply a *presumption of innocence* concept, no one is guilty
unless we can prove something else.
If you were around the corner, I would invite you for a beer, what is in my
terms certain form of honor.
Thanks, I know that one and I would heartily accept if you were here but
with a glass of wine as I get beer rashes. (We are very different :p)
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