You Can’t Say That! What we cannot say in Chinese / American culture 不可以這樣講!: 言論自由

A recent discussion about a person’s ‘offensive’ speech 得罪人的話 online got me thinking about things that can or cannot be discussed in Chinese and American cultures. In American culture, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discuss differences between groups of people. Due to the simple fact that there are many different types of people 因為有各種各樣的人所以提出不同的地方很難, real and perceived, it is very hard to make sensible public statements about observed differences between groups without someone making an issue of how “offended” he or she is. Don't even think about those CPA, doctor or economist jokes!

By contrast, in Chinese culture, differences between groups are discussed all the time 可以討論優點缺點和不同的地方. Maybe it is something cultural or maybe it is because there are not as many divisions among peoples. This is not to say that insults leveled at another group are ok, they aren’t and in fact people will go out of their way not to, but one it is my opinion that one is not as much at risk for an honest appraisal of differences as in the West. Now politics is another story, don’t talk about that. (Photo: Our son demonstrating his sleeping technique兒子在幫忙)