本文是柏杨于一九八四年九月二十四日在美国爱荷华大学讲辞，根据记录稿整理。
多少年以来，我一直想写一本书，叫《丑陋的中国人》。我记得美国有一本《丑陋的美国人》，写出来之后，美国国务院拿来作为他们行动的参考。日本人也写了一本《丑陋的日本人》，作者是驻阿根廷的大使，他阁下却被撤职，这大概就是东方和西方的不同。中国比起日本，好像又差一级，假定我把这本书写出来的话，可能要麻烦各位去监狱给我送饭，所
以我始终没有写。但是我一直想找个机会，把它做一个口头报告，请教于全国各阶层朋友。不过做一个口头报告也不简单，在台北，请我讲演的人，一听说要讲这个题目，就立刻不请我了。所以，今天是我有生以来，第一次用“丑陋的中国人”讲演，我感到非常高兴，感谢各位给我这个机会。
有一次，台中东海大学请我演讲，我告诉他们这个题目，我问同学会会长：“会不会有问题？”他说：“怎么会有问题？”我对他说：“你去训导处打听一下，因为我这个人本来就被当做问题人物，又讲一个问题题目，那可是双料。”跟训导处谈过之后，他打电话到台北来说：“问题是没有的，不过题目是不是可以改一改？训导处认为题目难听。”接着把他拟定的一个很长的冠冕堂皇的题目告诉我，他问：“同意不同意？”我说：“当然不同意，不过你一定要改，只好就改！”那是我第一次讲有关“丑陋的中国人”。我对他说：“希望我讲的时候能做个录音，以后我就可以把它改写成一篇文章。”他慷慨承诺。结果讲过之后，把录音带寄来，只有开头的几句话，以后就没有了声音。
今年我六十五岁，台北的朋友在三月七日给我做了一个生日，我对他们说：“我活了六十五岁，全是艰难的岁月！”我的意思是：不仅仅我个人艰难，而是所有的中国人都艰难。在座的朋友都很年轻，尤其是来自台湾的朋友们，多数拥有富裕的经济环境，同你们谈“艰难”，你们既不爱听，也不相信，更不了解。我所谈的艰难，不是个人问题，也不是政治问题，而是超出个人之外的，超出政治层面的整个中国人问题。不仅仅是一个人经历了患难，不仅仅是我这一代经历了患难。假使我们对这个患难没有了解，对这个有毒素的文化没有了解，那么我们的灾祸还会再度发生，永远无尽无期。
十九世纪的南洋群岛，就是现在的东南亚，那时还是英国和荷兰的属地，有一个英国驻马来西亚的专员说：“做十九世纪的中国人是一个灾难。”因为他看到中国人在南洋群岛像猪仔一样，无知无识，自生自灭，而且随时会受到屠杀。民族固然是长远的，个人的生命却是有限。人生能有几个大的盼望？人生能有几个大的理想，经得起破灭？展望前途，到底是光明的？还是不光明的？真是一言难尽。四年前，我在纽约讲演，讲到感慨的地方，一个人站起来说：“你从台湾来，应该告诉我们希望，应该鼓舞我们民心，想不到你却打击我们。”一个人当然需要鼓励，问题是，鼓励起来之后怎么办？我从小就受到鼓励，五六岁的时候，大人就对我说：“中国的前途就看你们这一代了！”我想我的责任太大，负担不起。后来我告诉我的儿子：“中国的前途就看你们这一代了！”现在，儿子又告诉孙子：“中国的前途就看你们这一代了！”一代复一代，一代何其多？到哪一代才能够好起来？
在马来西亚，华人占百分之三十几，有次我去博物馆参观，里面有马来文，有英文，就是没有华文。这不是说有华文就好，没有华文就不好，那是另外一个问题。这个现象一方面说明，马来人的心胸不够宽广，另一方面，也说明华人没有力量，没有地位，没有受到尊重。泰国的华人说：“我们掌握了泰国稻米的命脉。”不要自己安慰自己，一个法令下来，你什么都没有了。
这种种事情，使得作为一个中国人，不但艰难，而且羞辱、痛苦。就是身在美国的中国人，你不晓得他是怎么一回事，左、右、中、独、中偏左、左偏中、中偏右、右偏中等等，简直没有共同语言。互相把对方当做杀父之仇，这算是一个什么样的民族？这算是一个什么样的国家？世界上没有一个国家像中国那么历史悠久，没有一个国家有我们这样一脉相传的文化，而且这个文化曾经达到高度的文明。现代的希腊人跟从前的希腊人无关，现代的埃及人跟从前的埃及人无关，而现代的中国人却是古中国人的后裔，为什么这样一个庞大的国家，这样一个庞大的民族，落到今天这种丑陋的地步？不但受外国人欺负，更受自己人欺负──受暴君、暴官、暴民的欺负。有时候我在外国公园里停一下，看到外国小孩，他们是那么快乐，我从内心产生羡慕。他们没有负担，他们的前途坦荡，心理健康，充满欢愉。我们台湾的孩子，到学校去念书，戴上近视眼镜，为了应付功课的压力，六亲不认。他母亲昏倒在地，他去扶她，母亲悲怆地喊：“我死了算了，管我干什么？你用功罢！你用功罢！”我太太在教书的时候，偶尔谈到题外做人的话，学生马上就抗议：“我们不要学做人，我们要学应付考试。”
我在台湾三十多年，写小说十年，写杂文十年，坐牢十年，现在将是写历史十年，平均分配。为什么我不写小说了？我觉得写小说比较间接，要透过一个形式，一些人物，所以我改写杂文。杂文像匕首一样，可以直接插入罪恶的心脏。杂文就好像一个人坐在司机的旁边，一直提醒司机，你已经开错了，应该左转，应该右转，应该靠边走，不应该在双黄线上超车，前面有桥，应该放缓油门，前面有一个十字路口，有红灯等等。不停地提醒，不停地叫，叫多了以后就被关进大牢。掌握权柄的人认为：只要没有人指出他的错误，他就永远没有错误。
我自己在牢房里沉思，我为什么坐牢？我犯了什么罪？犯了什么法？出狱之后，我更不断地探讨，像我这样的遭遇，是不是一个变态的、特殊的例子？我到爱荷华，正式和大陆的作家在一起，使我发现，像我这种人，上帝注定要我坐牢，不在台湾坐牢，就在大陆坐牢。他们同我讲：“你这个脾气，到不了‘红卫兵’，到不了‘文化大革命’，反右就把你反掉了。”为什么一个中国人，稍微胆大心粗一点，稍微讲一点点实话，就要遭到这种命运？我遇到很多在大陆坐过牢的人，我问他们：“你为什么坐牢？”他们说：“讲了几句实话。”
就是这样。为什么讲了几句实话就会遭到这样的命运？我认为这不是个人的问题，而是中国文化的问题。甚至于在台北关我的特务，都不能责备，换了各位，在那个环境之中，纳入那种轨道之后，也可能会有那样的反应，因为你觉得做的是对的。我也会那样做，因为我认为我做的是对的，甚至可能比他们更坏。常听到有人说：“你的前途操在自己手里。”我年纪大了之后，觉得这话很有问题，事实上是，一半操在自己之手，一半操在别人之手。
一个人生活在世上，就好像水泥搅拌器里的石子一样，运转起来之后，身不由己。使我们感觉到，不是某一个人的问题，而是社会问题，而是文化问题。耶稣临死的时候说：“宽容他们！他们做的他们不知道。”年轻时候读这句话，觉得稀松平常，长大之后，也觉得这句话没有力量。但是到了我现在这个年龄，才发现这句话多么深奥，多么痛心。使我想到我们中国人，成了今天这个样子，我们的丑陋，来自于我们不知道我们丑陋。我到爱荷华，我们夫妇的经费是由爱荷华大学出一半，再由私人捐助一半，捐助一半的是爱荷华燕京饭店老板，一位从没有回过中国的中国人裴竹章先生，我们从前没见过面，捐了一个这么大的数目，使我感动。他和我谈话，他说：“我在没有看你的书之前，我觉得中国人了不起，看了你的书之后，才觉得不是那么一回事，所以说，我想请你当面指教。”
斐竹章先生在发现我们文化有问题后，深思到是不是我们中国人的品质有问题？我第一次出国时，孙观汉先生跟我讲：“你回国之后，不准讲一句话──唉！中国人到哪里都是中国人。”我说：“好，我不讲。”回国之后，他问我：“你觉得怎么样？”我说：“还是不准讲的那句话──中国人到哪里都是中国人。”他希望我不要讲这句话，是他希望中国人经过若干年后，有所改变，想不到并没有变。是不是我们中国人的品质真的有了问题？是不是上帝造我们中国人的时候，就赋给我们一个丑陋的内心？我想不应是品质问题，这不是自我安慰，中国人可是世界上最聪明的民族之一，在美国各大学考前几名的，往往是中国人，许多大科学家，包括中国原子科学之父孙观汉先生，诺贝尔奖金得主杨振宁、李政道先生，都是第一流的头脑。中国人并不是品质不好，中国人的品质足可以使中国走到一个很健康、很快乐的境界，我们有资格做到这一点，我们有理由相信中国会成为一个很好的国家。但我们不必整天要我们的国家强大，国家不强大有什么关系？只要人民幸福。在人民幸福了之后，再去追求强大不迟。我想我们中国人有高贵的品质。但是为什么几百年以来，始终不能使中国人脱离苦难？什么原因？
我想冒昧地提出一个综合性的答案，那就是，中国传统文化中有一种滤过性病毒，使我们子子孙孙受了感染，到今天都不能痊愈。有人说：“自己不争气，却怪祖先。”这话有一个大漏洞。记得易卜生有一出名剧（按：《群鬼》），有梅毒的父母，生出个梅毒的儿子，每次儿子病发的时候，都要吃药。有一次，儿子愤怒地说：“我不要这个药，我宁愿死，你看你给我一个什么样的身体？”这能怪他而不怪他的父母？我们不是怪我们的父母，我们不是怪我们的祖先，假定我们要怪的话，我们要怪我们的祖先给我们留下什么样的文化。这么一个庞大的国度，拥有全世界四分之一人口的一个庞大民族，却陷入贫穷、愚昧、斗争、血腥等等的流沙之中，难以自拔。我看到别的国家人与人之间的相处，心里充满了羡慕。这样的一个传统文化，产生了现在这样的一个现象，使我们中国人具备了很多种可怕的特征。
最明显的特征之一就是脏、乱、吵。台北曾经一度反脏乱，结果反了几天也不再反了。我们的厨房脏乱，我们的家庭脏乱。有很多地方，中国人一去，别人就搬走了。我有一个小朋友，国立政治大学毕业的，嫁给一个法国人，住在巴黎，许多朋友到欧洲旅行，都在她家打过地铺。她跟我说：“她住的那栋楼里，法国人都搬走了，东方人都搬来了。”（东方人的意思，有时候是指整个东方，有时候专指中国人。）我听了很难过，可是随便看看，到处是冰淇淋盒子、拖鞋；小孩子到处跑，到处乱画，空气里有潮湿的霉味。我问：“你们不能弄干净吗？”她说：“不能。”不但外国人觉得我们脏，我们乱，经过这么样提醒之后，我们自己也觉得我们脏、我们乱。至于吵，中国人的嗓门之大，真是天下无双，尤以广东老乡的嗓门最为叫座。有个发生在美国的笑话：两个广东人在那里讲悄悄话，美国人认为他们就要打架，急拨电话报案。警察来了，问他们在干什么，他们说：“我们正耳语。”
为什么中国人声音大？因为没有安全感，所以中国人嗓门特高，觉得声音大就是理大，只要声音大、嗓门高，理都跑到我这里来了，要不然我怎么会那么气愤？我想这几点足够使中国人的形象受到破坏，使我们的内心不能平安，因为吵、脏、乱，自然会影响内心，窗明几净和又脏又乱，是两个完全不一样的世界。
至于中国人的窝里斗，可是天下闻名的中国人的重要特性。每一个单独的日本人，看起
来都像一条猪，可是三个日本人加起来就是一条龙，日本人的团队精神使日本所向无敌！中国人打仗打不过日本人，做生意也做不过日本人，就在台北，三个日本人做生意，好，这次是你的，下次是我的。中国人做生意，就显现出中国人的丑陋程度，你卖五十，我卖四十，你卖三十，我卖二十。所以说，每一个中国人都是一条龙，中国人讲起话来头头是道，上可以把太阳一口气吹灭，下可以治国平天下。中国人在单独一个位置上，譬如在研究室里，在考场上，在不需要有人际关系的情况下，他可以有了不起的发展。但是三个中国人加在一起──三条龙加在一起，就成了一条猪、一条虫，甚至连虫都不如。因为中国人最拿手的是内斗。有中国人的地方就有内斗，中国人永远不团结，似乎中国人身上缺少团结的细胞，所以外国人批评中国人不知道团结，我只好说：“你知道中国人不团结是什么意思？是上帝的意思！因为中国有十亿人口，团结起来，万众一心，你受得了？是上帝可怜你们，才教中国人不团结。”我一面讲，一面痛彻心腑。
