Bluntness is not Honesty. Are "straight-talkers" wiping billions from the Western economy?

[Daozen]

I live in Asia. My experience is most Asians are more respectful in daily interaction than a lot of westerners. Simple coyyytesys like not talking over you, not giving unsolicited advice, speaking softly, not-being patronizing, not monopolizing a conversation, not bragging... the list goes on. I know I've made every mistake in that list: interrupted people, been annoying and much much more. I know I can be sandpaper abrasive and I'm working on it. Working on being less abrasive:happy dog:


I do alright interacting with the locals. Even if they don't like you, they don't show it obviously. I think that's one of the keys to decent interaction. Most expats are kind of chilled, as the tranquil culture rubs off on you. So it's always kind of a shock when I bump into entitled whitey fresh off the boat. Or read The Internet (not Avalon, mainly to Reddit) and I see waddling, sneering know-it-alls who are PROUD of being rude + abrasive. Their normal response is "I tell it like it is. I'm honest" I've seen this dozens, if not hundreds of times. It's not an isolated case.

Bluntness is not honesty. In fact, it's often a cover for deception.

There are tons of behaviors that are alright in the West which are not alright in Asia. It's not all Westerners. Most people are good. It's "only" about 10-20% of any industry or social group. But that 10-20% is enough to destroy a company, a work culture, a sales force and ultimately an economy. In 2017 I tried to set up a startup with probably the rudest "straight-talker" on the face of the Earth. The tech industry is crawling with people like that.

So be a straight talking bad boy if you want (and it is usually males). But few people will want to hire, trade with, socialize with or give money to a company, industry or economy brimming with a vocal minority of tapdancing buffons.

Is the payback for treating people like they are beneath you a dying economy?

Im not sitting here wagging my finger at people. I have a little money in the West. My parents are in London. I don't want fair Europa to go down in any way. But if we don't weed these people out of our work culture, they are going to waddle all over Europe and America.


{/RANT}

[AutumnW]

My European grandmother was not loud or abrasive, per se, but she had this habit of occassionally speaking her mind that bugged me. When she met one of my boyfriends, decades ago...the first thing she said to him was that he looked like he ate too much. She would advise me that she didn't like my haircuts. She referred to her very kind neighbour who baked cakes and cookies for her as, "that fat woman down the street!"

I had an elderly friend who came from Holland who was the same only worse and wonder if it's a Northern European, older generation thing?

I know the stereotype is American loud mouth schnooks but it seems that if it's the case, it may have come by way of Northern Europe, or is part of a thrill seeking temperament.

[Daozen]

Hmmm, interesting... Was she a Sagittarius? It is the most exotic of zodiac signs but they have a tendency to fire burning arrows without thinking. I did not mention any country by name, and if there was a specific region infested with insincere, patronizing buffoons who talk down to everyone... I for sure would not know where that is.

We can all be morons at times. The big difference is when someone pulls you up on your behavior, do you go "Öh yeah I'm sorry o this is embarrassing I know I can be an idiot at times I won't do it again."or do you say: "Yup that's me honest to goodness call em like I sees em straight talker keeping it real"

And then the next line:

If you can't take it get outta here.

So.... everyone did. And now they trade with each other. I build software part time. I've hired 20-30 Indian developers over the past 3 years. 80 percent of them have been awesome to work with. My experience with programmer-denizens of one particular country has been bad. Really bad. So yeah, act like a badass at a party if you want, but there are economic consequences for being irritating. When I see particular flags on Freelancer sites I just don't even click. Why should I play those odds?

The English have a terrible reputation in Southern Spain. It is well deserved. Likewise, other countries are famously tough to work with. It's not just me, that opinion is widely held in many many circles and industries. Economic consequences.

[Bill Ryan]

A VERY interesting recent post here (from Hervé) about how the Inuit raise their children, and how they're always super-patient with one another and never express anger.

Fascinating, and highly recommended. Do take a look. :flower:


http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?89230-When-Vested-Interests-Take-Education-over...&p=1280991&viewfull=1#post1280991

[Mike Gorman]

This is a complex topic, one that is further complicated by cultural conventions, and different ideas about etiquette.
Personally, I prefer someone to be up-front with me, and to speak the truth, this has to be tempered with mercy, I dislike self indulgent rudeness also.
It is a cultural cadence, I find a lot of the Asian conventions somewhat hypocritical, and two-faced, they can result in gossip and talking about people in two ways, one way when you are with them, and the other way when you speak of them with others.

The western tendency to speak 'bluntly' as you call it, is a refreshing honesty.
What would you rather, that I pretend to like you, and speak sweetly at you, then trash your name with others - or to let you know right away I dislike you?
I don't think there is a correct answer to this, but diplomacy and courtesy are designed to lubricate social intercourse, I think there is a good balance between social hypocrisy, and clumsy communication. But what is it?

[Bubu]

"Bluntness is not Honesty. Are "straight-talkers" wiping billions from the Western economy?"

I dont know, But they said "dont take anything personal"

[Bubu]

A VERY interesting recent post here (from Hervé) about how the Inuit raise their children, and how they're always super-patient with one another and never express anger.

Fascinating, and highly recommended. Do take a look. :flower:


http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?89230-When-Vested-Interests-Take-Education-over...&p=1280991&viewfull=1#post1280991


Thanks Bill, beautiful, I seemed to not pay attention to this one. However the title is wrong. It should be "How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger".... " How Inuit parents teach kids to not be anger " The first denote the presence of anger the second denote the absence of anger. Its opposites

[Daozen]

What would you rather, that I pretend to like you, and speak sweetly at you, then trash your name with others - or to let you know right away I dislike you?
I don't think there is a correct answer to this, but diplomacy and courtesy are designed to lubricate social intercourse, I think there is a good balance between social hypocrisy, and clumsy communication. But what is it?

You brought up the crux of the matter Mike and laid it out in a way I could get my head around. Yes, it is a complex topic. In my experience, Ozzies, Saffies and Kiwis tend to blunt, and kind of proud of it. But is that self-congratulation serving them well? ... Suicide is the leading cause of death among Ozzie males. Maybe that antipodean in your face "honesty" is not serving that society well. If it's so good down there, and their macho honesty is so refreshing... why are so many young Australian males killing themselves? Just keepin it real, mate.

