Cultural Norms and "Proper Behavior"

One of the biggest and most aggravating cultural difference in China is the definition of proper behavior and self-conduct. For those of us from Western countries, rather shocking behavior includes the following: people spitting/shooting projectile snot onto the street, dogs and children urinating/defecating in public spaces, reckless littering, and the inability to form lines (note: in China, push and shove and you will get there faster). 

It's difficult to enforce niceties in a country this big with a population this large. There's a very real mob mentality in effect-- "everyone else does it too, so who cares," right?

For the record, I'm not condoning littering as "okay" since it's a "cultural norm." However, in order to stay sane you do have to reach a certain level of acceptance, or an understanding that, "no, I can't change this, but I won't participate either." Not to mention, you must also develop an awareness of your surroundings, i.e. do not step in that puddle of liquid, because there's a 95% chance that it is NOT water.

What brings me to this point is something I stumbled upon in my research. I'm reading an article on Nantong Museum, China's first private museum established by Zhang Jian, an early 20th C politician. The following excerpt, referencing early Western museums, particularly caught my attention:

The museum was one of the first institutions to reshape and manipulate what was later to become general norms of public behaviour. The “modern museum idea” was that museums should be places of “civilizing rituals,” and museum visitors, through cultural cultivation, should become self-monitoring, and thus a regulatory force in themselves. This, however, remained an ideal in the West until the completion of a century-long overall improvement in education and parallel developments in architecture and technologies. 58

58. Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876–1926, p. 6; Bennett, The Birth of the Museum, pp. 6–7, 48–58.

I had no idea. With current development of both Chinese education and museums, does this mean that there's hope on the horizon for the improvement of these "general norms of public behavior"? From what I've heard from Chinese people, they're already making progress. Internationally recognized events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai were both occasions for public education on proper social behavior.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'd rather not have to dodge spit like miniature missiles when I'm out and about.