中国人不但不团结，反而有不团结的充分理由，每一个人都可以把这个理由写成一本书。各位在美国看得最清楚，最好的标本就在眼前，任何一个华人社会，至少分成三百六十五派，互相想把对方置于死地。中国有一句话：“一个和尚担水吃，两个和尚抬水吃，三个和尚没水吃。”人多有什么用？中国人在内心上根本就不了解合作的重要性。可是你说他不了解，他可以写一本团结重要的书给你看看。我上次（一九八一年）来美国，住在一个在大学教书的朋友家里，谈得头头是道，天文地理，怎么样救国等等，第二天我说：“我要到张三那儿去一下。”他一听是张三，就眼冒不屑的火光，我说：“你送我去一下吧！”他说：“我不送，你自己去好了。”都在美国学校教书，都是从一个家乡来的，竟不能互相容忍，那还讲什么理性？所以中国人的窝里斗，是一项严重的特征。
各位在美国更容易体会到这一点，凡是整中国人最厉害的，不是外国人，而是中国人。凡是出卖中国人的，也不是外国人，而是中国人。凡是陷害中国人的，不是外国人，而是中国人。在马来西亚就有这样的一个故事：有一个朋友住在那儿开矿，一下子被告了，告得很严重，追查之下，告他的原来是个老朋友，一块从中国来的，在一起打天下的。朋友质问他怎么做出这种下流的事？那人说：“一块儿打天下是一块儿打天下，你现在高楼大厦，我现在搞得没办法，我不告你告谁？”所以搞中国人的还是中国人。譬如说，在美国这么大的一个国度，沧海一粟，怎么会有人知道你是非法入境？有人告你么！谁告你？就是你身边的朋友，就是中国人告你。
有许多朋友同我说：如果顶头上司是中国人时，你可要特别注意，特别小心，他不但不会提升你，裁员时还会先开除你，因为他要“表示”他大公无私，所以我们怎么能跟犹太人比？我常听人说：“我们同犹太人一样，那么勤劳。”像报纸上说的：以色列国会里吵起来了，不得了啦，三个人有三个意见。但是，却故意抹杀一件事情，一旦决定了之后，却是一个方向，虽然吵得一塌糊涂，外面还在打仗，敌人四面包围，仍照旧举行选举！在我们中国，三个人同样有三个意见，可是，跟以色列不一样的是，中国人在决定了之后，却是三个方向。好比说今天有人提议到纽约，有人提议到旧金山，表决决定到纽约。如果是以色列人，他们会去纽约。如果是中国人，哼，你们去纽约，我有我的自由，我还是去旧金山。我在英国影片中，看见一些小孩子在争，有的要爬树，有的要游泳，闹了一阵子之后决定表决，表决通过爬树，于是大家都去爬树。我对这个行为有深刻的印象，因为民主不是形式，而是生活的一部分。我们的民主是“以示民主”，投票的时候，大官还要照个相，表示他降贵纡尊，民主并没有成为他生活的一部分，只成为他表演的一部分。
中国人的不能团结，中国人的窝里斗，是中国人的劣根性。这不是中国人的品质不够好，而是中国的文化中，有滤过性的病毒，使我们到时候非显现出来不可，使我们的行为不能自我控制！明明知道这是窝里斗，还是要窝里斗。锅砸了大家都吃不成饭，天塌下来有个子高的可以顶。因为这种窝里斗的哲学，使我们中国人产生了一种很特殊的行为──死不认错。各位有没有听到中国人认过错？假如你听到中国人说：“这件事我错了。”你就应该为我们国家民族额手称庆。我女儿小的时候，有一次我打了她，结果是我错怪了她，她哭得很厉害，我心里很难过，我觉得她是幼小无助的，她只能靠父母，而父母突然翻脸，是多么可怕的一件事。我抱起她来，我说：“对不起，爸爸错了，爸爸错了，我保证以后不再犯，好女儿，原谅爸爸。”她很久很久以后才不哭。这件事情过去之后，我心里一直很痛苦，但是我又感到无限骄傲，因为我向我的女儿承认自己错误。
中国人不习惯认错，反而有一万个理由，掩盖自己的错误。有一句俗话：“闭门思过。”思谁的过？思对方的过！我教书的时候，学生写周记，检讨一周的行为，检讨的结果是：“今天我被某某骗了，骗我的那个人，我对他这么好，那么好，只因为我太忠厚。”看了对方的检讨，也是说他太忠厚。每个人检讨都觉得自己太忠厚，那么谁不忠厚呢？不能够认错是因为中国人丧失了认错的能力。我们虽然不认错，错还是存在，并不是不认错就没有错。为了掩饰一个错，中国人就不能不用很大的力气，再制造更多的错，来证明第一个错并不是
错。所以说，中国人喜欢讲大话，喜欢讲空话，喜欢讲假话，喜欢讲谎话，更喜欢讲毒话──恶毒的话。不断夸张我们中华民族大汉天声，不断夸张中国传统文化可以弘扬世界。因为不能兑现的缘故，全都是大话、空话。我不再举假话、谎话的例子，但中国人的毒话，却十分突出，连闺房之内，都跟外国人不同，外国夫妻昵称“蜜糖”、“打铃”，中国人却冒出“杀千刀的”。一旦涉及政治立场或争权夺利的场合，毒话就更无限上纲，使人觉得中国人为什么这么恶毒、下流？
我有位写武侠小说的朋友，后来改行做生意，有次碰到他，问他做生意可发了财，他说：“发什么财？现在就要上吊！”我问他为什么赔了，他说：“你不晓得，和商人在一起，同他讲了半天，你还是不知道他主要的意思是什么。”很多外国朋友对我说：“和中国人交往很难，说了半天不晓得他心里什么想法。”我说：“这有什么稀奇，不要说你们洋人，就中国人和中国人来往，都不知道对方心里想的什么。”要察言观色，转弯抹角，问他说：“吃过饭没有？”他说：“吃了！”其实没有吃，肚子还在叫。譬如说选举，洋人的作风是：“我觉得我合适，请大家选我。”中国人却是诸葛亮式的，即令有人请他，他也一再推辞：“唉！我不行啊！我哪里够资格？”其实你不请他的话，他恨你一辈子。好比这次请我讲演，我说：“不行吧！我不善于讲话呀！”可是真不请我的话，说不定以后台北见面，我会飞一块砖头报你不请我之仇。一个民族如果都是这样，会使我们的错误永远不能改正。往往用十个错误来掩饰一个错误，再用一百个错误来掩饰十个错误。
有一次我去台中看一位英国教授，有一位也在那个大学教书的老朋友，跑来看我，他说：“晚上到我那儿去吃饭。”我说：“对不起，我还有约。”他说：“不行，一定要来！”我说：“好吧！到时候再说。”他说：“一定来，再见！”我们中国人心里有数，可是洋人不明白，办完事之后，到了吃晚饭的时候，我说：“我要回去了！”英国教授说：“哎！你刚才不是和某教授约好了的吗？要到他家去啊！”我说：“哪有这回事？”他说：“他一定把饭煮好了等你。”外国人就不懂中国人这种心口不一的这一套。
这种种情形，使中国人生下来就有很沉重的负担，每天都要去揣摩别人的意思，如果是平辈朋友，还没有关系。如果他有权势，如果他是大官，如果他有钱，而你又必须跟他接近，你就要时时刻刻琢磨他到底在想什么，这些都是精神浪费。所以说，有句俗话：“在中国做事容易，做人难。”“做人”就是软件文化，各位在国外住久了，回国之后就会体会到这句话的压力。做事容易，二加二就是四，可是做人就难了，二加二可能是五，可能是一，可能是八百五十三，你以为你讲了实话，别人以为你是攻击──你难道要颠覆政府呀？这是一个严重的课题，使我们永远在一些大话、空话、假话、谎话、毒话中打转。我有一个最大的本领，开任何会议时，我都可以坐在那里睡觉，睡醒一觉之后，会也就结束。为什么呢？开会时大家讲的都是连他自己都不相信的话，听不听都一样。今年（一九八四年）参加国际作家写作计划的一位大陆著名女作家谌容，写了一篇小说《真真假假》，推荐给各位，务请拜读。环境使我们说谎，使我们不能诚实。我们至少应该觉得，坏事是一件坏事，一旦坏事被我们认为是一件荣耀的事，认为是无所谓的事的话，这个民族的软件文化就开始下降。好比说偷东西被认为是无所谓的事，不是不光荣的事，甚至是光荣的事，这就造成一个危机，而我们中国人正面对这个危机。
因为中国人不断地掩饰自己的错误，不断地讲大话、空话、假话、谎话、毒话，中国人的心灵遂完全封闭，不能开阔。中国的面积这么大，文化这么久远，泱泱大国，中国人应该有一个什么样的心胸？应该是泱泱大国的心胸。可是我们泱泱大国民的心胸只能在书上看到，只能在电视上看到。你们看过哪一个中国人有泱泱大国民的胸襟？只要瞪他一眼，马上动刀子。你和他意见不同试一试？洋人可以打一架之后回来握握手，中国人打一架可是一百年的仇恨，三代都报不完的仇恨！为什么我们缺少海洋般的包容性？
没有包容性的性格，如此这般狭窄的心胸，造成中国人两个极端，不够平衡。一方面是绝对的自卑，一方面是绝对的自傲。自卑的时候，成了奴才；自傲的时候，成了主人！独独的，没有自尊。自卑的时候觉得自己是团狗屎，和权势走得越近，脸上的笑容越多。自傲的时候觉得其他人都是狗屎，不屑一顾；变成了一种人格分裂的奇异动物。
在中国要创造一个奇迹很容易，一下子就会现出使人惊异的成绩。但是要保持这个奇迹，中国人却缺少这种能力。一个人稍稍有一点可怜的成就，于是耳朵就不灵光了，眼睛也花了，路也不会走了，因为他开始发烧。写了两篇文章就成了一个作家，拍了两部电影就成了电影明星，当了两年有点小权的官就成了人民救星，到美国来念了两年书就成了专家学人，这些都是自我膨胀。台湾曾经出过一个车祸，国立台湾师范大学的毕业生出去旅行，车掌小姐说：“我们这位司机先生，是天下一流的司机，英俊、年轻。”那位司机先生立刻放开方
向盘，向大家拱手致意。这就是自我膨胀，他认为他技术高明，使他虽不扶方向盘，照样可以开车。若干年前，看过一部电影。有一次，罗马皇帝请了一个人来表演飞翔，这个人自己做了一对翅膀，当他上塔之前，展示给大家看，全场掌声雷动。他一下子膨胀到不能克制，觉得伟大起来，认为不要这对翅膀照样可以飞，接着就顺着梯子往上爬，他太太拉他说：“没有这个东西是不能飞的，你怎么可以这个样子？”他说：“你懂什么？”他太太追他，他就用脚踩他太太的手。他到了塔上后，把盖子一盖，伟大加三级，再往下一跳，扑通一声就没有了。观众大发脾气，我们出钱是看飞的，不是看摔死人的，教他太太飞。他太太凄凉地对她丈夫在天之灵说：“你膨胀的结果是，害了你自己，也害了你的妻子。”
中国人是天下最容易膨胀的民族，为什么容易膨胀？因为中国人“器小易盈”，见识太少，心胸太窄，稍微有一点气候，就认为天地虽大，已装他不下。假如只有几个人如此，还没有关系，假使全民族，或是大多数，或者是较多数的中国人都如此的话，就形成了民族的危机。中国人似乎永远没有自尊，以至于中国人很难有平等观念。你如果不是我的主人，我便是你的主人。这种情形影响到个人心态的封闭，死不认错。可是又不断有错，以致使我们中国人产生一种神经质的恐惧。举一个例子来说明：台北有个朋友，有一次害了急病，被抬到中心诊所，插了一身管子，把他给救活了。两三天之后，他的家人觉得中心诊所费用较贵，预备转到荣民总医院，就跟医生去讲，医生一听之下，大发雷霆，说：“我好不容易把他的命救回来，现在要转院呀。”于是不由分说，把管子全部拔下，病人几乎死掉。朋友向我谈起这件事时，既悲又愤，我向他说：“你把那医生的名字告诉我，我写文章揭发他。”他大吃一惊说：“你这个人太冲动、好事，早知道不跟你讲。”我听了气得发疯，我说：“你怕什么？他只不过是个医生而已，你再生病时，不找他便是了，难道他能到你家非看病报复不可？再说，他如果要对付的话，也只能对付我，不会对付你。是我写的，我都不怕，你怕什么？”他说：“你是亡命之徒。”我觉得我应该受到赞扬的，反而受到他的奚落。我想这不是他一个人的问题，他是我很好的朋友，人也很好，他讲这些话是因为他爱护我，不愿意我去闯祸。然而这正是神经质的恐惧，这个也怕，那个也怕。
记得我第一次到美国来，纽约发生了一次抢案，是一个中国人被抢，捉到强盗后，他不敢去指认。每个人都恐惧得不得了，不晓得什么是自己的权利，也不晓得保护自己的权利，每遇到一件事情发生，总是一句话：“算了，算了。”“算了算了”四个字，不知害死了多少中国人，使我们民族的元气，受到挫伤。我假如是一个外国人，或者，我假如是一个暴君，对这样一个民族，如果不去虐待她的话，真是天理不容。这种神经质的恐惧，是培养暴君、暴官最好的温床，所以中国的暴君、暴官，永远不会绝迹。中国传统文化里———各位在《资治通鉴》中可以看到———一再强调明哲保身，暴君暴官最喜欢、最欣赏的就是人民明哲保身，所以中国人就越来越堕落萎缩。
中国文化在春秋战国时代，是最灿烂的时代，但是从那个时代之后，中国文化就被儒家所控制。到了东汉，政府有个规定，每一个知识分子的发言、辩论、写文章，都不能超出他老师告诉他的范围，这叫做“师承”。如果超出师承，不但学说不能成立，而且还违犯法条。这样下来之后，把中国知识分子的想像力和思考力，全都扼杀、僵化，就像用塑料口袋往大脑上一套，滴水不进。一位朋友说：“怎么没有思考力？我看报还会发牢骚。”思考是多方面的事，一件事不仅有一面，不仅有两面，甚至有很多面。孙观汉先生常用一个例子，有一个球，一半白，一半黑，看到白的那半边的人，说它是个白球，另一边的人，则说它是个黑球，他们都没有错，错在没有跑到另一边去看，而跑到另一边看，需要想像力和思考力。当我们思考问题时，应该是多方面的。
有一则美国的小幽默，一位气象学系老师举行考试，给学生一个气压计，叫他用“气压计”量出楼房的高度──意思当然是指用“气压”测量高度，但那位学生却用很多不同方法，偏偏不用“气压”，老师很生气，就给他不及格。学生控诉到校方委员会，委员会就问他为什么要那么回答，他说：“老师要我用那个气压计来量楼有多高，他并没有说一定要用气压，我当然可以用我认为最简单的方法！”委员会的人问他：“除了那些方法之外，还有没有其他的方法？”学生说：“还有很多，我可以用绳子把气压计从楼上吊下来，再量绳子，就知道楼有多高了。”“还有没有别的方法？”学生说：“还有，我可以找到这栋楼房的管理员，把这个气压计送给他，让他告诉我这个楼有多高。”这个学生并不是邪门，他所显示的意义，就是一种想像力和思考力，常使糨糊脑筋吓死。
还有一种“买西瓜学”。老板对伙计说：“你一出门，往西走，第一道桥那里，就有卖西瓜的，你给我买两斤西瓜。”伙计一出门，往西走，没有看见桥，也没有卖西瓜的，于是就空手回来。老板骂他混蛋，没有头脑。他说：“东边有卖的。”老板问他：“你为什么不到东边去？”他说：“你没叫我去。”老板又骂他混蛋。其实老板觉得这个伙计老实，服从性强，没有思考能力，才是真正的安全可靠。假如伙计出去一看，西边没有，东边有，就去买了，瓜又便宜、又甜。回去之后老板会夸奖他说：“你太聪明了，了不起，做人正应该如
此，我很需要你。”其实老板觉得这个家伙靠不住，会胡思乱想。各位，有思考能力的奴隶最危险，主子对这种奴隶不是杀就是赶。这种文化之下孕育出来的人，怎能独立思考？因为我们没有独立思考训练，也恐惧独立思考，所以中国人也缺乏鉴赏能力，什么都是和稀泥，没有是非，没有标准。中国到今天这个地步，应该在文化里找出原因。
这个文化，自从孔丘先生之后，四千年间，没有出过一个思想家！所以认识字的人，都在那里批注孔丘的学说，或批注孔丘门徒的学说，自己没有独立的意见，因为我们的文化不允许这样做，所以只好在这潭死水中求生存。这个潭，这个死水，就是中国文化的酱缸，酱缸发臭，使中国人变得丑陋。就是由于这个酱缸深不可测，以致许多问题，无法用自己的思考来解决，只好用其他人的思考来领导。这样的死水，这样的酱缸，即使是水蜜桃丢进去也会变成干屎橛。外来的东西一到中国就变质了，别人有民主，我们也有民主，我们的民主是：“你是民，我是主。”别人有法制，我们也有法制，别人有自由，我们也有自由，你有什么，我就有什么。你有斑马线，我也有斑马线──当然，我们的斑马线是用来引诱你给车子压死的。
要想改变我们中国人的丑陋形象，只有从现在开始，每个人都想办法把自己培养成鉴赏家。我们虽然不会演戏，却要会看戏，不会看戏的看热闹，会看戏的看门道。鉴赏家本身就是一个了不起的成就。我记得刚到台湾的时候，有一个朋友收集了很多贝多芬的唱片，有七八套，我请求他送一套或卖一套给我，他当场拒绝，因为每一套都由不同的指挥和乐队演奏，并不一样。我听了很惭愧，他就是一个鉴赏家。
民主是要自己争取的，不能靠别人赏赐。自由、权利是我们的，你付给我，我有，你不付给我，我也有。我们如果有鉴赏能力，就一定要争取选举，严格选择对象；我们没有鉴赏的能力，连美女和麻子脸都分不出，能够怪谁？好比说画画，假使我柏杨画了毕加索的假画，有人看到说：“这真好！”花五十万美金买下来了，请问你买了假画能怪谁？是你瞎了眼！是你没有鉴赏能力。可是在这种情况之下，真的毕加索的画就不会有人买下，假画出笼，真画家只好饿死。买了假画不能怪别人，只能怪自己。就好像有一个人请来了一个裁缝师傅修他的门，结果把门装颠倒了，主人说：“你瞎了眼？”裁缝师傅说：“谁瞎了眼？瞎了眼才找错人！”这个故事我们要再三沉思，没有鉴赏能力，就好像是瞎了眼的主人。
"The Ugly Chinaman"
Speech given at Iowa University, 24 September 1984
Bo Yang For many years I've contemplated writing a book called /The Ugly Chinaman. /When the novel /The Ugly American /was published in the United States, the US State Department chose it as a guide to policy making. But when the Japanese ambassador to Argentina published a book called /The Ugly Japanese, /he was immediately recalled from his post. This is a good example of the gap that separates the East and the West. In China, for sure, things would be much worse. If I wrote a book called /The Ugly Chinaman, /you would soon be delivering me my meals in jail. In Taiwan, prisoners pay for their own food, which is the main reason why I haven't written such a book yet. For many years, however, I have been looking for an opportunity to speak about this subject in public, and to provide Chinese people in all walks of life with some food for thought--if not condemnation. Talking about this subject in public is no easy matter either. A group of people in Taipei once invited me to speak on this subject but when they heard the title of my speech, the invitation was swiftly withdrawn. Thus I am proud to say that this is the very first time I have lectured in public on the subject of 'The Ugly Chinaman'. I would like to thank all of you present for giving me this precious opportunity.
Once I was invited by Tunghai University (in Taichung, Taiwan) to give a lecture. I told the chairman of the Student Association there that the topic would be 'The Ugly Chinaman' and asked him if he foresaw any problems. Though he assured me there would be none, I insisted: 'You'd better ask the Dean's Office. I myself am already something of a problem, and if I start talking about a touchy subject, that makes two counts against me.'
After consulting with the Dean's Office he telephoned me. 'Nothing serious, though they wondered if you wouldn't mind changing the title of your speech. The Dean's Office thinks it's a bit too direct.' He then gave me a long and very high-sounding title and asked me what I thought of it.
