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2010年11月22日 星期一

An Alternative Type of Christianity

On Saturday afternoon, I attended an interesting talk. It was organized by the UUHK. The speaker Chan Chi Chai 陳子齊 is a senior lecturer in philosophy and religion at the Baptist College. He is one of the contributors of a book entitled the Religious Right (宗教右派) edited by 羅永生 and 龔立人 He wrote an interesting article on the rise of the middle class in Hong Kong, their characteristics and how they may have affected the development of Christianity in Hong Kong called 香港中產階級的冒升. His talk will be first of a series of similar talks by various authors of the book.


He introduced himself to us as a member of the middle class himself. He said the middle class of Hong Kong shares a number of characteristics. To him, the middle class in Hong Kong first started to emerge under British rule. Initially they were comprised of senior Chinese civil servants, who read and write English, with quarters in prime luxury flat locations,with a liberal sprinkling of doctors, lawyers, teachers, all educated under the English education system. From the 1960s to the 1980s, education was the most direct stepping stone of the poor for rising up the ladder of social and economic status. It was then a "meritocracy". However, since the 1980s´s, with more and more children of the poorer classes being educated, the status of the traditional middle class was subjected to some severe challenges, challenges which the older middle class tried to resist. To Chan, it was definitely an elitist system which favoured students of the Christian or Catholic schools. What he finds most surprising is that the values of the elites were shared not only by the elites but by the non-elites amongst the middle class as well. Those who did not make it were hoping that one day they could rise too. 


To Chan, the middle class in Hong Kong do not really have what can properly be called "class consciousness", only certain "ways of thinking". To him, they are very different from the traditional educated class of China, because the Chinese "gentleman" places great emphasis on honour and integrity(氣節) and strong moral values like benevolence and justice whereas the middle class in Hong Kong values only the good form of the English gentleman, more than anything else.  This is shown in the restraint of their criticism of those who hold views which differ from those held by themselves. Thus they are very much against those who use abusive or vulgar language. But after 1997, a new kind of grass root politicians arose, speaking grass root language, like Wong Yuk Man. This has affected the style of politiking after 1997.


The second characteristics of the Hong Kong middle class according to Chan is that they have very strong professional views but such views tend to be conservative and insufficiently critical. They hold on very much to their own professional standards but there is often little communication between the members of different professions. Thus, he finds that, not only are they not self-critical enough about their own values, they are seldom able to effectively critique government policies on many of issues which really touch, concern and seriously affect the lives of the lower classes.


Whereas people in the PRC may pursue western products, the middle class in Hong Kong value more Western cultural taste. The traditional Hong Kong middle class are usually quite ignorant of traditional Chinese culture like The Tao of Tea, antique Chinese furniture, Chinese calligraphy and Chinese ink painting etc. When developers wish to promote high class residential development sales, they prefer to project the image of European lifestyle. However their understanding of such lifestyle tend to be completely superficial, concentrating more on form than content. They ape only the indices of European lifestyle like style of dressing, doing one's hair, wining and dining in mock Western architecture etc.


The middle classes in Hong Kong have certain requirements of life-style. They like to go to hotel restaurants or restaurants which have been classified as "excellent" by the media. Thus the media in Hong Kong has great influence in moulding their taste. Once a restaurant has been written about as good, it does not have to worry about the number of its customers because everybody will jump on to the band wagon. The middle class will simply flock to them. Again, form and image more than substance. They seldom go to the neighborhood restaurants like tai pai tong's, tea-restaurants (茶餐廳) except when they got written about.


To Chan, not only do the Hong Kong middle class lack social insight, many of them hold what he calls "snobbish" values. They do not dislike those who are rich and famous.(But here, I cannot see why that should be a cause of complaint. Do we have to hate or dislike anyone?) They worship them! Our social stratification is predominantly hierarchical even within the ranks of the middle class: thus teachers rank after doctors, lawyers and engineers. Previously doctors held the highest social status but recently senior counsels seem to have overtaken the status previously occupied by our doctors. Thus whenever senior counsels join in any social protests, the crowds will follow suit but when only teachers take the lead in social marches and protests, the crowd may not necessarily follow in such numbers. Thus middle class values are not based merely on money and wealth but on taste, education, and knowledge. 