What would you rather, that I pretend to like you, and speak sweetly at you, then trash your name with others - or to let you know right away I dislike you?

You only gave me two choices. There's a third option. The honest diplomat.

Yes, Asians can be two faced... it's not perfect here by a long way.

So what is the solution???

Daozen walks into the room wearing a ****ty shirt and a terrible crewcut.

Hey! Like my new shirt? Got a new haircut today.

Dishonest: Oh Daozen, I like your shirt. Great haircut. Makes you look so masculine. <<< That guy is a sugary greaseball.
Blunt: ****ty shirt Daozen, get a new one, mate. <<< That guy is a sneering social buffoon with no soft skills.
The honest diplomat: Uhh, not the best shirt I've ever seen mate, no offence. And you can grow that hair out in a couple of months. You look like you just got out of jail hahaha. <<< This guy has mixed East and West into a clear, sweet and sour Elixir.

That's my solution to the riddle of the tongue. But I agree, it's tough.

[happyuk]

Great topic Daozen. Bill's pointer to how the Inuit raise their children is very informative. It's like they mould their children's wirings at an early age to ensure they become civilized yet effective human beings. Yes, many confuse crude hurtfulness with truthfulness, they are not the same.

Concerning AutumnW's observations about her belligerent grandmother, there's no question many of an advanced age still carry around the negative behavior patterns of their youth, without ever overcoming them or outgrowing them. Once you reach middle age, and still have these self-destructive qualities, you are pretty much stuck with sadly. I see this ALL the time.

But the proclivity to show off and lord it over others - is necessarily a western thing? I see it as more of a psychological issue than a cultural / tribal one.

Slightly off-topic, but still to do with the issue of arrested development, is in my opinion one of Jordan Peterson's most important talks, the issue of Peter Pan syndrome:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjfClL6nogo

[Agape]

It may be the very reason why ET( and other extraordinary) disclosure happens in America first but stagnates in Asia and takes ages to get through Europe.
It all despite the fact that there are countless sightings and people with spiritual, ET and other extraordinary experiences in many if not most Asian cultures but also people are generally believers in Life in the Universe
since or unless they were not strictly indoctrinated by geocentric creationism( that is common part of Judeo-Christian teachings “for public”).

In India for example 89% people in public surveys responded positively when asked whether they believe in “Life in the Universe” and whether we are being visited.

The awareness of it is very subtle almost negotiable otherwise but deeply rooted both in scriptures, legends and oral and recorded versions of history.

The whole point there is that knowledge of other dimensions and beings “behind the veil” and expressed metaphorically in subtle terms so very few people speak about their subtle experiences other than to their spiritual teachers or close friends, for example.

To speak about anything tangibly extraterrestrial or too extraordinary in open is blunt.

I’ve stumbled upon this long ago and when I first wanted to make written record or open my mouth about our common extraterrestrial heritage and ancestry in Stars and events I saw in my own eyes.
Even though I felt it’s ethically important and crucial to share that information and my duty to make it available it felt exactly “blunt” to mention any of it,
especially in Asia and later in Europe.

I’ve destroyed attempts for first, second and third notes ..though I seldom take any notes anyway.

The only meaningful communication I made about it and way I’ve got forwards was on ufocasebook forum that is run by researchers based in the US.

If it was not for English - American mentality being so open as blunt and cracking through so many tabus, lots of various disclosures and discoveries would probably never happen and if they happened they’d be kept under cover.

Most of this knowledge is kept under cover by militaries worldwide which includes Asian countries. Sometimes people ask here why don’t we hear from them. The answer sort of ..defines itself.


Being blunt hurts yes. It has definitely its downsides. But sometimes it’s outright necessary.
For example, doctor should be rather straight with their patients, I believe instead telling them nice stories or, keeping knowledge away from them.
In case of emergency it’s better to be open and share an uncomfy truth, such as “kids, there’s earthquake coming and we need to move on” instead telling them we all dress up nicely and drive to see movies.

I’m not one person who like being blunt but there’s a lesson to learn about it. I guess ..



:happy dog:

[Praxis]

Am I the only one that is taking issues with Daozen overly simplistic view of "Asians"

Lets start with: Where are living exactly?

Asia is kind of a big place. And to say that Kazakhstanis, Persians, which are technically Asians, Bangladeshi, and Japanese can be all spoken about with the term Asian is painting with way too broad of a brush for my tastes.

Many of those things you talked about are actually linked to their native language. There is something called WAIT TIME in linguistics talking about when people jump in.


I have lived in South Korea, Busan for a year and then spent three years in Japan, Kobe most recently.

I found Japanese people to all be polite, same with Koreans but they are more outgoing and expressive. But you should note that polite does not mean nice. One can be polite without being nice or respectful.


So they would not confront me directly ever.

Lets take a work example. I was a lecturer at a University. My contract stated nothing about hours to be on campus. I would complete my work and be there for office hours, which almost no student ever used, and do my grading but then I would go home if I had nothing more for the day. One day, a person that worked for the department was talking to me about something and kind of casually brought up the idea that I should be staying until the end of the day. This was technically a subordinate to me as I was a full time lecturer and she was part time. She was told to do this by my boss in the department who did not want to have to confront directly.

This is all about saving face.

Or on the train, you would see loud groups of people, native or foreign, and you could tell other people on the train were not happy about it but were too polite to be confrontational.

Then again I have had a chinese student while working in America directly tell me that If I so wished he could arrange for a booty call with one of the chinese girls, in a mafioso type a way.

I imagine if a Chinese person came in here and started saying "All whites are _______________________" ya ll would take issues with it right quick.

[Savannah]

I was raised in New York and apparently we are considered rude loud mouths. I went to grad school in CA and then returned to NY. I had a very difficult time getting along with people there. I live in CA now and gravitate to people from the East.

I lived in Hawaii for 8 years, a state primarily populated by Asians and Pacific Islanders. I also didn’t get along with them at all, unless they were raised in the eastern US. It’s only on Avalon or to close friends I can talk about this given our recent war on PC speech.

Asian’s socially presented as quite, docile, kind, and polite all that you mentioned but it’s partly a façade. I was actually offended, even disgusted when women would giggle or laugh when they were angry, unhappy or fearful of something. Grown women acting like helpless little girls was counter to my strong women’s lib orientation of the 70s-80s that I grew up in. To me they were Passive Aggressive, they got just as angry, upset, or hostile anyone else, but learned social controls to deceive and not show it. They are not Zen on the inside. My Asian neighbor who presented with all those wonderful qualities went into my back yard and cut down a small tree in my yard because it was slightly blocking his view of the ocean! I was renting, he owned, to him I was trash, not even worth the time ask if I would remove it or I was ok with it.

Easterners when they chose to be, when they think it’s called for are openly aggressive and straight forward, with a take it or leave it approach. They do not perceive this as rude because honesty, a display of real feelings is to them a valued gift and an appropriate way to interact. Sorry folks but I’ll take Trump over Hirono in a heartbeat.

[Daozen]

Agape, thanks. Some good points. I'll get back to you later this week.

*

Thank you for your points and stories Praxis... I know the term Asian is overly simplistic... I have experience of 6 or 7 Asian countries.

I imagine if a Chinese person came in here and started saying "All whites are _______________________" ya ll would take issues with it right quick.

I didn't say it was all Westerners or all Asians. I said, "most Asians" + "not all Westerners." So you are over-simplifying my post and wrestling strawmen.

Most Asians have better soft skills than a lot of Westerners. This is my experience. Yes, the politeness can sometimes mask all sorts of evil, I know that. My intent is not to put Asians on a pedestal. Just to highlight the importance of soft skills in business. Lack of them can destroy a workplace, business or economy. We see that happening in the West.

If you:

- Go to a restaurant
- Hire a programmer
- Look for a factory to build a product.
- Do business with a bank...
- Go to a supermarket.

... or any other financial transaction... you are going to want to deal with someone who acts with inherent respect for your humanness. Even if that respect is a mask. That's what politeness is... superficially respecting people we may not even like. If you're going to state an uncomfortable truth, use the sandwich method.

Open with a softener, state 'truth', end the statement pointing the way forward. It isn't hard.

No one's going to spend money at a place where the people have poor soft skills. No one's gonna hire an abrasive douche. In my view, many (not all) Westerners are a little abrasive.

Every one screws up sometimes. But here's the big difference. If someone picks you up on being rude, do you go "oh sorry" or do you launch into the "Im a straight talker" defence. We're talking economics and the marketplace here. Money, capital and profit. Not sitting round a pub table with friends, where the rules are different.

The price for having poor soft skills --- and being smug about it --- is a bad career, under-performing marketplace and ultimately a shattered economy.

[thepainterdoug]

I did the EST seminars, Erhard seminar training in to 1970,ies.. Many people railed on this, but I ,as I always do, absorbed the good and carried it with me. As humans we are all guilty of the above in the OP from time to time.

Werner had a line I always liked." Be interested , not interesting" even if you need to fake it for a while, it becomes duly noted and rewarding.

[Mike]

we all know about "white lies", but i've recently been introduced to this concept of "black truths".

a black truth is something that is technically true, but isn't meant to be helpful in any way, and actually is often intended as harmful. an example of this might be loudly telling someone how bad their haircut looks in front of a group of people or someone they're romantically interested in. something like that. or letting someone know, despite all their efforts, that they're utterly awful at golf and should give it up immediately...and not only that, you're much better.

if you're getting your rocks off by telling someone something hurtful, or getting an ego boost out of it (even though it may be technically true) it might be considered a "black truth".

you can see these people from a mile away. we've had them on the forum (i'm thinking of one in particular as i write this;)). they often profess to "tell it like it is", but in reality they've just found a handy excuse to act like enormous *****.

i have a friend who prides himself on his honesty. and that just might be the first sign of someone who is driven by ego and not magnanimity, i.e. a "black truther". ive watched him for years, and i wouldn't really call him honest - obnoxiously blunt might be more accurate. he's very good at pointing out others' faults, but when the microscope is turned back onto him he can't take it, and gets very defensive. i would define him as a hypocrite long before i'd define him as honest.

communication is an art! as Daozan rightly pointed out, there are often more than 2 options when in a situation that calls for one's opinion on something that might be hurtful to someone. get creative for crying out loud!:) the problem is we've got a world full of f#cking cavemen who don't read or write or think very deeply on things, and when it comes to a situation that requires a little communicative nuance, they fall back onto the intellectually lazy and convenient mantra: "i tell it like it is!" it's the battle cry of the idiot.

there is a time and a place for directness, of course. the level of directness i have with my lifelong friends isn't the level i'd apply to everyone. so these are 2 more variables: timing, and who you happen to be talking to.

but, a reasonable balance can be struck with almost everyone, i think. mike had brought up this point and it's a good one, and my answer might be, you just sort of know in your heart when you're hitting the right notes with someone. a conversation requires constant subtle adjustments, and if you make them or at least try, honesty can be conveyed without clubbing someone over the head with "bluntness". try humor, for example. it goes a long way man!

[Praxis]

I want to point out that the best service I have ever had on a consistent basis was in Japan.

They know how to do service industry. After I got back home, It was such a sharp contrast that it was jarring and you have to tip here too!

What you are calling soft skills is very true in my experience in Japan. Just wow, Amazing service.

I dont like disney type places but went to Universal Studios Japan and had a wonderful time mainly because the service.

I cant stress enough how awesome the service generally is in Japan. Literally, the train people issue a public apology for being a minute late.

Japan service is like if Singapore Air built a country.

[Agape]

Thank you Daozen 🙏🌟🙏

On the topic of Inuit and other children, I’d like to add the following..again, there are many pros and cons to every culture on Earth.
From what I’ve seen and experienced in Asia for example, children are always treated very kindly till they’re mature enough to display adult emotions.
With exception of mentally sick-abusive- parents you don’t see Indian or other cultured Asian parents getting angry with young kids, beating them or yelling at them. If they shout they make sure the child understands it’s because they worry too much and there’s danger on the road. They tease them, laugh at them, even poke them gently but never treat them with the level of brute sadistic anger some parents exercise with their children in the West.
As a result, Asian children are generally very happy and stress free and don’t fail to socialise in young age.

