How socially conservative are China and Vietnam, and how can they realistically become more progressive?
How socially conservative are China and Vietnam, and how can they realistically become more progressive?
Time and economic development. Social development has not caught up with economic development because the pace of economic development has been ridiculous.
Yeah, I’d venture to guess most people alive in China today spent their childhoods in rural areas based on the urbanization trend. There’s been a lot of recent progress in marriage law within the last year or so. The gist is something like for a woman to divorce her husband you needed evidence of him wronging you and had to wait a cooldown period. Those rules have been relaxed in a drive to combat domestic violence.
Yea, these things take time to catch up, you can still see this on the West. Its mostly the old people that are reactionary on social issues, newer generations require some heavy indoctrination to turn out as conservative as them.
China went from economically backwards to a highly developed in the span of 30 years, id bet the avg age in China is above that!
I once saw an interesting video made by people in the Shanghai LGBTQ+ scene. I haven't been able to find it since but I hope someone knows which video I mean.
Don't think this is the same one. But this is great
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Be more specific. What do you consider "conservative"? What do you consider "progressive"?
By "socially progressive", I am referring to the things we usually refer to when it comes to social progress: acceptance of LGBTQ+, rights for women, anti-racism, respect for youth and elderly, etc.
By "conservative", it would mean opposition to such advances in social progress.
I'm not the best at wording this.
I can't speak for China, only Vietnam.
LGBTQ+
When it comes to LGBT, we are generally quite indifferent to it. It is not our jobs to interfere in other people's business. That was my impression of our social attitude towards queer people.
Legally speaking however, our laws are still behind in some aspects, such as not yet recognizing same-sex marriage, but it does not ban it either. Same-sex couples are allowed to held symbolic weddings as well as living together under the same roof. It's just that they won't enjoy the same legal rights and obligations as required for hetero couples. But fret not, our laws are getting more and more open, it was more open in the 201X than the 200X, and it will not doubt be more open in the future.
Women rights
The Communist Party of Vietnam in all its time of existence has been tirelessly advance women right and gender equality. I can confidently say that right now, I can feel no social discrimination between men and women. Women occupy just as many jobs as men do. In my household, my father and my mother are equal in decision making.
Anti-racism
I don't think racism is relevant to Vietnam.
But we do have ethnic minorities (I am of Nùng ethnicity, while the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese population is of Kinh). Ethnic minorities often receive favorable aids from the government in term of poverty eradication and education.
Respect for youth and elderly
Our culture inherits Confucian elements, and our government encourages positive traits such as filial piety while discouraging negative traits that are no longer compatible with modern time and socialism.
As a Chinese person, I can share my own observations from both online and real life:
LGBTQ+ There is almost no public promotion of LGBTQ+ issues in China. LGBTQ+ individuals are not considered a mainstream group, and most people are indifferent to them. Online, many references to LGBTQ+ are just jokes or memes meant to entertain, not necessarily to mock the community. For instance, phrases like "Bro, you smell so good" are popular online jokes. In real life, if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, it doesn't really matter to most people; everyone has their own life. However, if LGBTQ+ individuals try to date heterosexuals, it usually leads to discomfort. If a child wants to identify as LGBTQ+, it depends on their parents, and most parents do not approve. Also, since LGBTQ+ concepts are seen as coming from Western countries, some LGBTQ+ individuals who are perceived as overly admiring Western culture can face backlash. Chinese public opinion generally acknowledges heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, but concepts like "72 genders" and "gender fluidity" are seen as incomprehensible. Phrases like "My gender is an attack helicopter, and I want to screw a tank" are commonly used to mock the plethora of gender identities in the West.
Women's Rights As a socialist country, women's rights are well-protected in China. Prostitution is illegal (to combat human trafficking). In stable government jobs, women make up a large proportion. However, there are some peculiarities: women have maternity leave, and some declare pregnancy right after being hired to receive paid maternity leave and then resign afterward. In government jobs, some women may claim they cannot handle the workload and pass their responsibilities to male colleagues or other female colleagues, leading to a form of hidden hiring discrimination in some companies and government units.
Anti-Racism Chinese people generally focus on a person's actions rather than their race. Discrimination tends to be based on an individual's behavior, regardless of skin color or ethnicity. Ethnic minorities in China receive preferential treatment, with special funds to promote their traditional cultures and extra points on college entrance exams. However, as the economic conditions of some minorities have become comparable to the Han majority, places like Shandong are considering abolishing these extra points. Ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Mongolians also have the option to take their college entrance exams in their native languages. During my university years, Mongolian students often joked that they didn’t ride horses to school.
Respect for Youth and the Elderly I don't quite understand the concept of "respecting the youth." Is it similar to bowing to someone in Japan? In China, as the birthplace of Confucianism, respecting the elderly and caring for the young are considered traditional virtues and are commonly practiced in daily life. However, due to the "Peng Yu case," where a judge asked, "If you didn't knock the old person down, why did you help them up?" many people are now wary of helping fallen elderly individuals for fear of being extorted (which has happened multiple times). Such extortionists are referred to as "taking advantage of their old age."
China is relatively conservative in shit like LGBTQ rights. I think China can be a bit more progressive in that regard. Another one is a long overdue series of crackdowns on their private sector.
BTW, I recommend following @darrion_nguyen on Twitter if you want to know more about Vietnam, he is more knowledgeable than me regarding Vietnam and anything geopolitics.
Normally, economic development comes before social development, as occurred in the West younger generations are more openly socially progressive
They are becoming more progressive, just slowly. They tried going faster in the cultural revolution, and it was disastrous.
It might feel painfully slow compared to Western progressivism, but that's because it's educating and incrementing generationally so that the changes happen with the popular support of billions of people, and they stick.
In the West they will force progressive values into law while half or more of the population still oppose it, and so they move 3 steps forward but then 2-4 steps backward as they flutter between parties in their circus democracies.
Look at women's rights like abortion and workplace equality. The gig economy is less than 10 years old and China and Vietnam look after the welfare if workers in that new industry better. China and Vietnam are already ahead of the West in a lot of progressive respects. We'll see China having better LGBTQ rights than the West in our lifetimes.
In the meantime be wary of letting liberals cherry pick the benchmarks for measuring which place is more progressive - they'll always hyperfocus on LGBTQ for progressivism until the day the West falls behind on it (and it will), and then they'll find something else.
well, given that there's not too many news of trans people of lgbt+ people being murdered in china by policemen or reactionary neighbors being known, maybe they're not so conservative. or maybe they treat romantical relationships of any kind equally strict as something that you should keep in private, but maybe i'm wrong
One good testimony that I found on the subject is this video. What's really cool is that it's from a channel about learning the language and therefore no attempt to paint a specific reality.
On of my biggest takeaway is that there are established LGBT communities in citites that don't appear to be subjected to any external pressure so that's pretty cool
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: