{"id":26065,"date":"2010-08-05T10:01:12","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T15:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=26065"},"modified":"2013-12-05T04:13:42","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T09:13:42","slug":"romanticizing-ancient-chinese-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/08\/05\/romanticizing-ancient-chinese-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanticizing Ancient Chinese Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

This 40-second commercial for HSBC bank, sent in by Michelle F., is an excellent example of the way that non-white and non-Western people are often portrayed as more deeply cultural, connected to the past, and closer to nature than their white, Western counterparts.\u00a0 Sometimes this is done in order to demonize a culture as “barbaric,” other times it is used to infantilize them as “primitive.” In this case, it romanticizes.<\/p>\n

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Running on both English and Chinese language channels, the commercial contrasts the wise Chinese man with the young, white man.\u00a0 The music, the boats, their clothing and hats, and their fishing methods all suggest that the Chinese are more connected to their own long-standing\u00a0 (ancient?) cultural traditions, ones that offered them an intimate and cooperative relationship to nature. Simultaneously, it erases Chinese modernity, fixing China somewhere back in time.<\/p>\n

Other posts on the modernity\/traditional binary:<\/p>\n

Caveman Courtship<\/a><\/p>\n

The White Woman’s Burden<\/a>
\nDe-Racializing the Modernity\/Tradition Binary<\/a><\/p>\n

Africans as Props for White Femininity<\/a>
\nWomen’s Bodies and the Modernity\/Tradition Binary<\/a><\/p>\n

Which Images Represent India?<\/a>
\nThe Unseen Middle East<\/a><\/p>\n

The Primitive and the Modern in Kanye’s Love Lockdown<\/em><\/a>
\nOur review of Avatar<\/em>, the Movie<\/a>
\nPorn Producer with a Heart of Gold<\/a><\/p>\n

What Counts as Indian Art?<\/a>
\nWhites can Reconquer the America’s with Kahlua<\/a><\/p>\n

Primitive Child Offers Cures for Modern Ills<\/a><\/p>\n

Or browse our tag on the false modern\/primitive binary<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This 40-second commercial for HSBC bank, sent in by Michelle F., is an excellent example of the way that non-white and non-Western people are often portrayed as more deeply cultural, connected to the past, and closer to nature than their white, Western counterparts.\u00a0 Sometimes this is done in order to demonize a culture as “barbaric,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,155,15,2123,2104,701,1772,285,1759,1757],"class_list":["post-26065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-animals","tag-culture","tag-environmentnature","tag-knowledgeintelligence","tag-modernprimitive","tag-nation-china","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26065"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59880,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26065\/revisions\/59880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}