'I don't like it one bit, but if you have to change it, go ahead and do it.' That was the first time I had spoken in public about 'The Ugly Chinaman'. When I asked the chairman of the Student Association to record the lecture so I could transcribe it later and turn it into an article, he readily agreed. But when I received the tape, I discovered that the entire tape was blank except for the first few sentences.
I am 65 years old now. Some friends of mine in Taipei held a birthday party for me on 7 March. I told them, 'I've been around for 65 years now, and every one of those years has been an ordeal for me'. This ordeal was not my own personal trials and tribulations, but rather those of Chinese everywhere. Most of you young people here, especially those of you from Taiwan, have grown up in a relatively prosperous society. The concept of 'ordeal' may grate on your ears, or be difficult for you to believe, and perhaps even more difficult for you to understand. The ordeals I refer to are not personal hardships or political crises, but rather problems that transcend the sphere of the individual and the realm of politics. They are issues that involve all the Chinese people. I'm not talking about a particular individual's suffering, or even about the anguish of my own generation. The point I want to make is: if we don't come to grips with this suffering and all the destructive elements in Chinese culture, they will continue to wreak havoc upon us and our descendants forever.
/How shameful it is to be Chinese/
Ninety per cent of the refugees in the Khao-i-dang Refugee Camp in Thailand are Chinese (by blood or cultural background, not nationality) who have been expelled from Vietnam, Kampuchea or Laos. A few years ago, a female student from the Overseas Chinese Institute of the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan joined an aid team which went to Thailand to work with the refugees there. But she became so upset there that she returned home after a few days. When I spoke to her about her experiences, she was in tears: 'It was so miserable there. I couldn't stand it any longer.'
The situation of the Chinese refugees in Thailand is indeed pathetic. For example, Chinese people in the camp are not permitted to own any property or enter into any form of business. If, for instance, your shirt has a hole in it, and you 'pay' the old lady next door half a bowl of rice to sew it for you, this is considered 'business'. And if the authorities find out about it, they will possibly force the old lady to remove all of her clothing in front of them, and then take her to the local magistrate's office, where they will ply her with questions like, 'Why did you break the law?' Under these circumstances, she can be considered fortunate. While making me angry and upset, the thought of such insulting behaviour also makes me wonder: what evil acts have Chinese committed that they should end up being punished in this way?
Two years ago, my wife and I were in Paris. Coming out of a Metro station, I noticed a middle-aged Asian woman selling jewellery from a little stand in the street. My wife and I were chatting in Chinese as we looked over her wares, and when she joined the conversation, it made us feel right at home. I asked her how she was able to speak Chinese. She turned out to be a Chinese who had escaped from Vietnam and had lived for a while in the Khao-i-dang camp. She began sobbing, and I tried to comfort her: 'Things are better for you now. At least you're not starving.' As we turned to leave, she sighed, 'How shameful it is to be Chinese!' That's one sigh I will never forget for the rest of my life.
In the nineteenth century, many parts of the East Indies, which we now call Southeast Asia, were either Dutch or British coloniefi. A British commissioner who lived in Malaysia at that time wrote the following: 'The lives of the Chinese in the nineteenth century were filled with calamity and disaster'. He had seen the Chinese in the East Indies living like pigs. They were uneducated and illiterate, cut off from the rest of society, and constantly in danger of being slaughtered.
Actually, the Chinese in China are worse off today than they were in the nineteenth century. The most depressing thing is how, over the past hundred years, almost every hope that the Chinese people have embraced has gone up in smoke. And whenever a fresh hope appears on the horizon, promising some improvement in people's lives, it invariably ends up causing them great disappointment and making the situation worse. And when another hope appears, promising similar progress, it too ends up bringing in its wake only further disillusion- ment, greater disappointment and more horrendous disasters.
