There are many different kinds of Eastern cultures, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and as many different types of Western cultures: British, French, German, American. Globalisation has not homogenised either Eastern or Western cultures. All cultures respect honour, loyalty, honesty, charity and other virtues. But there are differences between Western and Eastern cultures. Chinese culture places it emphasis on harmony and order, with the family as the main reference for the individual and society more important than the individual.

European culture’s focus is on the freedom and liberty of the individual. Europeans emphasise liberty, equality and fraternity - epitomised by the French Revolution of 1789.

The ideology of the French Revolution nearly achieved a worldwide political conquest with its two extensions in the Russian and Chinese communist revolutions. Its goal was equality, its political method was a dominant technocratic class and its economic model was central planning.

The Americans have refined European ideals. American aims are set out in its declaration of independence that "all men are created equal" and it is their "inalienable Rights" "to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". The goal is individual liberty and happiness, the political method is the separation of powers, and the economic model is the competitive market.

Culture cannot ever be static because the way a society works to feed its people, thrive, make progress, changes with the passage of time as conditions alter and new technology is discovered. From Nomadic, to Agricultural, to Agricultural/Commercial, to Industrial, to Post-industrial to Knowledge-based Society, social values and relationships have changed.

When Chinese immigrants went to Southeast Asia, Nanyang, in the 19^th and 20^th century, they brought with them the culture of Southern China of that time. Living among people of different religions, races and cultures with different practices, they adapted their culture to meet local conditions.

In my visits to China in the 1970s and 80s, I found myself in a country where the behaviour and accent in speech and dress styles were completely different from those of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. But basic values of placing the interests of society before those of the family, and the family before the individual, the respect shown to elders, these underlying values had not changed.

Singapore has gone through rapid change in the last 50 years. To avoid being swept along by these changes, we focussed on the value of honest, responsible and effective government with morally upright leaders. We emphasised social cohesion, civic duty, the family as the integral unit of society. We had a bilingual policy teaching in English and learning our mother tongues to remind us of our roots and provide cultural ballast. However despite these efforts, the social behaviour and life-styles of young Chinese Singaporeans are different from those of their parents.

Three generation households are going out of fashion because of high rise living in apartments in Singapore. Many prefer to have grandparents live in an apartment near them, so they can be close but not together in the same flat. While both parents are at work grandparents help to baby sit often with the help of maids.

Each year more than 60% of our population, now over 3 million, travel overseas by air to see how other peoples live around the world. We play host each year to over 7 million tourists from all over the world, more than twice our population. There is more consumerism, more materialism in a society driven by the profit which drives the market economy. The mitigating factor is that the successful make donations to charitable causes.

Would we have changed less had we not moved so rapidly into the global economy and used English as our working language? I believe yes.

If we compare Chinese in Singapore with Chinese in Taiwan or Hong Kong, Singaporeans are more westernised in social habits. The majority of Hongkongers speak and read Cantonese, not English. But the impact of western media on Hong Kong Chinese mores, values and social habits has been nearly as great in spite of Cantonese acting as a language buffer against the western media.

Most likely they are the result of changed economic structures. In all three societies, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, women are now as well educated and earning as much as men. This has altered the husband-wife relationship, and affected the nature of our society. The result has been higher divorce rates, more single generation families, less children in each family and fewer of the three generation household. The younger generation is less patriarchal whatever the language they use at home.

People in Taiwan and Hong Kong need translations to access internet websites, satellite TV, view American/British sitcoms and shows. All the same social changes occurred in Taiwan, Hong Kong as in Singapore. They give some clues of the likely changes that will come in China.

The Japanese tried to block this trend to equality of the sexes. They kept their women as defenders and nurturers of the next generation, to be good wives, mothers and daughters-in-laws. They did not allow the birth control pill to be sold without a doctor’s prescription. Few women (less than 10%) made it to university; most go to "finishing" colleges for domestic economics and languages to help husbands.

But by the 1990s, they faced similar problems. Japanese women are getting married much later; many choose to remain single, there are more divorces, fewer children, low Total Fertility Rates (TFR), many marry foreigners. Japan had only postponed these changes by two generations.

I used to hold myself responsible for having caused this phenomenon of many unmarried women graduates by opening up equal education and top job opportunities to all women from the 1960s. I now believe that I only hastened it by some 20 years.

China is an old society with a huge agricultural base, 80 % still rural in 1978. But starting from 1978 with the Open Door Policy China is industrialising, urbanising and globalising at great speed. China’s population is more urbanised today, 40% from 20% only 20 years ago. China’s contacts with the outside world will increase exponentially with air travel, with more foreigners living in your cities to manage their factories and offices, and many of your students are studying abroad in America, Japan, Europe. China’s people will travel abroad in ever larger numbers.

Chinese culture will develop, evolve and adapt to successfully industrialise and globalise. What can be protected and must be preserved are core values that have enabled Chinese society to overcome external shocks and internal chaos, maintaining continuity over the millennia without a rupture in its civilisation. The most important are the five human relationships (wu lun), that imposes obligations and rights between sovereign and subjects, father and sons, husband and wife, among brothers, and among friends. They do not hinder the changes needed for success in a globalised world but may have to be modified as women become equal to men, and in governance as kings are replaced by ministers representing the people. But fundamental values must be maintained: the emphasis on responsibility for the care and education of one’s children, to teach them to be filial, to be loyal to family and friends, to be thrifty and modest, to study, work hard and become a scholar, to grow up to be gentlemen (junzi), they have sustained the continuity of Chinese civilisation and saved it from the oblivion that has been the fate of other old civilisations.

To succeed in the modern knowledge-based economy, the traditional Confucian ranking of first the scholar, second the farmer, third the worker and last the merchant – shi nong gong shang - has to be modified. These were the priorities of a successful agricultural society where the great need is for the best minds to administer a huge agricultural civilisation. But going forward, farmers will be only a small fraction of the population. Farmers are 3% of the work force in the US and 2-5% in EU as against 46% in China. The economy is driven by new knowledge, new discoveries in science and technology, innovations that are taken to the market by entrepreneurs. So while the scholar is still the greatest factor in economic progress, he will be so only if he uses his brains not in studying the great books, classical texts and poetry, but in capturing and discovering new knowledge, apply himself to R&D, management and marketing, banking and finance and the myriad of new subjects that need to be mastered. Those with good minds to be scholars should also become inventors, innovators, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs; they must bring new products and services to the market to enrich the lives of people everywhere.

One fundamental difference between American and Oriental culture is the individual’s position in society. In American culture an individual’s interest is primary. This makes American society more aggressively competitive, with a sharper edge and higher performance. But American society has a sizeable underclass. Germany’s is more communitarian. The Germans are more egalitarian and less competitive a society, but with few in the underclass. The gap between the winners and the losers is narrower.

In Singapore, the interests of the society take precedence over that of the individual. Nevertheless Singapore has to be competitive in the market for jobs, goods and services. On the other hand the government helps lower income groups to meet their needs for housing, health services and education so that their children will have more of an equal chance to rise through education.

China with its strong socialist inclinations following its socialist policies from 1949 will have to decide how much of a competitive society it wants to be. For the more equal the spread of rewards, the less competitive the economy. A balance must be found that accords with the ethos of the Chinese people and maintains harmony between the successful and not so successful and between the coastal and the inland provinces.

--------