An F to the prof for his understanding of East Asia

JOURNALISTS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES that have difficulty comprehending Japan and the rest of Northeast Asia. Academics can be even worse.

Quebec native Daniel A. Bell is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy of Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has been studying China and Confucianism in East Asia for at least 10 years. In this article in Dissent magazine, he discusses the Chinese craze for soccer and the reasons for their passionate support of powerhouse international teams.

Not only does he present more goofy ideas per column inch than I’ve seen in years, but despite crawling over, under, and all around the topic, he fails to spot the reason for this phenomenon. Yet the reason is so obvious it might as well be painted in day-glo colors, and should be immediately apparent to any scholar of East Asia.

He also doesn’t seem to know very much about sports.

Here is his explanation about the popularity of the World Cup in those countries without a team to root for in the event:

In many parts of the world—from South Africa to India to China—the bulk of ordinary citizens became crazed about soccer during the World Cup, even without any national team in the competition. This worldwide obsession can be explained partly by the usual commercial considerations: clever branding and marketing that tap the widespread desire to be part of a global event in countries of rising affluence.

Why is it so difficult for those in academia to show some simple respect for “ordinary citizens”? He thinks the poor sheep worldwide are herded into an obsession prodded by “the usual commercial considerations”. It doesn’t occur to the professor that people all over the world—Europe and other affluent countries included—follow the World Cup for the simple reason that they like soccer. A lot.

A fellow world music fan I know in the Netherlands made a tape for me some years ago from discs in his private collection of soccer songs from around the world. (In return, I sent him a small bottle of shochu that he liked so much he made me another tape!)

The music comes from the following countries: Senegal, Nigeria, Zaire, Ghana, Mali, South Africa, Jamaica, Brazil, and several I can’t identify because I’m not familiar with the musicians or their language. All are about the exploits of local soccer heroes. None have to do with the World Cup.

Those clever marketing mavens seem to be everywhere, don’t they?

Turning his attention to the soccer mania in China, he notes their high level of interest in the 2006 World Cup:

• “Because the matches were played in the middle of the night, many Beijingers slept during the day.”
• The end-of-year school examinations were purposefully (sic) scheduled during the three-day interval between the two rounds.

The Chinese, Prof. Bell reports, are ga-ga about certain teams around the world:

• “In the 2002 World Cup, the CCTV hostess Sheng Bin wept openly at Argentina’s early exit.”
• “When England went down in defeat against Portugal in 2006, my son’s piano teacher’s husband was so depressed he could barely get out of bed.”

In fact, he reproduces the translated play-by-play of a Chinese announcer during the critical moment of the quarterfinal match between Italy and Australia.

China’s best-known soccer announcer, Huang Jianxiang, was unable to control his enthusiasm when Fabio Grosso went down in the penalty area and a last-minute penalty kick was awarded to the Italians.
As Francesco Totti prepared to take the penalty kick that would win the match, Huang shouted himself hoarse.
“Totti! He is about to take the shot. He shoulders the expectations of the whole world. Goooooal! Game over! Italy wins! Beat the Australians! They do not fall in front of Hiddink again! [Hiddink, the Australian coach, had led the South Korean team that ousted Italy in the 2002 World Cup.] Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Paolo Maldini! Long live Italy! The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer! Hiddink lost his courage faced with Italian history and traditions! He finally reaped what he had sown! They should go home. They don’t need to fly as far as Australia as most of them are living in Europe. Farewell!”

After trying but failing to get a grip on several other marginally related topics like so many bars of soap in the shower, the professor uses the announcer’s hysteria to argue that perhaps people in the West are too neutral.

The ideal of neutrality as applied to various spheres of social life—not simply for judges and referees, but also for announcers, officials, teachers, even parents and friends—seems too deeply ingrained in Western societies.

I can see how some professors might look askance at the ideal of neutrality. It could cramp their style in the classroom.

Then there’s “the ideal of neutrality for parents”. Just what is he trying to say here? The only neutrality parents should exhibit is toward their children, i.e., not favoring one over the other(s). I hope for his children’s sake (if he has more than one) that he’s being neutral with them.

Up to this point, Prof. Bell, on balance, has done his readers a service. It was fascinating to read about this extraordinary Chinese passion for soccer, which I’ve never seen reported anywhere else. (Many Japanese love soccer too, but they’re not even close to being this extreme.)

But despite his academic training, years of study, and residence in China, he comes up with some ideas to explain this phenomenon that are just downright silly. The second year students aren’t the only sophomoric ones at university.