Perhaps they hang on their parents too much and have greater respect and love for them ever in their lives, well unless or till their attitude changes for some reason, later.

In Western cultures, young children are often treated as “little adults” and hurt emotionally at young age or say, confronted with emotions they can’t handle.
I think it’s true for all of us no matter the age; if we are confronted with strong emotion we can’t handle we tend to develop irrational reactions.

It takes advanced psychological training to learn about certain type of strong emotional reactions in others and ourselves.

Anger is mostly, irrational reaction to complex problem we can’t resolve.

One has to experience many emotions and learn about their causes ( and sometimes, consequences) rather than suppressing them.

So no matter what manners do my friends of various origins embrace, I always try to give them an ear and time in real life so they can talk themselves out. Sometimes, just listening to people helps them to sort themselves out.
Offering perspectives comes after.


But one of the mistakes I found with some old cultures, including European cultures is that in certain families they’d put a face on instead sharing how they feel in reality.
People then tried holding and holding for ages and suppressing their feelings ..till they could not hold anymore and left without saying sorry or broke to conflict.


Oh ..on a funny note...I remember my Japanese friend telling me “I really like your ballerina hairdo but you should keep it smooth and straight:)”
I thought ..grr... are you sure that’s going to work with me ?

But of course, he was quite right. No “Western boy” would ever care to advise me that way.
West too has its ways of deception. While some Asians can be blatantly honest.


:ROFL:

[onawah]

I've gone through stages re expressing myself honestly and sensitively.
I had lots of religious programming growing up--"judge not lest ye be judged", "turn the other cheek" etc.
When I got to be a rebellious teenager, I learned the value of not suppressing my emotions, but also that it was a balancing act.
For women generally, who are conditioned from childhood not to put themselves forward, to be subservient, passive, etc. the real challenge is often to learn how to speak their truth, and sometimes even just to know what their truth really is.
Confrontation can be done in a loving, compassionate way, but it all depends on what your intention is.
You can tell someone something that is not going to be comfortable for them to hear in a way that shows them you are understanding and trying to be helpful, or in a way that shows them you are coming from ego, from feeling superior, from being judgemental, etc..
The results will often depend largely on how you go about it, unless the person is just not open, in which case better just not to comment at all.

[Hym]

Savannah, I come from the same experience but from a west coast, Calif., view. I may not even agree with someone who is honest, but I appreciate the honesty more than the false getting along that leaves the passion, which should be used for working out differences, for talking negatively when we're not there.

The very different state I live in now is filled with a world's full of drama queen men whose company I out front, to their faces, refuse to engage, even more so because I'm a man. My ability to not be offended by the jerks and manipulators in an intense work environment, also and notably so inhabited by some real good humans, has not overcome my common sense to choose other incomes, which is my present life.

A lot of b.s., dishonesty, is cultivated in a mixture of work environments, the politics of finance, deep social manipulations through entertainment and religion, as well as within the unions that don't come anywhere near their charter or expressed intent, being run by greedy psychopaths and their excremental offspring.

Healing and humanity take a while to change and even after removing the psychopath, the vestiges of those entrails still inhabit those in hiring positions. Good luck with that sh**, but I don't get paid while sick working environments slumber along in their healing process.

The mix I have was being in an overly large family where we often talked and listened at the same time, which no one took personally. This intense form of communicating is both good and challenging to others who we engage us in conversation.

Of course there are/were very different personalities, but the common logistics of constantly being in a large social group seem to make our choices for us when we "choose" where we want to live. Tho I haven't been to NY I would probably fit in because of this attribute formed in my youth. Honesty is profound to me and it has it's levels that I think are important to being who we are, without regrets.

I am not surprised that, even without any east coast accent, some from the area think I am from there and have just lost my accent.

[Denise/Dizi]

I think it all comes down to personal responsibility.... You cannot use your childhood for your behaviors as an adult if you're AWARE and fully capable of changing those behaviors...

I suppose every situation has it's own set of boundaries and definitions. As we all are unique, even from home to home in any given region.. When I experience someone, and I can't get a "Fix" on them, I'll ask someone else what I am missing. If they seemingly have NO filters, I try to figure out ways to deal with them, that I can be agreeable with.

It all depends on how much energy you're willing to put into each personal relationship. The truth is, I care how people see me.. and as such, I tend to put more effort into interpersonal relationships. Not to change others, but so they see me in the way I feel I present myself, in a kind and loving way. If that means I have to "Figure them out" I do try to.

[Daozen]

Outstanding Mike! And lots of interesting replies from everyone else. I still stand by what I wrote, but you have all made me think deeply about subtle aspects of the problem.

Now I must tidy my room.

Back later.

[Savannah]

"but, a reasonable balance can be struck with almost everyone, i think. mike had brought up this point and it's a good one, and my answer might be, you just sort of know in your heart when you're hitting the right notes with someone. a conversation requires constant subtle adjustments, and if you make them or at least try, honesty can be conveyed without clubbing someone over the head with "bluntness". try humor, for example. it goes a long way man!"

Yes Mike but there is a cultural difference that influences what one perceives that balance to be and even if humor is called for. All cultures have people with poor social skills, and are perceived as inappropriate even in their culture.

In the history that we remember, we have never had the ability to travel and live in other countries with the ease that we have now. We can see what binging thousands of immigrants into any country can bring instability. I think humans are creatures of habit and while the far away destinations are exciting and have appeal they are also foreign and very uncomfortable at times. A vacation is different from living there.

I think the controllers see that and thus in the effort toward the one world government they are trying to push a global standard of behavior, religion, governance etc. Loss of cultural identity is important to have that happen. It's a hard one because we tend to value and argue for what we grew up in.

[Mike]

"but, a reasonable balance can be struck with almost everyone, i think. mike had brought up this point and it's a good one, and my answer might be, you just sort of know in your heart when you're hitting the right notes with someone. a conversation requires constant subtle adjustments, and if you make them or at least try, honesty can be conveyed without clubbing someone over the head with "bluntness". try humor, for example. it goes a long way man!"

Yes Mike but there is a cultural difference that influences what one perceives that balance to be and even if humor is called for. All cultures have people with poor social skills, and are perceived as inappropriate even in their culture.

