Are all Chinese people liars?

Over the past few years, I’ve known about ten Chinese people socially, and a pattern seems to be developing. They all seem to be liars. It seems that when they need to tell you something that they think you don’t want to hear, in order to avoid telling you, they will make up some lie instead. The problem comes when you believe them—and I tend to assume that people are telling me the truth. If you then ask something else, leading on from their lie, they will have to then make up another lie, and they end up weaving a web of lies.

I was speaking to a Chinese friend about this, and he said that it was quite normal for Chinese people to do this, and that they think it normal.

To me, it just seems like appalling behaviour. In a passive way, they are being extremely abusive. I find this sort of behaviour really offensive.

I know that many English people do the same thing as well. If you ask them something, and they imagine that their answer would offend you, then they will lie, to avoid telling you. Or they will lie to avoid a ‘confrontation’. I consider this to be a weakness in their own morality, this lack of a relationship with the truth; they simply don’t seem to have any awareness of right and wrong. This I find offensive. But this type of behaviour seems to be much more pronounced in the Chinese people that I’ve known.

I remember at college, there was a Chinese teacher, and in a passive way, his behaviour was atrocious; he could not handle confrontations to any degree, so he would allow improper conduct by students, in fact, scandalously bad behaviour by some students, to go ahead during clinical sessions, while a patient was present. He would allow this, simply because he could not handle even the slightest of confrontations, such as himself simply instructing a student to modify their conduct. Because of his extreme passive tendency, he allowed atrocious conduct, and even abusive conduct, to go ahead. His own conduct, I therefore consider, to be abusive. If you are too much of a ‘wimp’ to state an opinion, then your own conduct becomes abusive.

In the same way, the Chinese people that I have known socially, sometimes create this web of lies, to avoid telling you something that they imagine you don’t want to hear. This behaviour is also extremely abusive.

Some people might argue that the motive is well intentioned, such as not wanting to ‘hurt your feelings’. But I don’t believe their motive is well intended. I believe it is a deep-rooted tendency to back away from confrontation. It is entirely a weakness, with no redeeming factors.

The big difference in our cultures, is that Chinese people, in general, do not question authority; do not question their teachers; this would be unthinkable, usually. In the west, we each tend to have much more of an ego, we tend to be more ‘self’ centred, so that we assume that our point of view is always correct, no matter how misguided we might in fact be. Of course many people make complete idiots of themselves in these situations, by stating their wrong opinions, but at least you know what their opinion is, you know what they think; they are not lying to you, deceiving you, which, I believe is a much greater crime, than the crime of stating your own wrong opinions.

There, I feel better for that. I have no respect for people who deceive you with lies because of this moral weakness within themselves (as I see it).

26 April 2008