The Good Earth described Chinese ?

Question

a novel by Pearl Buck , I love it. Do you think Chinese and the culture is still pretty same as in 1930's?

Answer 1

I haven't read the book but I saw the movie (black and white, very nice).

Chinese society's gone through a lot of changes. I idealistically hoped China would match the colourful stories of imperial china and the roaring 20's when Shanghai was the Parist of the East. I didn't feel it when I was there. Communism destroyed a lot. You'd think a lot of the country was only built a few decades ago, as the architecture looks the same all the way from China to Eastern Europe (thank socialist architects for that).

Chinese rural life is better than in the book. It's less poor and living standards have risen dramatically in the past two decades.

In the book, the man finds something precious and it's suggested to him that he can now get an additional wife with his new richness. Noone in China would take a second wife now. Traditionally some girls didn't even have proper names and only sons counted as children. Nowadays women have far, far more respect and rights than in pre-socialist China, so western societal values (positive and negative) have crept into today's china. The closest a man will do to taking a second wife or concubine is to take a mistress and support her in a nearby apartment. Nowhere near as exotic as in the book.

China's complicated. It's different but the same but different too. You just have to see and experience it yourself when you're there.

Answer 2

Sorry I have not read the book, but I know a little of China.

Take all the things you liked from Chinese culture from 1930 & add all the trappings of modern life, cities, subways, cellphones, mp3 players, kids who are not understood by their parents, computers, modern business, share trading & you have modern China.

I enjoy my trips to China: Little alleys (hutongs), modern 6 & 8 lane roads, paper cutting art, cheap mp3 players, historic-look cultural architecture, big shops & tall buildings, glass & chrome sky-scrapers, friendly road traffic of many bicycles, freeways, quaint villages, shoppong malls, 100's of children who can't wait to practice their English on the foreigner & above all friendly people who will smile & welcome you if you smile back, no matter how little of the language you speak.

Same? Yes.

Different? Yes.

Answer 3

Pearl Buck's books are well meaning but essentially caricatures of Chinese society.

Her view of the Chinese was heavily influenced by her early life as a missionary. These people tended to be both aficionados of of Chinese culture and yet, at the same time, patronizing of the Chinese as poor little lost sheep who needed to be brought to Jesus.

After all, no one who truly respected Chinese culture or the Chinese people  would attempt to convert them to Christianity.

But leaving aside the question of whether she accurately depicted Chinese culture then the answer is that Chinese culture is little changed in the last several thousand years let alone since the 1930's.

Old Hundred Names may have a tractor these days but he has plowed those same fields for millennium after millennium while empires have come and gone and fortunes taken from the sweat of his brow have been made and squandered for the benefits of others. He has risen up and cast down dynasties before and he will do so again. But he is China and he never changes.

Answer 4

Some traditions still remain - good or bad, but it's not all the same.  The same can be said about any culture really.  Sounds like an interesting read though.