zlacker

I'll try to take a stab at this. I'm Chinese-American and I feel the Chinese folks who come to the US to study or to work have very different mindsets.

I have a friend who is dating a lot in NYC and he told me he notice most of his Chinese-American friends are liberal as in we fight for freedom of expression and social justice. Whereas the girls he met who are newly from China are conservative and support Trump because they are pro-business and more money-driven.

Based on his observation and my own experience I would agree. Most new Chinese visitors or immigrants don't value social rights and freedom of speech. And to be a bit critical, I feel they are so used to having the government or authority telling them what to do that they are comfortable with authoritarian rules and don't understand the importance of having independent thoughts and diversity.

>>ictoan+(OP)
With the risk of being down-voted, I would like to ask does "fight for freedom of expression and social rights" really has to be the polar opposite of "pro-business and more money-driven"? To me, those are answers/attitudes towards two potentially orthogonal questions. To put it another way, is a "pro-business and more money-driven" a good predictor on a person's opinion on "freedom of expression and social rights" and vise-versa? Since there are so many potentially orthogonal questions to ask, it seems to me it tells more about those who ask those questions (which questions are more important to them), than those who answered.

>>ictoan+(OP)
> I feel they are so used to having the government or authority telling them what to do that they are comfortable with authoritarian rules and don't understand the importance of having independent thoughts and diversity.

In my opinion you can't value independent thoughts and diversity, without being inclusive of different opinions and setting the same standard of discourse regardless of which viewpoint you are furthering. Because if not who choose what the correct viewpoints are? And are you sure your viewpoints will always stay popular?

Although what we value is very different I am not so sure that we are all that different at this point from China, except for this being enforced by a state sanctioned monopoly on violence in China while its now too often mob-rule violence in the US that I am not confident would be upheld in the courts.

Fighting for what you perceive as justice in a democracy is rarely furthered well by authoritarian means, and should be done through the democratic process and you should respect that the state has a monopoly on violence. Freedom is a fragile thing, and democracy is not the default state of society.

>>ictoan+(OP)
I don't think they value social rights that much less than we do (although it seems local Chinese people seem to tolerate government power more than we do). People who come over from China, especially to work in Silicon Valley, tend to be the more open-minded of the bunch, and people I've talked to from China have told me that they're aware of those "problems" but don't view them too negatively as it's just the cost of running an efficient country.

They do, however, feel very disillusioned with a lot of the current progressive environment. It's less to do with not agreeing with those values, and more to do with disapproval with how we in the West express our dissatisfaction - we're quick to take to the streets, protest on social media, and believe anything our echo chambers tell us, hence where the Chinese insult "white left" comes from, referring to people who are overly emotional and sensitive about things.

China and Asia, in general, has a very conservative "keep it to yourself, fix it yourself" attitude when it comes to problems, which can be very toxic. But this current NA attitude of blaming others and expecting the world to change to accommodate you is incredibly frustrating to the coworkers I talked to, and with the current political environment magnifying this problem to incredible levels some of those same coworkers felt that if they didn't participate in these politics (gender, race, religion, etc) then it would reflect negatively on them, but their opinions differed enough (ie only 2 genders) that they would be crucified if they said anything. It wasn't surprising to hear from some of them that they considered going back to China sometimes.

>>iRideU+r8
> China and Asia, in general, has a very conservative "keep it to yourself, fix it yourself" attitude when it comes to problems, which can be very toxic.

I think the attitude is more 'don't stand out' and 'don't be different' attitude. 'keep to yourself' is a behavior resulted from this attitude.

Most native Chinese folks value group experience over individual experience.

>>fredli+W6
Eh, so I would like to add I lean towards social democracy. And I admit I have a bias view. When I think of pro-business, I think of corporations valuing profit over people, of government valuing control over personal freedom, and of people who assume money can solve all their problems.

>>ictoan+Qe
Most people who consider themselves "pro-business" prefer less government control vs personal freedom.

>>fredli+W6
Until the US embraces some kind of preferential voting system allowing more than two political parties, yes, it pretty much has to be.