A country is a relatively permanent institution, while an individual's life is limited. How much hope can an individual have in his lifetime? How many dreams can be shattered in a lifetime? Does the future hold promise? Or will it bring disappointment? There can be no conclusive answers to these questions. Once when I was lecturing in New York and relating a particularly painful incident, someone in the audience said, 'You come from Taiwan. You ought to be inspiring us, giving us hope, and fostering our patriotism. I never imagined you would end up making us feel depressed and discouraged.'
I don't deny that people need constant encouragement and inspiration. The problem is, once you inspire Chinese people, where do they go from there? I've been given all sorts of encouragement and inspiration ever since I was a child. When I was five or six years old, grown ups would tell me, 'The future of China is in your generation's hands'. At the time, that seemed like a very heavy burden to bear all by myself. But only a few years later, I was telling my son, 'The future of China is in your generation's hands'. Now my son is telling his son, 'The future of China . . .' How many more generations will this go on for?
On the Chinese mainland, the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1958 was followed by the decade of the Cultural Revolution, a disaster unprecedented in the history of human civilisation. The Cultural Revolution not only left millions dead, it also crushed humanitarian values and defiled the sanctity of the human spirit, without which there remains very little to separate men and beasts. During China's 'ten-year holocaust' people behaved like animals. Can an entire nation of moral degenerates be saved?
Over 30 per cent of the population of Malaysia is Chinese. But in a museum I visited when I was there, the labels describing the exhibits were in Malay and English only. I'm not suggesting that they must have Chinese labels, or that it's a bad thing that they don't. I mention this merely to point out the narrow-mindedness of the Malaysians, and to show how the Chinese in Malaysia have very little influence or prestige, and are not respected by the majority. A Thai Chinese I know claimed that the Chinese control the vital rice market in Thailand. This is mere self-deception. (The Thai Chinese are active in the rice business, but can they claim to 'control' that vital market?) I advised him to stop flattering himself in this regard. One command from the top and everything they have could be taken away from them.
Everyone is talking about the Hong Kong question these days. It's a shameful thing for one country to snatch away another country's territory. And when that territory is returned to its rightful owner-like a child returning to its mother's embrace-it should be a cause for celebration on both sides. Do you recall France's ceding of Alsace Lorraine to Germany? Losing these two states came as a terrible blow to France, but the eventual reunification was a cause for great rejoicing. In the case of Hong Kong, however, no sooner was the news announced that the British were going to return the territory to the Chinese Motherland than people panicked en masse. Why?
In Taiwan, a number of young people--both native Taiwanese and mainlanders--support the idea of an independent Taiwan. I remember how happy everyone was when Japan handed Taiwan back to China in 1945; indeed we felt like lost children finding our way back to our mother's warm embrace. What has happened over the past five decades to make this child want to leave home again, and try to make it on its own?
Take Cyprus, for example, which is split up between the Turks and the Greeks, who differ in terms of language, ethnicity and religion. If the Turks can get along with 'aliens' on that island, why can't we Chinese get along with our own kind? Chinese people share the same blood, similar looks, identical ancestry and culture, the same language; the major differences are merely geographical.
The circumstances described above not only make it extremely difficult to be Chinese, but also cause us untold shame and injury. Even the Chinese community in the United States is plagued by the absurd situation in which leftists, rightists, moderates, independents, left-leaning moderates, moderate-leaning leftists, right-leaning moderates, and moderate-leaning rightists all seem to lack a common language for discourse, and are constantly lurching at each other's throats with the passion of a vendetta.
What does this say about the Chinese people? And what does this imply about China? No other civilisation on earth has such a long history or well-preserved cultural tradition, a tradition that at certain times has given rise to the most advanced civilisation in the world. Neither the Greeks nor the Egyptians of today bear any relationship to their ancient forebears, while Chinese today are the direct descendants of the ancient Chinese. How have such a great people and nation degenerated into such ugliness? Not only have foreigners bullied us; what is worse, for centuries we've been tormented by our own kind--from tyrannical emperors to despotic officials and ruthless mobs.
On my visits to the United States and Europe, I've especially enjoyed watching children playing in the parks. They seem so happy, uninhibited and well adjusted that it makes me jealous. In Taiwan, on the other hand, every child who goes to school has to wear glasses to correct their myopia, and in order to cope with the pressure of schoolwork, many children grow aloof and arrogant. A woman faints and collapses at home, but when her son tries to help her, she shouts at him, 'Let me die! Don't bother with me! Do your homework! Do your home- work!'
When my wife was teaching in Taiwan, whenever she started lecturing to her students about morality or personal values, they would immediately raise a protest: 'We don't want to learn about how to live, we want to learn how to get high marks on our examinations.' But this is nothing compared with children on the Chinese mainland, who grow up learning how to fight with each other, subject each other to psychological torture in 'struggle' sessions, cheat and swindle, and betray their parents and friends. Is this the purpose of an education? I tremble to think what will happen when this generation grows up.
/Chinese people are the same everywhere/
I have lived in Taiwan for the past three decades. I spent the first decade writing fiction, the second writing essays and the last in jail--quite a nice balance. I no longer write fiction because fiction only deals indirectly with real problems through the medium of form and characters, while essays are daggers that can pierce the hearts of scoundrels and villains.
Writing essays is like sitting in a car next to the driver, telling him when he makes a wrong turn, warning him to stay in the slow lane and not pass, to watch out for the bridge ahead, to reduce speed, to beware the approaching intersection, and to heed red lights. After exhorting and teaching drivers for many years, someone must have decided that I had taught enough, because I ended up in jail. People in power think that as long as no one is around to point out their errors, then they can't possibly do anything wrong.
During my incarceration I spent many long hours contemplating my fate. What crimes had I committed? What laws had I broken? I continued to ponder these questions after my release from prison and began to wonder whether I was a special case. On this trip to Iowa, when I have had the great fortune to meet writers from mainland China, I discovered that God has predestined people like myself to end up in jail, whether the jail be in Taiwan or in mainland China. One of these mainland writers told me, 'Someone like you would never have survived the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution. In fact, they would have snuffed you out during the Anti-Rightist Movement.'
Why must Chinese people who have the guts to speak the truth suffer so terribly? I have asked a number of people from the mainland why they ended up in prison. Their answer was, 'Because I said a few things that happened to be true'. And that's the way it is. But why does telling the truth land one in such unfortunate circumstances? The way I see it, this is not a personal problem, but a fundamental flaw in Chinese culture.
A few days ago I had a discussion with the party secretary of the 'All-China Writers Association'. He made me so angry that I literally was unable to speak. I used to think I could hold my own in an argument; but this guy knocked the breath out of me before I knew what had hit me. I can't blame him for this, though, the same way I don't blame the cops who handled my case in Taipei. If you lived in their world and were conversant with their ways, you would probably act just like they do, and believe that what you were doing was right. I would do the same thing, though I would probably be even more obnoxious than that party secretary. People often say, 'Your future is in your own hands'. Approaching the end of my life, I don't believe that any more. Only about half of your life is in your own hands. Other people control the rest.
Life is a little bit like a stone in a cement mixer; when it gets tossed around with the other ingredients, it loses control of its own existence. I could cite similar analogies /ad infinitum, /but the conclusion I always come to is that the problems of the Chinese people are not individual but rather social and cultural problems. Before he died, Jesus said, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do'. When I first heard that statement as a child, I thought it rather bland and frivolous, and as I grew older I continued to feel that it lacked substance. Only now do I appreciate its profundity and bitter irony. Jesus' words taught me that the Chinese people's ugliness grows out of our own ignorance of the fact that we are ugly.
Because Taiwan and the United States have broken off diplomatic relations, the expenses for our trip to the United States were borne by Iowa University and Pei Zhuzhang, the owner of the Yenching Restaurant in Iowa City. Pei is a Chinese-American who had never set foot in China, nor met me before. His generosity moved me deeply. He said, 'Before reading your books, I felt that the Chinese people were a great people. After reading them my thinking changed entirely. Your books inspired me and made me want to hear you speak in person.'
When Mr Pei started thinking about Chinese culture and its problems, he wondered if there were some basic defects in the moral fibre of the Chinese people. Before I travelled abroad for the first time, Professor Sun Kuan-han said to me, 'When you come back to Taiwan, there is one thing I absolutely forbid you to say to me, and that is: "Chinese people are the same everywhere" ', so I promised him that I would not say it. But when I got back to Taiwan and he asked me about my trip, the first thing I said was, 'You warned me not to say it, but: Chinese people are the same everywhere!'
Sun hoped that with time the Chinese people would change and mature, and he found it hard to imagine that this would never happen. Are there innate flaws in the Chinese people? When God created the Chinese, did he make us so ugly on purpose?
I believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with the Chinese national character. I am not saying this out of self-pity. Nor are Chinese people lacking in intelligence. Every university in the United States has Chinese students at the top of their class, and we have produced numerous noted scientists: Sun Kuan-han, the father of Chinese nuclear physics, and Nobel Prize winners C. N. Yang and C. T. Lee. The Chinese character is not fundamentally flawed, and I am sure that we have the ability to make China a healthy and happy place to live. I also believe that China will some day become a great nation. But we must not spend all of our time and energy trying to make China a major military power. It is infinitely more important to bring some happiness into people's lives. Once we achieve this, we can concern ourselves with power and greatness. We must also ask why, over the last century, have we so often failed to free ourselves from suffering?