Next, the middle class in Hong Kong are extremely concerned about the education of their children. They rely heavily on their old-boy old-girl network to perpetuate their social and economic status. But they seldom teach their own children. They send them to the "brand-name schools" to be educated. They pack their after school hours with private tuition and would force them to learn music, piano, violin, ballet, painting but little else. There is a very strong pragmatic element behind their enthusiasm for "culture". Everything is geared towards getting their children to be admitted to the "brand name schools" and colleges. They are not really concerned about the intrinsic value of art and culture. Thus Hong Kong is one of the biggest profit centres of the Royal Academy of Music. But the judges are often astounded by the complete lack any real interest in music of even those students who score the highest marks in all kinds of tests and examinations. Chan criticizes the Hong Kong middle class as superficial.


He says that although they worship western values, the middle class in Hong Kong seldom value the Western spirit of constant questioning of the values of their previous generation and their emphasis on such universal values as social justice, environmental protection, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake in short, the values of the western Enlightenment. In the West, political participation is taken for granted but in Hong Kong, very few middle class people are members of any political organizations. Their social participation and interaction with other members of society is confined to their interaction with other members of their own churches. But their social action is confined to matters of concern only to their own church organizations, much less on tackling structural problems associated with poverty. Even if they enter politics, they seldom fight for the rights of the poor.


To Chan, the middle class in Hong Kong lack the kind of class consciousness of the intellectual class in the west. All their thoughts are focused on making money and on the values of unbridled capitalism. The market is worshipped as a god. To Chan, this is a truly terrfiying kind of thinking style. He thinks that the Hong Kong middle class lacks critical thinking and lacks political organization. He does not agree that after "7.1", the middle class in Hong Kong has become a political  force to be reckoned with because they lack any political party to act as their spokesman. They remain largely unroganized.


Chan feels that government policies seem to favor sharing the governing of Hong Kong with the other existing social and political and religious organisations. This appear in the spheres of education, medicine, social welfare and care of the poor and the underprivileged. The government outsources various services required by society by giving subventions and grants to NGOs but in return, for the purposes of control, it wants the NGOs to write frequent reports and thus increase their adminstrative burdens so that they are forced to devote more and more of their resources to dealing with the required bureaucratic procedures like accounting, assessment reports important for getting continual financial support, instead of doing what they are supposed to be doing viz. to provide the necessary services to the public.


To Chan, Jesus treated the poor and the people at the margin of society e.g. widows, the poor, the sick, the outsiders as the principal objects of his mission but today, the church is largely a middle class church, not a working class church. The protestant churches in Hong Kong, heavily influenced by their American home churches simply import and translate their books into Chinese and thus such "imported" Christian values heavily influence the thinking of those in charge of the Hong Kong protestant churches and Chinese theologians seldom do any independent thinking of their own and reflect on how Christianity may flower on native Chinese soil and be a faith relevant to the lives of the poor. 


Chan asked: why it is that Chinese Christian churches have become a bulwark for family unity, marital stability, emphasis on obedience and the status quo. To him, what mattered to Jesus: care of the poor, criticism and redress of social injustice, being faithful to God instead of being faithful to earthly government, cherishing freedom and not mere moral conformity, seem of little concern to the middle class Christian churches in Hong Kong. Jesus was a revolutionary. What he finds most suprising is that to the Christian fundamentalists or the Christian right, reform is simply not on their agenda. To him, their values are a radical reversal of Christian values! Such reversal has everything to do with the class values of the middle classes. Chan wants a really Christian church, one which cares for social justice and one which helps those most in need of help: the poor people of Hong Kong. 


6 則留言:

  1. "Christian love , oh my God!    Love the Son, love the Salvation...     Oh! Sacrifice your body,       My soul ascending...       God, can you see me, can you hear me, can you touch me?"  Good evening, my dear old friend! 










    [版主回覆11/22/2010 19:26:00]What kind of crimes have not been committed in the name of Christ? Sometimes I cannot help thinking that if somehow Christ were to re-appear on earth, he might well be the first to dissociate himself from so-called Christians!

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  2. Previously, you told me that writing is a form of thinking. And if one is good at writing, it means one is a good thinker. Therefore, Sir, do you think that a student who is good at Math is clever? Why?
    [版主回覆11/24/2010 08:01:00]