The two best-read newspapers in China, selling well over a million copies each every day, are Cankao Xiaoxi and Huanqiu Shibao. They cover mainly international news. Many popular local papers cover local news. In both cases, the reporting does not stray too far from the facts and deals with issues that people care about. All national news, however, is official propaganda and thus uninteresting. So the Chinese develop strong local and international interests but pay less attention to national affairs than do most citizens of liberal democratic countries.

I’ve read international news in English-language Chinese newspapers, particularly about Japan and the United States. The propaganda sticks to your fingers when you turn the pages. And I’ll lay a substantial wager against the claim that coverage of local news “does not stray too far from the facts”.

Who else besides a university professor would make such an unsubstantiated sweeping generalization about the interest of the Chinese people in national affairs? Well, OK, other than a journalist?

Don’t the citizens in liberal democratic countries regularly vote to choose their leaders? Has Prof. Bell considered that this comparative lack of interest in national affairs in China—if it actually exists–might be due to the lack of real elections?

Here’s one of the professor’s theories for the Chinese preference for strong foreign teams:

There may also be a special form of internationalist nationalism at work. The support for established teams may be an expression of a more general appreciation for nations with long and rich histories and cultures.

“Internationalist nationalism”…what an intriguing concept. Now all we have to do is figure out what it means. Surely it means something. After all, it’s so commonplace, the Chinese interest in established teams is due to a “special form” of that phenomenon “at work”.

One also has to wonder…is he serious about the Chinese having a general appreciation for nations with long and rich histories and cultures? The same China whose people refer to themselves as “the flower in the center of the world”?

Of course, Japan also has a long history with a correspondingly rich culture. One of these days, perhaps I’ll see a Chinese tourist in this country behave toward the locals with something other than disdainful condescension. (Young Chinese college students are a different matter, however.) And then there’s the stunned reaction of Japanese who visit China–including young Japanese college students with an interest in the country–after their initial encounter with Chinese attitudes at first hand.

If you found Prof. Bell’s ideas about China entertaining, wait until you see what he thinks about Korea:

In the 2002 World Cup, the Koreans were fanatical supporters of their own team. But after the team’s loss to Turkey for the third-place spot in front of its home crowd, the Korean team formed a circle and collectively bowed to the audience as a show of gratitude. The crowd responded with a tremendous ovation, for the Korean team and, more surprisingly, for the victorious Turkish team. There may be particular reasons for this response—many South Koreans are grateful to Turkey because of its support in the Korean War half a century ago—but such moving scenes show how Confucian-style rituals can tame the excesses of national bias. It is no coincidence that Korea is widely held to be the most Confucian country in East Asia.

There’s a name for this sort of logic. It’s called “Wet streets cause rain”.

He’s right about Confucianism in Korea—the Japanese make the same point in books and other material for a Japanese audience. But the professor’s lack of research will be immediately apparent to every Japanese.

Anyone who has ever watched the national high school baseball tournament in Japan knows that all the teams—winners as well as losers—make a point of bowing after the game to their supporters, who are seated in specific sections of the stadium. So much for that theory.

Everyone in Japan saw Korean behavior during the World Cup matches played in South Korea, and–more importantly–remembers Korean behavior towards Japan before and during their joint hosting of the competition.

How odd those Confucian-style rituals didn’t “tame the excesses of national bias” for the Koreans then. Ah, but the professor is in China. And it’s so much easier to theorize while watching a TV set.

If the South Koreans are so grateful to Turkey for its support during the Korean War a half-century ago that they’ll applaud the national soccer team that eliminates them in the World Cup, they must strew flowers at the feet of every American who walks by.

Prof. Bell seems to be forgetting an important rule for academic research: Don’t make up stuff off the top of your head.

But perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh with the man. He doesn’t seem to get out and about much.

My own loyalties lie with underdog teams….Perhaps left-wing political sensibilities naturally lend themselves to support for teams from relatively poor and not-so-famous countries.

You’re not surprised to find out he’s a leftist, are you?

A win would give a great boost to their national confidence, and it might have positive economic spillovers.

After all the economic deprivation they’ve caused the long-suffering masses over the years, is it too much to ask that leftists keep their economic theories to themselves?

Not to mention such phrases as “economic spillovers”?

The professor admits he originally thought the Chinese would root for regional favorites in the World Cup.

In the 2002 World Cup, I expected that Asian solidarity would play an important role. The Chinese team had been eliminated in the first round, but the South Korean team performed unexpectedly well. I watched the quarter-final match between Germany and South Korea in a Beijing bar, and to my surprise the crowd burst into applause when Germany scored and eventually won the match.

Come on, admit it–the professor’s naiveté is almost touching.