/The virus of traditional Chinese culture/
I am going to risk proposing a comprehensive diagnosis for the problems mentioned above: Chinese culture is infected with a virus which has been transmitted from generation to generation and which today still resists cure. People say that if you are a failure, you can blame your ancestors, but there is a significant flaw in this argument. In Ibsen's play /Ghosts, /a syphilitic couple give birth to a syphilitic son, who has to take medicine every time his illness flares up. At one point in the drama, the son exclaims, 'I never asked you for life. And what sort of a life have you given me?"
Can we blame the son, and not blame his parents? We Chinese should neither blame our parents nor our ancestors, but rather the culture that our ancestors have bequeathed us. This huge country, with one quarter of the world's population, is a pit of quicksand filled with poverty, ignorance, strife and bloodshed, a pit from which it cannot extricate itself. When I observe the way people in other countries carry on interpersonal relations, I envy them. The traditional culture of China has conferred upon the Chinese a wide range of unseemly characteristics.
Three of the most notorious characteristics are filth, sloppiness and noisiness. In Taipei they once tried to mount a campaign against filth and disorder, but it only lasted a few days. Our kitchens and our homes are always in a mess. In many residential areas, as soon as the Chinese move in, everyone else moves out. A young woman I know, a college graduate, married a Frenchman and moved to Paris. Soon their home became a regular stopping-off place for her friends who were travelling in Europe. She told me that as more and more Asians (not all of them Chinese) started to move into the building, the French started to move out. This is a terribly disturbing thought. But when I went to Paris and saw the place for myself, there were ice-cream wrappers and saqals strewn about everywhere, children running and yelling in the halls, and graffiti covering the walls. The whole place smelled like a mouldy cellar as well. I asked her, 'Can't you organise all the residents and clean the place upT She replied, 'It's impossible. The French are not the only people who think we are filthy slobs; after living here like this, we feel the same way.'
Turning to the subject of noise, Chinese people's voices must be the loudest on earth, with the Cantonese taking the gold medal. I heard a joke about this: Two Cantonese men in the United States are having a conversation in the street. An American walks by and thinks they are having a fight, so he calls the police. When the police arrive and ask them what they are fighting about, they say, 'We're just whispering'.
Why do Chinese people shout when they talk? Because we are insecure by nature. The louder we shout, the more right we are. If we shout at the top of our lungs, we must be right, otherwise why expend so much energy? The above-mentioned behaviour patterns are damaging to both our self-image and our mental equilibrium. Filth, sloppiness and noisiness can also damage our nerves. If Chinese lived in a clean, orderly environment, they might behave entirely differently.
/The scourge of infighting/
Chinese people are notorious for quarrelling and squabbling among themselves. A Japanese person all by himself is no better than a pig, but three Japanese together are as awesome as a dragon. The Japanese people's ability to co-operate makes them nearly invincible, and in neither commerce nor war can the Chinese ever dream of competing with them. If three Japanese people in the same business are in Taipei together, they will take turns making sales. Chinese businessmen in the same situation would act like perfect Ugly Chinamen. If Li is selling something for $50, Ma will offer it for $40; if Li lowers the price to $30, Ma will cut it to $20. Every Chinaman is a dragon in his own right.
Chinese people can be extremely convincing when they talk, thanks to their remarkably nimble tongues. If you believe what they say, there is nothing they cannot do, including extinguishing the sun with a single breath of air, and ruling the world with a single flick of the hand. In the laboratory or examination hall, where no personal relationships are involved, Chinese can produce impressive results. But when three fiery Chinese dragons get together, they can only produce about as much as a single pig, or a single insect, if that much. This is because of their addiction to infighting.
Chinese people squabble among themselves in every situation, since their bodies lack those cells that enable most human beings to get along with each other. When non-Chinese people criticise the Chinese for this weakness, I like to warn them, 'Chinese people are like this because God knows that with more than one billion of them, if they ever got their act together, the rest of the world wouldn't be able to handle them. God has been good to you foreigners by making it impossible for the Chinese to cooperate among themselves.' But it is very painful for me to say this.
Chinese people can easily come up with enough reasons for why they don't cooperate with each other to fill a book. The best example of this uncohesiveness can be found right here in the United States, where every Chinese community is divided up into as many factions as there are days in the year, each determined to choke the fife out of the rest. There's an old Chinese saying: one monk drinks from the water bucket on his back; two monks drink from the water bucket they carry on a pole; three monks have no water to drink. Why do we need so many people to accomplish something so simple?
Chinese people simply don't understand the importance of coopera- tion. But if you tell a Chinaman he doesn't understand, he will sit down and write a book just for you entitled /The Importance of Co-operation./
On my last visit to the United States, I stayed with a friend who teaches at an American university. He was a very reasonable and intelligent person, and we held discussions on many subjects, including how to save China. The following day I told this-man that I wanted to visit a Mr G., a mutual acquaintance of ours. At the mere mention of Mr G.'s name, my friend's eyes lit up in anger. And when I asked him to drive me to Mr G.'s house, he said, 'Sorry, Bo Yang, you'll have to get there on your own'. Both Mr G. and my host are university professors and grew up in the same place in China, but they cannot tolerate each other. Are they rational human beings? I'll say it again: infighting is a serious problem among the Chinese.
Those of you who live in the United States know that the people who harass Chinese people the most are other Chinese, not Yankees. It takes a Chinaman to betray a Chinaman; only a Chinaman would have a good reason to frame or slander another Chinaman.
Here is one example: Shortly after he developed a coal mine in Malaysia, a man I know was accused of several serious crimes. The plaintiff, it turned out, was an old friend of his. Both of them had left China at the same time and had started out in Malaysia with nothing in their pockets. When my friend asked his old acquaintance why he had done such a cruel thing, he said, 'We both started out together with nothing, but now you're a millionaire and I'm hardly getting by. If I don't sue /you, /who else can I sue?' This is one isolated incident, but it shows how Chinese people can be their own worst enemies.
To cite another example, in a country as big as the United States, where no individual amounts to much more than a drop in the ocean, how would anyone find out if you were an illegal immigrant? Only if someone went out of his way to turn you in to the immigration authorities. And who would do such a nasty thing for no good reason? Only one of your best friends, an Ugly Chinaman.
Many Chinese people in the United States have told me that if their boss is Chinese, they constantly have to be on their toes. Chinese bosses never promote their Chinese employees, and when people are being laid off, they are always the first to go. Such occasions give Chinese bosses golden opportunities to demonstrate their impartiality and sense of fairness.
Why do people constantly compare the Chinese with the Jews? Many say that the Chinese and the Jews are particularly industrious. We can approach this question from two angles. First, the industriousness which was once the great pride of the Chinese people was destroyed during the reign of the Gang of Four in the Cultural Revolution, as a result of which Chinese people no longer possess a virtue that sustained them for thousands of years.
How else can we compare ourselves with the Jews? Chinese newspapers often carry headlines describing how fierce arguments often break out in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, with, for example, three leading politicians holding three entirely contrary views. But the same newspapers never mention that once a consensus is reached, the three of them will take the same course of action. And while that battle of words was taking place inside the Knesset, a real war was being fought outside, with the enemy surrounding the country on all sides-and yet the Israelis still held their elections. Everyone knows that in order to hold an election, you need an opposition party, otherwise an election is no better than a second-rate soap opera.
If three Chinese people with three different opinions reach a consensus, the three of them will still act according to their own will. For instance, Wang proposes going to New York and Chang wants to go to San Francisco. There is a vote and New York is chosen as the common destination. In Israel, everyone would go to New York. But in China, Chang would say, 'You can go to New York. I'm going to San Francisco'.
In a British film there was a scene in which several children were having an argument about whether to climb a tree or go swimming. After quarrelling for a while, they decided to vote. The majority chose to climb a tree, so they all climbed a tree. Simple though it seems, this left a deep impression on me. Democracy in the West is more than mere form; it is a regular part of daily life, while in China democracy is there purely for show. During elections, high officials in China insist on being photographed holding a ballot in their hands to show the world that they deign to take part in the democratic process. Democracy is not an intrinsic part of those officials' lives; it is all show.
/A reluctance to admit error/
Chinese people's inability to co-operate, and their predilection for bickering among themselves, are deep-rooted, harmful traits. These behaviour patterns cannot be traced to any inherent flaws in the Chinese national character, but rather are symptoms of an infection spread by the virus of traditional Chinese culture, that causes us to act in ways we can neither conceal nor control. We know that we fight among ourselves, yet it is beyond our control to stop it. 'If the pot breaks, nobody will have anything to eat; but if the sky falls, someone taller than me will be there to stop it from falling on my head. I don't have to lift a finger.'
The tendency towards internecine struggle has spawned another insidious phenomenon: an utter reluctance to admit mistakes. How many of you have ever heard a Chinese admit that he or she has made an effor? If you have, then break out the Maotai: it is time to start celebrating the renaissance of China!
Once, many years ago, I spanked my daughter for something she had done wrong, but soon realised that I had made a mistake. Her crying made me feel terrible inside. She was a young and helpless thing, so my sudden turning against her must have given her a terrible shock. I picked her up and said, 'I'm sorry. Daddy made a big mistake. I promise you I'll never do it again. Be a good girl and accept Daddy's apology.' But she went on crying for a long time. Though this upset me greatly, I was also proud of the fact that I had admitted my error.
Chinese people are highly reluctant to admit their errors, and can produce a myriad of reasons to cover their mistakes. There's an old adage: 'Contemplate your faults behind closed doors'. Whose faults? The guy's next door, of course! When I was teaching school, I told my students to keep a diary and record their weekly activities. The entries read like this: 'Today Ming cheated me. I've always been good to him. It must be because I'm too kind to him and too honest.' But when I read Ming's diary, I saw that Ming thought that he was too kind and too honest as well. If everyone in the world is so kind and honest, can there be any dishonest people left?
Chinese people don't admit their mistakes because somewhere during their long evolution they lost the knack of it. Of course we can disavow our mistakes, but that won't make them disappear. To cover their mistakes, Chinese people go well out of their way and even commit additional mistakes, merely to cover their initial blunders. Thus it is often said that Chinese are addicted to bragging, boasting, lying, equivocating and, worst of all, slandering others. For years Chinese have been going on about the supreme greatness of China, and making extravagant claims about how Chinese culture can make the world a better place to live in. But because these daydreams never come true, all of this is pure rubbish.
I don't have to cite examples of boasting and lying, but Chinese verbal brutality deserves special mention. Even in the confines of the bedroom, where Western couples habitually address each other as 'honey' and 'darling', Chinese people prefer such endearments as 'You deserve death by a thousand cuts!' And in matters of politics or money, and in power struggles of any kind, Chinese people's spite knows no bounds. What makes Chinese people so mean and petty?
/Stuck in the mud of bragging and boasting/
A friend who used to write traditional adventure stories started a business. When I asked him whether he had made a lot of money, he told me, 'Are you kidding? I'm about ready to hang myself!' I asked him how he lost so much money. 'You can't imagine. It's a total waste of time talking with Chinese businessmen, you never know what they're really thinking.' Europeans and Americans have said to me, 'It's hard getting to know Chinese people. You never know what's on their minds.' I replied, 'You think you're the only one with that problem? When Chinese talk to each other, they have the same problem.'
One way of figuring out what is going on in a Chinese person's mind is to observe his or her body language and facial expression, and to cultivate the habit of beating around the bush yourself. You ask someone, 'Have you eaten dinnerT and the answer is 'Yes', but he is actually so hungry you can hear his stomach rumbling. In an election, a Western politician will say, 'I sincerely believe I am qualified for the post. Please vote for me.' But Chinese people prefer to take after Zhuge Liang: if offered a post, a modest Ugly Chinaman will decline the honour at least three times. 'Who, me? I'm hardly qualified for the post.' But if you take him literally and vote for someone else, he will never speak to you again.
To give another example, you invite me to give a lecture, and I say, 'Who, me? I'm a terrible public speaker.' But if you don't insistflyt I give that lecture, and we meet in the street in Taipei some day, I'll be sure to aim a brick at your head. If everyone acts in this manner, we will never mend our ways. The way things are now, it takes ten mistakes to cover up one mistake, and one hundred mistakes to cover up ten.
I was once visiting a British professor in Taichung, when a Chinese friend of mine teaching in the same university came in and invited me to dinner in his home that evening. I said, 'I'm sorry, I've already got an appointment for tonight.' He replied, 'That's all right, come anyway. I'll see you later.' Chinese speak to each other in this fashion all the time, but a Western person overhearing such an exchange will find it hard to know what is actually going on. When the British professor and I had finished our work, I said to him, 'I'm heading home.' He asked me, 'I thought you were going to your friend's home for dinner.' I said, 'Where did you get that idea?' 'But he's making dinner espe- cially for you!' This is just one example of how difficult it is for Western people to understand the noncommittal etiquette practised by most Chinese.
The behaviour patterns described above give Chinese people a heavy cross to bear from birth. Rarely does a day go by when it isn't necessary to decipher what's going on in someone's mind. With friends, the problems are minimal. But when dealing with government officials or rich and powerful people you constantly have to read minds. What a waste of energy! Consider the popular Chinese saying: 'Getting things done is easy; dealing with people is hard'. Dealing with people brings us into the sphere of 'cultural software'. All of you who have lived abroad will be able to appreciate this. When you go back to China and want to get something done, two plus two equals four. But when you have to deal with other people, two plus two may equal five, or one or 853. If you tell the truth about something, others may accuse you of attacking or attempting to overthrow the government. This is a serious problem, and one which keeps the Chinese stuck in the muck of bragging, lying, boasting and slander.
I like to boast that I can sleep through any meeting or conference. This is only possible because no one who attends conferences says what they really believe. This habit of 'slinging the bull' is even more prevalent on the mainland than in Taiwan. One of the participants in this year's International Writers' Program at the University of Iowa was the mainland woman writer Shen Rong. The title of one of her books, which I highly recommend, is /Truth or Lies./
The Chinese mentality makes us tell lies and act dishonestly. We should at least be able to recognise a bad thing when we see it. But when we glorify bad things or ignore them, it is a sign that our 'cultural software' has been invaded by a virus. Take theft, for example. No one can say that robbery is an ennobling act, but when people ignore it and cease to think of it as a dishonest act, we have reached a crisis. This is the crisis Chinese people are faced with today.
Modem Chinese have become increasingly narrowminded and closed off from the rest of the world because of their inability to admit their mistakes and their predilection for bragging, lying and slander.
What state of mind or philosophical outlook properly reflects China's vast territory and strikingly rich cultural heritage? Magnanimity, broad- mindedness and worldliness come to mind. But where do you meet people with such qualities except in books or on TV? Have you ever met a Chinese who is truly magnanimous and openminded? In many situations, a single hostile glance will spur a Chinese gentleman to whip out his sword and flash it in your face. Then watch when it turns out you have divergent points of view. Westerners can shake hands after a fight, but Chinese become enemies for life, and will even perpetuate a vendetta for three generations. Why do Chinese lack tolerance for others?
Narrow-mindedness and intolerance result in an unbalanced person- ality constantly wavering between two extremes: chronic inferiority on the one hand, and overbearing arrogance on the other. A Chinese with an inferiority complex is a slave; a Chinese with a superiority complex is a tyrant. As individuals, Chinese lack self-respect. In the inferiority mode, they feel like a heap of dog shit, so the closer they get to influential people, the wider their smiles. In the arrogant mode, everyone else is a heap of dog shit. These radical swings in self-esteem make Chinese people imbalanced creatures with psychotic tendencies.
/A nation of inflation/
In Chinese society it is easy to astound people by performing miracles, but impossible to sustain such activity for an extended period. As soon as someone can claim some trivial achievement, he will suddenly lose his hearing or eyesight, or have difficulty walking. Anyone who publishes two articles is an 'author'. Anyone who acts in two films is a 'star'. Anyone who is a petty bureaucrat for two years is 'the people's saviour'. A student who spends two years in a university in the United States is a 'returned overseas scholar'. Such titles are all auto-inflationary.
Several years ago a terrible traffic accident took place in Taiwan. A bus carrying a group of fourth-year students from Taiwan Normal
University was passing through the most dangerous section of the Cross-Island Highway, when the conductress announced: 'Our driver today is one of the best in Taiwan. Look how young, strong and handsome he is!' To prove this, he took his hands off the steering wheel and responded to the students' applause with the traditional clasped-hands salute. I don't have to tell you what happened next. This is boasting at its worst: he was such an accomplished driver that he didn't even have to steer.
I once saw a film which told the story of a man who had invented a pair of 'flying wings' and was ordered by the emperor to give a flying demonstration. The man showed his wings to the crowd, and was about to climb up the tower from which he was to take off, when the crowd's thunderous applause fired his self-confidence to the point where he threw down his wings and declared he would fly without them. At this point, his wife stepped in and tried to deter him from going ahead with his preposterous scheme: 'What do you think you're doing? You can't fly without your wings!' He turned to her angrily and said, 'What do you know?' When she began to climb up the tower to stop him, he stepped on her fingers. Reaching the top of the tower, he closed the hatch and took off. Seconds later there was a loud thud, and then silence. The crowd suddenly exploded in anger. 'We paid good money to see him fly, not to watch him plunge to his death!' and demanded that the dead man's wife fly for them. She had no choice but to comply. In her grief, before jumping, the woman addressed her husband's departed soul: 'You and your big ideas, you've killed yourself and your wife as well'.
What makes the Chinese people prone to self-inflation? Consider the saying, 'A small vessel is easily filled'. Due to inveterate narrow-mindedness and arrogance, even the slightest success makes an Ugly Chinaman feel that the world is too small to contain him. It is tolerable if a few people behave in this manner, but if the entire population, or a majority behave this way, and they all happen to be Chinese, it spells disaster for China. Because Chinese have never had much self-respect, it is immensely difficult for them to treat others as equals. There are two alternatives: either you are my master, or my slave. This makes people narrow-minded, and reluctant to admit mistakes. Being wrong all the time has made the Chinese paranoid.
Here is one example. A man I knew in Taipei became critically ill and was admitted to the prestigious Central Clinic, where a doctor saved his life only after sticking innumerable tubes into him. Two or three days later, the members of his family moved him to Veterans Hospital, mainly because the fees at the Central Clinic were so high. When the doctor in charge of the case learned about this, he exploded: 'I went to great lengths to save your life, and now you want to go to another hospital'. He then started to disconnect the life-supporting tubes from the patient, who nearly died as a result.
My friend told me this story with a mixture of sadness and anger. I told him, 'Give me that doctor's name, and I'll write an article about the terrible way he treated you'. But he nearly panicked and upbraided me: 'You've got ants in your pants, Bo Yang. If I had known you were such a busy-body, I wouldn't have told you the story in the first place.' I nearly blew up at this point. 'He's only a doctor, what are you afraid of? If you get sick again and don't go to him, do you think he's going to go to your house and treat you, just to get his revenge? If he really wants his revenge, he'll go after me, not you, since I'm the one who's going to blacken his name in print.' His response was, 'You must be desperate'. One would have thought he would have praised me for my courage, but he only called me names.
Again, this is not my friend's individual problem. I still consider him a good friend of mine and a moral, upright person. He was only trying to prevent me from getting into serious trouble. This is a perfect example of Chinese paranoia, a fear of trivial things.
/Breeding ground for the slave mentality/
On my first visit to the United States, I heard about a Chinese in New York who had been mugged and robbed, but refused to identify the culprit after the police caught him. Chinese are paranoid to the point where they don't even know what their legal rights are, or how to assert them. If anything happens to them, the knee-jerk response is 'Forget it'. This 'forgetting it' has caused the death of countless Chinese, and has turned us into a nation of spineless cowards. If I were a foreigner, or better yet a fascist dictator, and /didn't /make it my business to persecute and exploit the Chinese, I would certainly be doing them a great injustice. The psychological environment of neurosis and paranoia I spoke of above is a fertile breeding ground for despots and corrupt bureaucrats, and there is little hope that the particular species of human being that flourishes in this climate will soon die out in China. In traditional Chinese culture, 'acting wisely by playing it safe' is praised time and again, particularly in the great Song dynasty treatise, /A Comprehensive Mirror of Government. /Generations of dic- tators have rubbed their hands in glee at the thought of the Chinese masses acting wisely by playing it safe, since it makes life very easy for them. This is one reason why the Chinese people continue degenerate and atrophy.
Chinese civilisation attained the zenith of its glory during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221 BC), after which it began its decline under the influence of Confucian philosophy. By the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD), a law had come into effect stipulating that no educated person could talk about, debate or write anything that trespassed the limits set by his teacher. No one was allowed to challenge what was known as 'the legacy of the master'. Any thought or concept that strayed beyond the confines of this 'legacy' was considered heretical and against the law. As a result, Chinese intellectuals' imaginations were strangled and their ability to reason stunted; it was like sealing up their brains in plastic bags, preventing them from absorbing anything new.
What do I mean when I say that intellectuals lost the ability to reason? Just take a look at all the Chinese newspapers filled with articles by belly-aching columnists. Reasoning is a complex process that operates on several levels at the same time. Sun Kuan-han likes to cite the example of a sphere which is half white and half black. Those who can only see the white side think the entire sphere is white; those who see only the black side think the entire sphere is black. Neither conclusion can be said to be wrong. But looking at both sides of the ball requires imagination and cognitive ability.
An American joke illustrates this point well. A teacher gave his students a barometer and told them 'to use the barometer to measure the height of a building'. Of course the teacher expected the students to do this by calculating the difference between the barometric pressure at the lowest and highest points of the building. But one student came up with a few solutions that had nothing to do with barometric pressure. When he was failed for his work, he complained to the school's administrative committee, 'The teacher asked me to measure the building's height with a barometer, but he didn't specify that I had to do it by measuring barometric pressure. So naturally I used the simplest methods at my disposal. First, I attached the barometer to a string and let it hang down from the roof of the building. Then I measured the length of the string. Secondly, I gave the barometer to the building superintendent in exchange for telling me the height of the building.'
There is nothing devious about either of these methods, unorthodox though they may be. But they reflect the sort of imaginative thinking that drives people with pigeon-hole brains insane.
Here's another tale, called 'The Art of Buying Watermelons'. A shop owner' said to one of his clerks, 'Go out, turn west, and when you come to the first bridge, you will see someone selling watermelons. Buy me a four-pound melon.' The clerk went out and headed west, but he couldn't find the bridge or the person selling melons, and retume& to the shop empty-handed. The owner swore at him and told him he was a fool. The clerk replied, 'I noticed that they are selling melons in the east'. 'Why didn't you go there and buy them?' 'You didn't tell me to.' Though the owner of the store swore at him for being a fool, he actually regarded the clerk as an ideal employee because of his naivety, obedience and lack of imagination. But had the clerk, noticing that no melons were available in the west, headed east and discovered a heap of sweet melons for sale there, the owner probably would have praised him: 'You're brilliant! You displayed excellent judgement. If only everyone who works here were as smart as you. You're indispensable.' But in fact he would never trust a clerk with such wild imagination. Slaves who think for themselves are dangerous to have around, and should consider themselves lucky if they can stay alive. Can people raised in a culture that promotes such values think independently? Because Chinese people are incapable of independent thought, they have developed bad taste and poor judgement: they muddle the distinctions between right and wrong; and they have no permanent standards of behaviour. I repeat: we must examine Chinese culture if we want to explain what is wrong with China today.
/Developing our judgement/
Over the past 4000 years, China has produced only one great thinker: Confucius. In the 2500 years since his death, China's literati have done little more than tack on footnotes to the theories propounded by Confucius and his disciples. Rarely have they contributed anything original to the body of Confucian thought, simply because the traditional culture did not allow it. The minds of the literati were stuck at the bottom of an intellectual stagnant pond, the soy paste vat of Chinese culture. As the contents of this vat grew more and more putrid, the resulting stench was absorbed by the Chinese people. Since the many problems in this opaque, bottomless vat could not be solved by individuals exercising their own reason and intelligence, the literati had to ape other people's way of thinking, or be influenced by other schools of thought. A fresh peach placed in a vat full of putrescent soy paste will soon wither away and turn into a dry turd.
China has its own peculiar way of transforming foreign things and ideas and making them Chinese. You Westerners say you've got democracy; well, we Chinese have democracy too. But in China, /democracy /is understood as follows: you're the /demos /(people), but I've got the /kratos /(power). You Westerners have a legal system; we Chinese have one too. You've got freedom; so do we. Whatever you have, we have too. You've got pedestrian crossing lines painted on the street; we do too, but in China they are there to make it easier for cars to run pedestrians over.
The only way we can do anything about the Ugly Chinaman syndrome is for every individual to cultivate his own personal taste and judgement. One doesn't have to be an accomplished actor to enjoy going to plays. People who don't understand what is happening on stage can at least enjoy the music, the lights, the costumes and the scenery, while those who do understand can appreciate drama as an art form. The ability to make such distinctions is a great achievement in itself.
When I first arrived in Taiwan some thirty years ago, I met a man who owned eight sets of Beethoven's symphonies on records. I asked him if he would sell or give one of them to me, but he refused. Contrary to what I had assumed, each set of the symphonies was performed by a different conductor and orchestra, and they were not at all similar. When I realised that, I felt quite ashamed of myself. This friend was a true connoisseur of music.
During a recent US presidential election, the pre-election debates were broadcast on television in Taiwan. Many people found it remarkable that not once during the debates did either of the candidates reveal anything about their opponent's private lives; American voters disapprove of such tactics, and it would have cost the erring candidate many votes. Chinese politicians are just the opposite. They go out of their way to expose their rivals' personal secrets and perhaps invent a few as well, all couched in the filthiest language.
The quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the soil in which the tree grows. Similarly, people are the 'fruit' of the societies in which they live. The citizens of a country should cultivate the ability to judge their leaders; otherwise, they only have themselves to blame for the consequences. If we are willing to shout our praises for a man who is unworthy of our respect, who is to blame if he rides roughshod over us? Buying votes is a very disturbing phenomenon. Voters line up to cast their ballots, a man starts handing out money, and the voters ask him, 'Hey, where's my share?'
If this is Chinese political judgement, is China really ready for democracy? Democracy is a privilege to be earned, not a free gift. People say that the Taiwanese Government has relaxed its restrictions on human rights considerably, but I find this a terrifying situation. I have my own freedom and rights, whether the government grants them to me or not. If we had the capacity to make proper judgements, we would demand elections and be rigorous in our selection of candidates. But lacking this capacity, we will never even be able to distinguish a beautiful woman from a pock-marked hag. Who are we to blame for this? If I paint a fake Picasso and you give me half a million bucks for it, who is the fool? You are the one who is blind and entirely lacking in taste and judgement. If there are too many deals like this, no one will buy authentic Picassos, and as the market becomes flooded with fakes, all the real artists will starve to death. Thus, if you buy a fake, you only have yourself to blame. To give another example, you hire a tailor to install a door in your home, and he puts it in upside down. You scold the tailor, 'Are you blind?' But the tailor says, 'Who's blind, you or me? Who told you to hire a tailor to install a lock?' This is a story worth remembering. Without the capacity to make informed judgements, we will always end up making the same mistakes.
/Only the Chinese can change themselves/
Plagued with so many loathsome qualities, only the Chinese can reform themselves. Foreigners have a duty to help us, not through economic aid but by means of culture. The Chinese ship of state is so large and overloaded that if it sinks many non-Chinese people will perish in the whirlpool as well. I would like to invite all the Americans attending this lecture to extend us a helping hand.
One final point: China is seriously overpopulated. The country has more than a billion hungry mouths to feed, with a collective appetite that could easily devour the Himalayan range. This should remind us that China's problems are complex, and call for a high level of awareness on the part of each and every Chinese. Every one of us must become a discriminating judge and use our ability to examine and appraise ourselves, our friends and our country's leaders. This is our only hope.
[From: Bo Yang, /The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture/, translated and edited by Don J. Cohn and Jing Qing. St. Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1992.]