    There are at least three different types of thinking. Mathematical thinking is more akin to logical thinking. If you get the previous step wrong, the subsequent steps will be necessarily wrong. It is a most precise form of abstract thinking because you use mathematical symbols which have no meaning except those arbitrarily assigned to them according to the relevant definitions and pre-established rules many of which are based on axioms (themselves regarded as self-evident).
    In philosophical writing, one engages in a different type of thinking based rather more loosely on logic but then even so, many of the premises of one's statement may themselves be questioned. Hence there are endless disputes and controversies in philosophy. In this type of thinking, logic is obviously still quite important. But Russel tried to reduce even mathematical logic to simple symbolic logic.
    Then there are what we call "ordinary" writing based even more on  unargued premises. But even in this loosest type of thinking, once the parties are agreed on their preliminary premises or their common grounds, arguments can still proceed logically because certain inferences may be drawn from certain premises to arrive at a conclusion. But in general, there will usually be a lot of difficulties on establishing common grounds. Often the starting premises of a capitalist and a socialist; a theist and an atheist; a Christian, a Buddhist, a Taoist may be very different or even diametrically opposite to each other. In this type of argument, good thinking may require certain rhetorical skills which are literary in character. So a good thinker in this context may require skill in persuading others not only through their head but also through their heart.
    In short, the word "good" may imply different things and may call for differrent kinds of writing and thinking skills in different contexts.  Thus a student who is good at maths can justifiably be called clever because maths require the most rigrous application of the abstract rules of mathematical logic or rules of good and valid thinking. You may well be comparing apples to oranges although both come under the category of a fruit!
    The above is just my personal classification of types of thinking and the corresponding factors I think one must take into account in determining what so-called "good" thinking may involve. There may well be other types of equally valid classification.

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  3. Wow, it's quite long. Let me respond it later (when I have leisure).

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  4. Thanks for your insight Sir. Now, I've got a picture of what clever is about. Typically and undoubtedly, many people firmly believe that everyone is clever but in different areas. But what I was talking about is the ways of thinking we have to learn when studying. I'm a student so I mostly talk about study. I deem students who get high mark in their exams are very clever, sometimes. I can see it myself. Sometimes, I get high mark but I think I am stupid. No clue. Maybe I feel uncertain about myself. In other words, I think I may be clever when someone compliments me. However, most of the time I feel I'm not becaue I suppose they just give me comfort.
    [版主回覆12/11/2010 16:22:00]Please don't get me wrong. My views are only my own views. You will have to decide for yourself whether my analysis and assessments are "right" or seem to correspond to what you can observe from your own experience. Ultimately everything should be subjected to the acid test of "reality" and "facts" insofar as they may be ascertained using the best methods we know. I cannot answer your question for you. I can answer the question for myself.

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  5. Merry Christmas! Sorry for the late blessing.
    As I am uncertain what the definition of cleverness is, I got to ask someone learned like you. I've been observing for long but I've got no clue what wisdom or cleverness is really about. Since we all want to be appreciated, nobody would object to the idea that he is smart, wise, clever, intelligent and whatever like this. But before he could get the compliment, he must know what wisdom or cleverness really is.That's why I'm looking for the meaning of clever people.
    You may see a clever person acting stupidly sometimes. Maybe, you may say he doesn't want to arouse jealousy so he pretends to be stupid. Or maybe, the truth is he's really stupid 'at that time'. And you may see a smart boy showing off his ability sometimes. Maybe, he's really smart that he knows there's no one else like him in this world. Or maybe, he's really naive that he doesn't ever know that he is just one of the millions.
    Well, what I want to pinpoint is that it is difficult to see who is really clever because, somehow, people fake others. I want to upgrade myself to be cultured and learned and thus I want to be more clever. But before it happens, I must know what it is. That's why I'm asking for your help, Sir.
    [版主回覆12/28/2010 06:48:00]Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too. It's never too late to wish someone well. If you like, the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of love and hope can be extended to the whole year or even the whole life of a person.
    Let me see if I can tease over the difference between cleverness and wisdom. To me, cleverness relates to the ability of a brain to understand and to learn something quickly. It is an innate ability. Wisdom involves the application of that cleverness or intelligence in solving the problems posed by life. We say someone is wise when he displays good judgement based on the application of his intelligence, the use of his reasoning power to the relevant set of facts before him. Wisdom always involves the quality of a person's decision or judgement in an actual situation calling for the making a decision one way or another. We say that a person is wise or stupid acording as he makes a good or a bad decision. Clever people may make bad decisions in the same way that stupid people may make good decisions. In the former case, we say the clever person is stupid (but here, he is "stupid" only in practice although he may be still be clever by nature or innately).
    I hope this helps. But it's only my personal opinion. Try always to check whether what I said makes sense by applying them to different situations and contexts. We learn by comparing what we think with reality.  

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  6. That's totally what I want. Now, I can get the picture of what it is really about. Thank  you.

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