- Title
- Intersubjective benevolence in youth online Chinese communities
- Creator
- Wang, Yini; Balnaves, Mark
- Relation
- Creating Space in the Fifth Estate p. 89-109
- Relation
- http://www.cambridgescholars.com/creating-space-in-the-fifth-estate
- Publisher
- Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- "Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you." - Xiaokang, a 25-year-old student in Hunan University. Xiaokang is a 25-year-old student studying Chinese language and literature in Hunan University on Changsha. He quoted this sentence from The Analects, known as Lunyu in Chinese, after being asked questions about how he posted on one of the most popular social media platforms in China, WeChat. The Analects records the language and behaviors of Confucius and his disciples and reflects the thoughts of Confucius. This quote "do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you", known as ji suo bu yu ren in Chinese, manifests the idea of benevolence (rent) in interpersonal relationships which is the core value of Confucius's thoughts. The original texts of this quote are: Zigong asked, "It there a single word such that one could practice it through one's life?" The Master said, "Reciprocity perhaps? Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you." (The Analects:Book 15.24) It is not hard to find the wisdom of The Analects is the Chinese way of life because Confucianism's influence on cultural values and norms has continued in various forms for thousands of years (Wright and Nivison 1959). For Conucius, reciprocity (shu) is the key to humans communicating with each other (McNaughton 1974). "Reciprocity" is known as shu in Chinese which can also been translated as "likening-to-oneself" (Graham 1989, 20), "altruism", "consideration" and "deference" (Hall and Ames 1987). It has a fundamental rol in interpersonal relationships under the principles of ren (benevolence) together with principles, names, "i (faithfulness), li (propriety), and chih (wisdom or a liberal education)" (Yum 1988, 377). The concept chaxugeji (differential mode of association), proposed by the famous Chinese anthropologist Xiaotong Fei in 1948, emphasizes the delicate Chinese philosophy of everyday interaction-people adjust themselves situationally in different social relationships (guanxi) according to the expectations prescribed by each tier of relationships that spread out discretely like ripples from the center of self (Fei 1992). Taking a social constructionist standpoint, Chinese identities are constructed in these symbolic interactions from a profound Confucian base. Some conspiracy theorists of Chinese online identity argue that youth identities have become elastic, especially in interaction with strangers and this elasticity is "both the feeling that one's identity is malleable and the action of trying different identities" (Wang 2013, 14). There can be little doubt that Chinese youth go online and interact with strangers, but the authors in this chapter report on a major ethnography of young students in a middle-south city in China that presents another side of picture-the conservation of traditional social norms. The ethnography conducted in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province located in south central China, shows how intersubjective benevolence (ren) is communicated in an online context and how in everyday life traditional expectations of reciprocity (shu) are shaping youth online communities through identity construction. The bastion of the fifth estate, social media, provides a platform for reciprocity (shu) that has specific Chinese characteristics-a reciprocity that is intertwined with guanxi (social relationship) including, especially, the reciprocity characteristics communicated in zheng-neng-liang (positive energy) and hei (self-mockery and mockery of others) self-presentations.
- Subject
- Chinese youth; online communities; social media; benevolence; online indentities; reciprocity
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1385213
- Identifier
- uon:32191
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781443872898
- Language
- eng
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