While strolling around the 99¢ store in a rather bored and aimless fashion, the thought occurred to me that a difference between the values of the East and the West lies in valuing honor versus pride.
Perhaps I should state this a little less globally.
In my experience of being Malaysian-Chinese and being American, I've been a part of two value systems without really thinking about it. These value systems are foundational to the point that I don't consciously think about it.
It's just the way things are.
That is, it's just the way things are in my world. But since I don't have the privilege of literally transplanting myself into another person's frame of reference without my own frame of reference interfering, I normally live life without adding "in my world" to the subconscious statement "it's just the way things are."
In my world, it's utterly splendid to buy a dress at Ross for twenty bucks then wear it multiple times to multiple events over the course of four years at Westmont because the dress just rocks. I have no qualms about the fact that I got free lunches when I was in elementary school because of our financial situation. I'm completely fine with saying that my family relied on Goodwill when I was younger, and that I recently got an awesome bag there for $5 that normally sells for $80. Getting stuff at Payless Shoes, Wal-Mart, the $5 store, Target, etc is not a knock on my dignity. I got a good deal. I didn't get ripped off. We survived and we thrived no matter what.
And yet, I hesitated after writing "It's no big deal if I come out of the 99¢ store with food or stationery because it tastes just fine and it writes just fine." So I have enough Western pride to feel the need to explain that "I don't have to buy food at the 99¢ store. But there's good food there, so why not? Plus you get to try new things with a low-risk factor because if you don't like it, well, it was only 99¢, so no harm done." And even after that explanation has been given, I still feel the need to say, "Oh, but of course we get our food at Trader Joe's, Ranch 99, Vons and Costco too." It's a pride thing. And it trumps this particular expression of the honor thing.
An American friend who went to China to live with a Chinese family told a story that illustrates the Chinese value of honor. He went to buy something in a market but, being an obvious foreigner, was overcharged for it.
No big deal, right? He was learning the system and he'd know better next time.
But getting overcharged meant something more to his host: she kept repeating over the course of several days that he should have brought her along. He wouldn't have been ripped him off if she were there.
Okay, no problem. He'd be sure to go with her next time. But despite that assurance, she was still distressed about the situation.
What was at stake?
It wasn't really the money. It was honor that was lost when he was taken advantage of. He had been dishonored, and since he was a part of her family, her honor and the honor of her entire family had taken a blow. (Therein lies another value difference in collective versus individualistic identity.)
I'm not saying that this is the truth, globally or otherwise. But in my experience, a difference between values of the East and West can be found in the relationship between monetary cost and personal identity.
One culture values honor and retains this honor by not being taken advantage of, i.e. not being ripped off.
The other values pride and retains this pride by having the resources to provide at a higher level, i.e. being able to afford costlier (read: nicer, better) resources.
There's also the mashup of cultures and values where sometimes the honor prevails and sometimes the pride prevails. And then there are times when they appear in equal degrees and the culturally mixed just learn to hold paradoxical values and be at peace with it. And that's life.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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5 comments:
this is very insightful. thanks, fern.
would you say that this sense of honor in any way derives from a sense of self-worth? and would you be so bold as to say that either honor or pride is better than the other?
very interesting..just curious how would you define honor and pride? Are you using honor in terms of the worth others place on an you and pride as in the worth you place upon yourself?
When I was writing this, my definition was based on me thinking and experiencing honor then thinking and experiencing pride.
So when I thought of honor and thought of feeling honor, I thought about how I've said to professors "I'm honored!" when they asked if I'd like to work with them on something or when they asked if they could include my work in a portfolio. There's a sense of gratefulness and humility in there. (Visually, honor has me on the same plane as another person. There's something inclusive and wide reaching about it.) It is connected to self-worth because when I felt honored in those situations, I felt my little self-worth bank filling up a few notches. And in those cases, it is connected to the worth others are placing on me. I'm using those cases because for me those are clear-cut cases where I felt honor.
When I think about pride, there's a similar self-worth bank increase. But visually, I'm elevated and beaming/bursting with the feeling with my head held high. It's just me. Even if it's pride for someone else, like being proud of a friend for achieving something, the inclusive non-hierarchical feeling isn't there. I'm not getting a clear view of this latter pride for someone else though, so that'll have to sit for a while.
Presented in these limited terms, I'd rather have honor. But if someone else tells me how they see it, I can easily see myself picking pride based on how each is presented.
Solid left-brainers are going to have a fit with my fuzzy visual feeling-based "definitions."
This is interesting to me because I tend to view it more the opposite way (it's entirely possible that after reading your post I just constructed this schema simply to be a contrarian).
Pride for me (as a straight-up Westerner) stems from a correct self-understanding of my worth. If I understand exactly what my strengths and abilities are, what my worth is (not to say one necessarily flows from the other), then I can take pride in that knowledge. Over-inflated pride does exist but normal pride stems from a correct view of self-worth and leads to a positive self-image (think Aristotle's virtues and balance).
Honor on the other hand, is, well... an honor (merrr..). "Tonight we're honoring Fern Lim" conjures images of a special Fern Lim Art Showcase that they don't just do for Any Body, because something of Fern's Art stood out above the Rest. To me, this is elevating; moreso than pride which you may or may not feel about your artistic ability at this event.
Honor also seems to me to be something conferred upon you or taken away by others (as you say, collectivist) whereas pride requires nobody else (individualist). Let's talk more about this!
I see your point and where you're coming from. And what's interesting is, I don't disagree with it, even if I previously said that pride is more elevating than honor.
Maybe the key lies in the individual versus the group. If pride is indeed an individual matter, it means that there's no one to be elevated above. That makes sense to me. Actually, I think the key lies in our perceptions of what being individual means. Oh, I'm getting excited by this! Okay, so pride being an individual matter can mean that there's no one to be elevated above, but at the same time, because there is no one else involved, I see it as a setting apart, which (to me) relates to being elevated. Whereas with honor, it's not something you can do alone. So the elevation for me comes with whether you are within a community or set apart from the community. This is fascinating. I'd normally consider myself an independent individualistic person but it looks like there's a lot of the communal stuff inherent in my roots that's there no matter how many other layers of myself are individualistic.
Both views make perfect sense to me. But apparently I'm more conditioned subconsciously to see from a communal view.
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