The “Asian Value” debate came to prominence when it was strongly advocated by the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew and also Mahathir Mohamad. Asian Values predicated on the idea that Asian countries have a unique set of institutions and political ideologies that reflect the region's cultures and histories. Although Asia consists of diverse ethnicity and cultures who practice various religions, the core basis of most Asian cultures are similar such as the importance of collectivism and consensus. Asia as a whole lacked a regional institutional mechanism, and because of this ‘Asian Values’ has been interpreted differently by different ethnic and religious groups (Langguth, 2003).
Mahathir introduced the concept of Asian values in the 1990’s where there was global democratization, political and economic stability before the currency crisis of July 1997, which shocked Asian countries (Naisbitt, 1997). Asian values were advocated by Mahathir to try to unite Malaysia as a nation. He used it as a platform to claim collectivism, defending the ‘East’ against the imperialistic designs of the Western world. Mahathir’s views, known as the ‘Mahathirism’ can be summarized as combining a universalist Islam, a developmental nationalism, and a more laissez-faire approach to the people as an attempt at mass appeal to Malaysians.
Errol P. Mendes (1994) described the Malaysian version of Asian values as “The Mahathir Model” to differentiate it from other types of Asian values. This
In room 303 we have been studying many poems from Doris Lessing. Doris was born in in Persia and now lives in Iran. She came from a large family of five. She shares her own experiences when she writes and that is what makes her unique. Her talent for writing came from a variety of her experiences. One poem she wrote called “No Witchcraft for sale” was very interesting. It had three important messages and those messages are the poisonous snake is dangerous, stay loyal, and amazing things can happen.
There are some common ways in which different cultures express their values. Cultures value different things. Some ignorant people think that this also means all cultures do not have similarities to teach or express values. In “Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning” it conveys how a professor recorded how American families talked about intelligence being something people are born with. In contrast, in Eastern families they talked about how hard work brought intelligence (Spiegel). This passage shows extremely different values, but when examined, researchers can see they both were expressed through speech. This discovery is not surprising
Boom: - during the boom stage of the business cycle the economy is performing its best. Demand, production and sales figures are high. To meet the high levels of demand and production the business has to create new jobs; by doing this the percentage of the nation has money to spend on goods and services. However as businesses produce greater profits higher wages can be paid to employees growing their disposable income. People& businesses in the economy are allowed to spend money as there is a great business available for them.
The Tao Te Ching outlines that if people value great individuals, they become weak. Also, if people place high value on possessions, they start to steal. The Tao Te Ching also articulates that the master leads by filling the hearts of people, weakening their ambitions and toughening their determination (Lao-tzu 3). The master assists individuals to lose their knowledge and desires and creates misperception in people who believe they possess knowledge. This concept can be applied in a political conflict in the contemporary world. It is evident that individuals have overvalued possessions. Overvaluing possessions has led to the emergence of various problems that have caused political conflict.
Understanding the differences and similarities inherent in other cultures may provide opportunities when working with individuals (or groups) who may have different cultural values, beliefs, and/or norms. There are multiple ways to explore different cultures. One way is through Hofstede’s (2017) cultural dimension; which are currently made up of six broad categories, including high-low power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-short term orientation, and indulgence-restraint. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore all these cultural dimensions in great detail; however, it is important to understand some of the implications of these scores. The scores for both the US and China can be seen in Table 1, along with the differences between each score.
It is no secret that America’s political culture, comprised of a set of common values, attitudes, and beliefs, centers mainly around ideals such as liberty, equality, democracy, and individualism. Those ideas originated from the separation of our nation from England, as well as the convictions of our founding fathers. But are the political cultures of other countries the same as America’s? China’s, for example, is very much different. When discussing the values that make up her political culture, harmony, respect, and loyalty are predominant.
Considering the specific characteristics of Asian culture, the explanations can be drawn from two perspectives: what decreases the risk and what hides the risk. From general perspective to specific perspective, the following sections will compose the whole
Cultural collectivism is a characteristic of Asian culture, whereas, cultural individualism is more of a characteristics of American culture. Asian Americans tend to be interdependent and Americans tend to be independent. (Costigan, Bardina, Cauce, Kim, & Latendresse, 2006). Asian Americans typically value the family, men and elders. American cultural values do not place honor on men or elders. Asian Americans bestow honor to elders, typically greeting them formally and bowing (PBS, 2015). American culture values family and the elderly, however American culture has created long term care facilities for the elderly to go when they are too old to live alone. Asian Americans typically bring their elders to live
Since Singapore’s establishment in 1965, the government of Singapore had adopted a genre of paternalistic leadership in many areas (Lee, 2008). Personally, I have so far taken the view that it was the most fundamental thing for this tiny oriental country.
The Tao Te Ching is a historic Chinese text that is famously known for its rich commentary on a variety of spiritual, ethical, and political topics. A couple themes that are touched in the Tao Te Ching typically deal with the notion of virtue, benevolence, and so forth. In this paper, I will examine four specific stanzas from the Tao Te Ching, illustrate the applicability and relevancy of themes such as materialistic possessions, inner peace, humility & accountability, & political leadership, and demonstrate that such themes can help us re-evaluate our values in today’s society in the path for a harmonious lifestyle.
However, the development of Singapore’s society cannot be predicated on pure economics alone. Even though globalization has enabled Singapore to fare well in economic development, however, termed the perils of success, globalization has brought about undesirable
As there are many aspects of cultures that can be studied and described about the two cultures, only few major aspects of cultural values will be discussed in this paper. One of the major cultural values that can be compared between the two cultures is the Malays rank honesty as first on their list of cultural values whereas the Indians find family as the important aspect in their cultural values.
Asians are known across the world for their strong cultural values, and intelligence. A traditional Asian family consist of males as dominant, and women as passive. Children are raised to respect those whom are in authority, and family is their primary focus. It is emphasized that loyalty, and honesty must be present to avoid shame or embarrassment to the family. Discipline is used to control and train children in order to succeed or obtain achievements. The core values of a traditional Asian home are similar to other ethnic backgrounds. In most cultures, family is the number one priority above any other values. Confucianism is a part of the Asian tradition, in which four basic virtues are derived from philosophy and focuses on loyalty, respect for those in authority with compassion and righteousness.
Continuous rapid economic growth has raised Malaysia from an agricultural and commodity-based low-income economy to a successful middle-income economy. As a mixed economy, Malaysia has elements of a free market economy nevertheless with intervention government. Malaysia's economic activity consist of a mixture of sectors whereas mixed of capitalism and socialism The strong economic performance has helped improve the quality of life for Malaysians and supported advances in education, health, infrastructure, housing and public amenities and others.
When the PRC’s human rights abuses over passed the forefront of international concern in the 1989’s Tiananmen Square protest, it became certainly a boiling matter concerning and both political manipulation and genuine human rights activism. Moreover, one of the main related issues was and still is the repression of free speech right, religion decision, discrimination abolition as well as torture or slavery, and other main political rights. Yet, the PRC has consistently justified its position by attacking the basic rights formulated in the Universal Declaration, specifically violating civil and political rights.