But he still can’t figure out why the Chinese root for the strong teams. The following comment about the Australians should have been enough to clue him in:

The Chinese won’t cheer for underdogs or relatively small teams and countries without substantial talent, global impact, or long histories. In soccer, this means they won’t cheer for teams like Australia (“Would you cheer for a bunch of beer-guzzling upstarts?” as one friend put it) if they’re up against the more established soccer powers….If Australia develops into a global soccer power over, say, thirty years, as opposed to scoring occasional fluke victories, it will gain the sympathy of the Chinese.

Then he actually stumbles across the reason without recognizing it:

There is no such preference for the underdog in China. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Chinese fans support traditional soccer powers such as Germany, England, Brazil, Argentina, and Italy. It is difficult to overestimate the passion for such teams.

The man’s made the study of China and East Asia his life’s work and he’s never heard anyone say that societies in this part of the world have traditionally been structured vertically, rather than horizontally?

If I were him, I’d seriously consider retiring to the countryside, shaving my head, standing under a waterfall, and contemplating my errors.

Of course the Chinese favor strong soccer teams.

A primary characteristic of vertical societies is showing deference and respect to the top dog, not the underdog.

The Chinese aren’t going to follow teams from countries populated by “beer-guzzling upstarts” capable only of fluke victories. And it’s astonishing that an academic specializing in the region would seriously consider the idea that the Chinese—perhaps the most ethnocentric nation on the planet—would support a soccer team from Korea.

Here’s another tip for academic research. When you observe a country, you’re actually supposed to pay attention.

Wait, there’s more. Wrap your head around this one:

Even though I’m from Quebec, I’m hard-pressed to explain what’s great about my home province…

Shall we help Prof. Bell count the ways in which Quebec might be preferable to China?

1. The people in Quebec get to vote in free elections to choose their national and local leaders.
2. The people in Quebec have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly…
3. The people in Quebec live in a stable and peaceful society. In China, however:

Officially reported instances of social unrest (involving 15 or more people) have risen from 8700 in 1993 to 87,000 in 2005 (the latest available figures). This is about 240 instances each day.

4. The people in Quebec get to choose how many children they want to have.
5. The women in Quebec are not subjected to forced sterilizations if they have more children than the government tells them they can have.
6. The people in Quebec don’t have to worry that their male children will be kidnapped and sold because of the government’s policy of limiting the number of children per family.
7. The people in Quebec aren’t forced to marry people selected by the government for the purpose of creating a master race.

Think I’m making that up? Then read this:

Avid basketball fans and China watchers undoubtedly know that the gigantic Yao (Ming, the NBA star) is the product of a genetic experiment. He is the offspring of a mother who was 6 ft., 2 in. and a father who was 6 ft., 10 in. The two were forced to marry by Chinese officials eager to dominate sports globally…Yao – who was required to play basketball whether he wanted to or not – received special treatment from growth experts from birth, and the treatments seem to have succeeded beyond anybody’s imagination.

Those “treatments” must have been special to create a guy 7 ft., 5 in. tall. Heaven only knows what chemicals they pumped into the boy’s system during his youth.

Even more astonishing, Prof. Bell is aware of #7, but it doesn’t seem to bother him much:

China’s best athletes are selected at a very young age and made to undergo rigorous state-sponsored physical education, with little attention paid to other forms of learning. The athletes are used by the state to score political points, and the announcers at Olympic Games make less-than-subtle claims about the greatness of the Chinese nation.

Now try to imagine the language he would use if it were Japan or the United States employing the same methods to create a race of Olympiad ubermenschen. (Unless he thinks that Chinese success is due to a triumph of the will.)

But perhaps we shouldn’t be so astonished. According to a reviewer of Prof. Bell’s book, Beyond Liberal Democracy (interesting title, that), he excludes “the rule of law” as one of the pillars of democracy, and thinks that “Cultural revolution is a good idea badly implemented”. (See the review on the Amazon website.)

His exclusion of “the rule of law” might not be so surprising when you remember that the professor thought the idea of neutrality for judges was “too deeply ingrained” in society.

Just what the world needs: more activist judges with their fingers on the scales of justice.

Ah, but it’s not just Prof. Bell. I’ve saved the most astounding piece of information in the article for last:

The idea for this essay emerged from exchanges that took place during the 2006 World Cup on ChinaPOL, an e-mail list of academics and journalists working on Chinese politics.

The professor isn’t the only one responsible for these theories. They were debated and approved by 10 other people!

It was H.L. Mencken who observed that there isn’t an idea so crazy that a college professor wouldn’t take it seriously.

Or several ideas. Or 11 professors and journalists.

Postscript: I ran across this article a year ago, when I was preparing this site, but it’s not really time-dependent. Also, be sure to look at those linked articles. They’re worth reading.