What a Tsinghua professor told me:

1) In China, form does not follow function; just enough is not good enough. The bigger the better, to show off proper stature. In the past, rich people in China moved around in sedan chairs. These were differentiated according to their social hierarchy. Those carried by 2 men, 4-men, 8-men, up to 30 men. You do not need 30 men to carry a sedan that sits one or two. You use a 30-men sedan because you think it befits your stature, your rank.

2) In present-day China, Audi cars are popular. Because the Audi A6 model is the designated car for government officials. But now, you can go one better: Audi has produced a longer version of the A6 called Audi A6L.

3) To the Chinese, architecture does not have any intrinsic qualities, but is seen only as a mute container (容器) that one applies extrinsic signification onto. Only then, can it display stature or rank (档次) to show off your appropriate social status (地位). An architectural space must exude the appropriate ostentation or right kind of manner (排场). It must be 大器 (grand or dignified character). It mustn’t be 小器 (niggardly, ungenerous). Your home or your office must befit your stature. There is no room for subtleties.

What I had read:

1) Cultural sensibility of the Chinese is not to articulate the self as a self-assertive, discrete autonomous individual, but to articulate the self in relation to others. This is to continue social harmony (得体): nothing should be out of place.

2) The cosmological question that the West ask is “what”, whereas the classical Chinese ask “how?” The questions that shaped Western thinking: “What kinds of things are there?” “What is the world made of?” or “What is this?” This led to an inventory of the world about us like a catalogue of facts and figures, through the exercise of reason.

3) The classical Chinese question “how” led to finding the “appropriate models of conduct that provide one with a cultural bearing and thus enable one to build upon a ‘way’ (道) of living productively in one’s world.” (D. Hall and R. Ames, Democracy of the Dead)

What I observe:

1) The “how” to fit into the scheme of things in contemporary Chinese society is to follow conventional models of “what.” What style of clothes one should wear, what type of car should one drive, what kind of home decor one should have, what architectural style this shop should be, are based on consensual ideas. What is befitting becomes extrinsic applique of conventional styles.

2) The classical Chinese ‘way’ to be subtly co-extensive with other social bodies through appropriate behaviour easily lapses into establishing self identity through conspicuous consumption in a world with no other values except materialistic ones. The same can be said about many other societies, whether Asian, Western, Middle Eastern, South American, or African, etc., etc.

3) Modernism wants to uphold the primacy of the intrinsic, of the non-superfluous (re. Loos’ ornamentation argument), an abstraction, as a counter revolution to bourgeois ideas. Many people cannot be modern. The Chinese mind fundamentally cannot be modern.