Cutural Circumspection.

I just watched a video of a CBS feature on ‘Leftover Women’ in China. According to the report, women in China are considered fit only for the scrapheap – not even worth dating – if they’re not married by the time they’re twenty five.

As you can imagine, the CBS journalists were aghast with the sort of indignation which commonly follows the time-honoured notion that only the mores of Our Culture are worthy. Any divergence on the part of The Others is reprehensible by default. Well, I can see that the Chinese attitude might create a notable difficulty for Chinese women, but cultural variation and complexity are worth a little more in-depth consideration than a five minute piece on CBS, I think.

But do you know what really bugged me? The comments on this video were pretty brainless even by YouTube standards, and the one I particularly remember came from some American guy who said:

‘Chinese women are ugly anyway. Some Japs are okay.’

There speaks a redneck of taste, intelligence and refinement.