In the history that we remember, we have never had the ability to travel and live in other countries with the ease that we have now. We can see what binging thousands of immigrants into any country can bring instability. I think humans are creatures of habit and while the far away destinations are exciting and have appeal they are also foreign and very uncomfortable at times. A vacation is different from living there.

I think the controllers see that and thus in the effort toward the one world government they are trying to push a global standard of behavior, religion, governance etc. Loss of cultural identity is important to have that happen. It's a hard one because we tend to value and argue for what we grew up in.



hi Savannah, i wouldn't dispute any of that:)

striking a balance between directness and humor (or any other technique that might soften a blow a little) is something that always has to be recalibrated according to person and/or circumstance. the same formula won't work every time.

listening and observing body language are all part of the art of communication. and if one is perceptive enough, detecting personality types can occur pretty quickly, and adjustments can be made from there. and if traveling to another country, it would certainly be prudent (and courteous) to learn some of their customs to avoid any awkward situations!;)

as far as the extreme example of the influx of immigrants and so forth, in my opinion it's on the immigrants to do most of the adjusting as far as culture is concerned. that's just basic self-awareness. for instance, it might be pretty obnoxious if a couple non-smokers/non-drinkers arrived at a party of 5000 drinkers and smokers, and upon arriving shouted into a bullhorn: "right, there'll be no drinking or smoking while we're here!"

one of the major issues i see with people is their stubborn resistance to bend a little at the appropriate times.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

I live in Asia. My experience is most Asians are more respectful in daily interaction than a lot of westerners.

I get what you are saying, and agree that East Asians are generally more polite (though I have known several very blunt and even rude Chinese), but there is no single "western" culture in this respect.

For example, many Southerners in the US despise Yankee culture for exactly what you describe. Traditional Southern culture in many areas, like many areas of Asia, also values understatement and a similar "less is more" attitude, in stark contrast to our stereotypically braggadocious urban-dwelling neighbors to the north. Europe, I'm sure, also varies greatly from region to region.

[Daozen]

Yes good points, Voice. I just generalized with "The West" because I didn't feel like trawling one particular country over the coals. I agree that some Chinese have recently become more cocky and rude. All that cash has gone to their heads. The Southern Chinese, like southern Americans, are more laid back then Northerners. More on that later. You get the eternal North vs South "you guys are too blunt", "well you guys are two faced hypocrites" culture war that goes on in many countries. Is there a third way? How about a synthesis of the best of both worlds?

In short, it's kind of hard to present these ideas. I don't want to be too general, nor too specific. I think it's very healthy to call out entire countries or cities. I was born in London. In the early days of the internet, London + Hong Kong came top or near top of "most unfriendly cities in the world." I guess a lot of people must have read that, because Londoners + Hong Kongers are more friendly nowadays.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/sandals/article-2671062/London-voted-second-friendly-city-world-Paris-ranks-worse.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/london-least-friendly-city-uk-britain-survey-happiness-area-upkeep-gossip-a7620281.html

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Is there a third way? How about a synthesis of the best of both worlds?

Decentralization and respect for true diversity of culture by letting state and local governments govern and protect their own residents, rather than some communist dictator cram his/her personal opinions equally down everyone's throats against their will, and treating the entire world as their personal playground to relocate populations and cultures en masse. That would be a good start.

That was the founders' solution and has been fairly successful. No modern government of any major country has lasted as long as the US Constitution. 230 years and counting. China has had how many governments since then? At least three that I can remember.

The Northern and Southern states had serious disagreements from the beginning. That's why the Constitution was originally designed with a very weak federal government. Imperialism was never supposed to be on the American menu of policy choices, precisely because groups of people are so different from one another.

[shaberon]

I think it is ok to generalize, and a lot of stereotypes are fine, because they're accurate. So it doesn't matter to say something like "most Asians" since hopefully most readers understand it's more complex.

What he is saying is true in two ways because of the general Asian difference, and also a small minority particularly in leadership of a company, can blow it for everyone.

I personally bowed down to this difference when I was a teenager and have personally grown with it, while it is more or less utter conflict with daily life. What's even worse is that if it were to come up in any way in conversation, a bunch of westerners are just going to disregard them as something like mindless communist robots. Or they will harp on the fact of savage minorities and let that spoil it for everyone.

I am not really a fan of the Chinese government, but of the internal culture related to monarchy. It's confusing to me why someone would not be.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

I am not really a fan of the Chinese government, but of the internal culture related to monarchy. It's confusing to me why someone would not be.

Internal culture of monarchy? Are you talking about the traditional culture that the Chinese have preserved of earlier monarchies?

I don't know much about traditional forms of Chinese monarchy, but "soft" monarchies are often very similar to republics and I'm not particularly against that form of government either. The English form of monarchy after the Magna Carta put checks and balances on the king, even extending down to the people in courts with juries of peers, who could void a king's prosecution. So it wasn't a blank check for power, and still allowed for representation in Parliament.

Today, by contrast, the English monarch is supposedly just a figurehead, but appears to continue to rule as the head of various medieval orders and secret societies, while creating the illusion of being detached from politics. Common Brits arguably have less rights than ever. If they still burned people at the stake, you'd be seeing it today just for asserting that there are only two biological genders. It's crazy.

That kind of example provides a counterbalance to the theme of this thread, because those who appear humble and polite (such as modern royal families) can also serve as a cover for deception, as Daozen puts it, just the same as "honest bluntness."

[Daozen]

Who needs to burn people at the stake when we do it ourselves with WiFi?

[Agape]

Good luck this isn’t Wei-Bo. Good luck all the great cray computers aren’t working properly quite yet neither Jeffs AI is working.

Oh monarchy, so obsolete, so outcast. The Fullmoon’s shining brightly so let’s not be blunt.




For American readers: this post can’t be read as serious. Thank you.

:coffee:

[shaberon]

Internal culture of monarchy? Are you talking about the traditional culture that the Chinese have preserved of earlier monarchies?



More or less. I would say there is a standard of a "Good King" that involves the monarch continually re-qualifying for their reign.

In India, this used to require a Jubilee in order for them to take the throne. I am not sure about China. This standard is part of the "secret knowledge" hidden in the Bible that was inspirational to European monarchs, although they largely quit following it. I believe it was also coded into one of the early American flags or something like that.

Generally a monarch is closely supervised by one or more advisors, as, I could say, the Ming Empire was by my (spiritual) great-great-....-grandfather's assistants. This is the one that kicked out Europeans and said we don't need your clockmaker technology. We also don't need to take over the world, because it will come to us. Nevertheless, I feel that they still received certain forms of abuse, such as the Opium War. And, here we are today.

On the European side the most successful monarch was Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who managed the longest peace Europe had seen while dealing with at least ten ethnicities that did not necessarily like each other.

One could also look in Italy to find that Garibaldi fought to restore the Bourbon monarch Victor Immanuel. Lincoln later offered him command of the Union Army and Garibaldi told him to buzz off. Then put that together, with why, Honest Abe was maybe not such a Good King, or maybe he wanted to be, but, was perhaps listening to the wrong kind of advisor. Despite some of his things that sound good, in many ways, he can be found as one of the worst presidents ever, exceeded perhaps only by his successor, the guy who took what would have been Garibaldi's job.

Redshirts were allowed into the U. S. in unlimited numbers as "political dissidents" for sixty years or so, until new policies from Ivy League universities decided that "Meds" or Mediterranean people in general were unfit, revived the ancient Greek words "moron", "imbecile", and "idiot", and created genocidal Eugenics as we know it, happily followed, by, for example, Sweden. Now Italy's just a boot on the foot of Uncle Sam. Burning at the stake was most heavily practiced in Protestant Germany and Sweden.

In the event of a "Bad King", no one can help you except the Redshirts, Tong, Lotus, Mafia, etc., the people have a right to revolt or utilize these extreme means, or, this, at least, is general information about Chinese monarchy. It is also a general fact that in many places these societies continue to exercise more effective influence than government.

I believe there is a consensus about "Lincoln's Empire" which is really transnational and built on British offshore tax havens. Not many of us seem to like it, but who escapes its clutches?

It's complicated, I am just generalizing about a standard that has been attempted to be applied in Asia for a long time, and, in the west, not so much. "The Crown" appears to be a wealthy multi-national sovereign, unfortunately seeming to collaborate with various deceptions. From what I can tell, this practice involves the reduction of man to a beast, based on things like separating families and intentionally stressing workers.

As one odd detail, Tsar Alexander II and Queen Victoria were in love and would have married and none of this would have ever happened. But their parents wouldn't hear of it.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

One could also look in Italy to find that Garibaldi fought to restore the Bourbon monarch Victor Immanuel. Lincoln later offered him command of the Union Army and Garibaldi told him to buzz off. Then put that together, with why, Honest Abe was maybe not such a Good King, or maybe he wanted to be, but, was perhaps listening to the wrong kind of advisor.

For what it's worth (and maybe this is slightly off-topic), Adolf Hitler was a fan of "honest" Abraham Lincoln. (When any politician has the nickname of "honest" you already know they're a hypocrite on top of a liar.)

If the real reason for the Civil War was to free African Americans from slavery, as government-run public schools teach us here from a young age, and Hitler was a white supremacist who hated blacks, then why Hitler's admiration for Lincoln?

Here is a quote from Mein Kampf (from Lew Rockwell (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2002/05/thomas-dilorenzo/hitler-was-a-lincolnite/)):


"[T]he individual states of the American Union . . . could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own. For it was not these states that formed the Union, on the contrary it was the Union which formed a great part of such so-called states."

In other words, just as Hitler sought to politically unify all German-speaking peoples of Europe, and just as the EU seeks to politically unify all individual nation-states of Europe into an imperial conglomerate state, Hitler admired Lincoln for similarly unifying otherwise independent and sovereign American states into an imperial empire headquartered in Washington DC.

Hitler obviously had no great understanding of American history, or how these separate states came to exist independently from one another in the first place, let alone the terms of their agreement when they entered into the compact known as the US Constitution.

States' rights became subservient to national federal power under Lincoln, and Hitler understood that and admired it, as he had similar ambitions for the German states and Austria. Hitler sought to unite all German peoples under one decisive ruler, and Lincoln sought to do the same with the United States and the federal presidency.

The reason Lincoln couldn't keep any good generals is because they also understood what was happening and were reluctant to fight. McClellan seems to have hated Lincoln and had no stomach for fighting his own countrymen just to create an American empire. Lee turned down command and left the army to fight for his home country of Virginia, not the United States. The United States were referred to in the plural before the Civil War, but in the singular (ie, "United States is..." as opposed to "The United States are...") only after the Civil War. Jeffersonian democracy was dismantled after the war and replaced with a form of imperialism on the North American continent.

Maybe this gives a clue as to why some conservative European military leaders would also disdain "honest Abe" and his dictatorial tendencies. Lincoln was also responsible for the largest summary execution of Native Americans in our history (without trial), stacked the Supreme Court with 10 justices, wanted to deport all African Americans to Liberia, physically destroyed printing presses that published papers he didn't like, etc. etc. But they don't teach all of that in public schools, of course, which receive federal funding.


In the event of a "Bad King", no one can help you except the Redshirts, Tong, Lotus, Mafia, etc., the people have a right to revolt or utilize these extreme means, or, this, at least, is general information about Chinese monarchy. It is also a general fact that in many places these societies continue to exercise more effective influence than government.

That's very interesting, and also much more align with English-style monarchy or republicanism than the Chinese get credit for. I know that China is regionally divided into very different cultures, even different languages. It is a shame that they too have domestically come under such totalitarian national policies.

[shaberon]

If the real reason for the Civil War was to free African Americans from slavery, as government-run public schools teach us here from a young age, and Hitler was a white supremacist who hated blacks, then why Hitler's admiration for Lincoln?



It never was the reason, which is why Garibaldi refused to participate. The reason was to preserve Empire. The outcome for the U. S. was a ton of carpetbagging, and the 1871 act which technically said that a freed slave was a whole person; but, in court, it was used to protect such an individual one time, and then corporations seized it by legally defining a corporation as a person. Sort of a reprisal for the British defeat in 1812 which was a military attempt to continue the central bank.

After that were the British machinations against Germany, which did not exist until 1871, and as soon as it unified, it was an economic threat to Britain. That is why they paved it and its sits now as another sock puppet. I believe Britain can also be credited with the first aggression against Japan, which was a type of false flag against a ship in Singapore, and anyway, Japan was resisting a fuel blockade, which itself is an act of war.

Those were some good rips on Lincoln. Print them on a five dollar bill.

China has had many of these things happen all over the place, it would take a long time to learn them all. In recent times, the nationalists of Sun Yat Sen were the ones who wanted to scrub away the post-Ming European return. I haven't studied the origins and success of Mao very much, but, I'm pretty sure it's more of the same British-Swiss communism that became the Bolsheviks, a foreign parasite wherever it is found. This gets to the question of how much gold really belongs to these old monarchies, and where did it go. Lots of skullduggery around this, but it probably is a valid question.

You see the New Silk Road coming in, and most everything we think we know about ancient cultures and conflicts came from the original Silk Road. The much-maligned Khazarians in all likelihood were peaceful, prosperous partners of it. I believe that if we take a good look at what happened around the Silk Road, we find answers for peace and normal trade of cultural things like music and food, which, I also believe, the normal peaceful populations of most countries desire. Most of them do not want war, forced immigration, spread of slavery or other crimes, etc. What I am calling "Western" is not native to Europe. It is a distorted Manicheanism threaded into Abrahamic scriptures and civilizations based from this, which, most successfully through Aristotle and Rome, invaded Europe and conquered the entire continent except for the Baltic states. Unless one is a fan of Empire, this Westernism has appeared to be a continuous source of problems, dumped back towards the East.

I love the real cultures of Europe, such as craftsmanship, however the Westernized type of mentality is a thing that does not fit among the more pure cultural traditions of the East. It is hard to explain unless one accepts it is totally different from the first second you wake up in the morning. It is also true that especially in India and Japan, people are letting the old ways go. Places that remain pretty heavily stamped by us are Bhutan and Mongolia.

One perhaps related bothersome thing we found from the poet Virgil, about Saturn's golden reign. Saturn was in fact the original chief of Latin culture while they were peaceful to Etruscans. 2-300 years later, this was wiped out when City of Rome started. This poem has been twisted around to make it look like a prophecy about Jesus. It's not, it's telling you what Saturn and peace is, which Europe has not many more examples of, besides Franz Josef. Jesus was also attacking the false Saturn written into the Abrahamic scriptures, but, he got overwritten.

I also believe one of the most important aspects to a successful Silk Road is nationalism, in other words, any of those European or Chinese cultures should retain their native language and customs. Removing that is how a trans-national parasite tends to work against you. If I might have had any kind of personal culture, it ended around the generation of anti-Federalists in the 1800s. I'm unable to find much of anything in my surroundings or system that seems to be any good, which is why I look towards the limited breakouts of peace and have an overall Eastern mentality.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

It never was the reason, which is why Garibaldi refused to participate. The reason was to preserve Empire. The outcome for the U. S. was a ton of carpetbagging, and the 1871 act which technically said that a freed slave was a whole person; but, in court, it was used to protect such an individual one time, and then corporations seized it by legally defining a corporation as a person. Sort of a reprisal for the British defeat in 1812 which was a military attempt to continue the central bank.

The former slaves had it even worse than that. People thought Kanye West was crazy for complaining about the 14th Amendment, but it made chain gangs and an industrialized prison system constitutional where the Constitution had specifically avoided the issue previously. Many former slaves were just arrested for vagrancy, put on chain gangs and made to work the same plantations, now run by Yankees. What did the Yankees do about that? Nothing. It was they who passed the 14th Amendment in the first place, as the South was put under martial law and had standing armies stationed across it.

And it gets even worse. There is a book by a history professor in Connecticut called Sick from Freedom. It documents how when the Northern armies came through the South, they burned down plantations (and even several large cities), making blacks and whites alike homeless, and they also raped and murdered many women, another fact that rarely gets taught.

The issue of homeless (or "displaced" as they said back then) black Americans was brought up to Lincoln in a peace conference near the end of the war, and Lincoln was asked what the North planned to do about it. In particular, the very young and very old were dying in large numbers because they were exposed to the elements and contracting all kinds of diseases. Lincoln's response was to tell a story about a neighbor who once turned his hogs loose during the winter to forage for roots, sometimes summarized as the "Root, hog, or die!" policy towards the displaced blacks.

In the end, the author of Sick from Freedom estimates that up to 1 million black people died between 1862 and 1870 from exposure to the elements, starvation, and disease. That was about 25% of the total population of blacks in the South at that time, who died directly as a result of Northern policy and aggression toward civilian homes.

It was a war of conquest pure and simple. Slavery was a sin, but it was becoming obsolete for economic reasons anyway, and Brazil and Mexico both abolished slavery soon after without bloodshed. In fact, the United States was the only major country to ostensibly require a war to abolish slavery. War of conquest, for all of the political reasons I brought up in the other post above.


After that were the British machinations against Germany, which did not exist until 1871, and as soon as it unified, it was an economic threat to Britain. That is why they paved it and its sits now as another sock puppet. I believe Britain can also be credited with the first aggression against Japan, which was a type of false flag against a ship in Singapore, and anyway, Japan was resisting a fuel blockade, which itself is an act of war.

The United States was blocking supplies from imperial Japan during the 1930s too, and also raiding Japan in Chinese-looking planes, from mainland China, but Japan knew who was actually behind it. Japan, for their part, claims that they went to war in WW2 in order to remove European colonizers from their region of Asia. The current Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, belongs to a group which holds to this interpretation of the war, and it seems reasonable enough to me. Even if Japan took the place of the European colonizers, they had no more or less right to it than the Europeans did in the first place.


I haven't studied the origins and success of Mao very much, but, I'm pretty sure it's more of the same British-Swiss communism that became the Bolsheviks, a foreign parasite wherever it is found. This gets to the question of how much gold really belongs to these old monarchies, and where did it go. Lots of skullduggery around this, but it probably is a valid question.

I'm sure all of that info could fill many volumes, and has probably never been translated into English, either. But even what little you have posted here is pretty illuminating. I do vaguely remember having to briefly study the history of China, but probably for the reasons you mention, they didn't go into much depth about it. Rebellions against rulers was common though, and I do remember that much of it.


What I am calling "Western" is not native to Europe. It is a distorted Manicheanism threaded into Abrahamic scriptures and civilizations based from this, which, most successfully through Aristotle and Rome, invaded Europe and conquered the entire continent except for the Baltic states. Unless one is a fan of Empire, this Westernism has appeared to be a continuous source of problems, dumped back towards the East.

It's interesting you mention the Manichees and the Baltic States, because I've come to similar conclusions about them. You probably already know this, but pre-Christian culture is still strongest in those three states. Their languages retain many archaic forms that resemble Indo-European predecessors much more than other European languages today. It seems rather easy to draw comparisons between the Baltic languages, and not only Latin, but Sanskrit as well.

St. Augustine was a huge influence on Roman Catholic theology and barely disguised his Manichaeism, which he admittedly participated in earlier in his life before his "conversion." I recommend you look at the work of Jean Hardouin if you've never heard of him before. He has some important things to say about Augustine and other early church fathers, specifically relating to the church's infiltration by imposters who began forging texts and attributing them to well-known figures for the purposes of subverting an earlier form of the religion (ie something very close to Catharism/paganism). You can find his work in English translation here. (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015015383212;view=1up;seq=1)


One perhaps related bothersome thing we found from the poet Virgil, about Saturn's golden reign. Saturn was in fact the original chief of Latin culture while they were peaceful to Etruscans. 2-300 years later, this was wiped out when City of Rome started. This poem has been twisted around to make it look like a prophecy about Jesus. It's not, it's telling you what Saturn and peace is, which Europe has not many more examples of, besides Franz Josef. Jesus was also attacking the false Saturn written into the Abrahamic scriptures, but, he got overwritten.

The Gauls had a Sun god whose name was never pronounced/written clearly, who incarnated into human form under the name of Hésus. These same Gauls also ceremonially charged their collective sins on a pseudo-king who they ritually sacrificed after a year of fetes on his behalf. Sound familiar? There's a French book from 1849 (http://books.google.com/books/about/%C3%89tude_sur_le_symbolisme_druidique.html) (pg. 86) that goes into all of this, though the author, perhaps wisely, avoids making the obviously comparisons to modern religious doctrine. A holy triad was also present in the Gaulish religion, as well as a ceremonial crown of thorns. It had many obvious similarities to ancient Greek and Roman practice as well, including a similar pantheon of apparently lesser deities.

To me, it looks like this form of religion survived in various forms from region to region, until the Catholic Church began rewriting everything during the Middle Ages, as Jean Hardouin wrote about around the turn of the 17th century in the text above. This is the same general time period where they whitewashed Christmas and Easter as "Christian" holidays even though their roots are obviously pagan. What they couldn't outright destroy, they just manipulated into their own purposes.


I'm unable to find much of anything in my surroundings or system that seems to be any good, which is why I look towards the limited breakouts of peace and have an overall Eastern mentality.

Fortunately, culture doesn't spring from the ground or the geography of a place so much as it is passed down from one generation to the next. Certainly you have ancestors that you have inherited a lot of culture from, as we all have, voluntarily or involuntarily, from language to general outlook and attitudes on life. I've been reading some Stoic philosophy lately and find a lot of value in that. The founding fathers here in Virginia also tended to be very deep but practical thinkers who left a complex body of thought behind from the same late 18th century context you mention. Ultimately most of us in the "West" are descendants of "Romans" (or Trojans before them, per Virgil and other evidence) and once again, everything from language to law seems to originate from them, their debates and their conflicts.

[shaberon]

The south has not forgotten Sherman's March, a pretty hefty genocidal move against people the Union claimed were its citizens.

Yes, it was bad for blacks, but British slavery started in Ireland where life was cheap. Black slaves cost around $50 and they were generally treated better because they were a commodity. Whites cost around $5 and were treated like trash because, to the British, Ireland had a lot of trash that needed to go out.

The whole thing was a mess, not exactly a Civil War, since the Confederacy did not try to take over the Union government, nor were they exterminating Northern citizens for the heck of it. It is true the British were on both sides of the conflict, instigating the south through things like B'nai Brith, so they would have their hooks in, no matter who won.

All of the European pagans were much closer to Eastern systems, being more or less the local language version of it. All of the Greek is a copy of Sanskrit. An ordinary house in Lithuania still has the Aswins on the roof. Catholics or Bible manufacturers are guilty of redaction, or of re-writing the material in a different way that suits them, so there is a "unique product" to display. India contains just about any philosophy you can think of, from theism to atheistic materialism, but it lacks some of the weird Western contrivances such as:

Sempiternity or half eternity, a doctrine which states a soul is formed at conception or birth and then lives forever, enjoying an eternal fate based on a few short earth years.

Rapture in the sense of all the dead bodies re-gaining their souls or coming to life.

Fear (of god, death, etc.).

These things are hard to scrub from the mind. And what they have also done is to take ancient terms like Elohim and Yahweh, which mean different things, and ram them together into a haggis ball where it's just the same and it is all basically unknown, and I guess that is god. In the East, Creator-worship is forbidden; in India, this would be Brahma, and many yoga practices show that his head has been severed. This is not some kind of attack, but the way of showing he has been transcended and replaced. It may not suit the many Creator-worshippers who got that idea somewhere else.

The concern I have now is that modern Asians get a dose of the "twisted" part of the English language. For instance, the Indian university system was destroyed by Islam in the 1200s. Recently, we have re-opened the one at Nalanda. The curriculum is a mix of traditional Buddhist studies, along with some decent Western material such as John Wodroffe/Arthur Avalon and Mircea Eliade, but then they also have straight foreign coursework like Economics. And so even without the use of force, elements of trickery are worming their way in. Translation of even a single word can be a major problem, let alone entire subjects based on artificial principles.

It works both ways. For instance, one of the first translations from India is a chapter from Mahabharata called:

Bhagavad Gita (God's Song)

Gita is correct for song, however, Bhavagavad is precisely not god. If you can define god. Terms like "bhagavad" have a precise meaning. Furthermore, this chapter is a quirk or aberration in the overall book, which is about someone else. It is a tale of armageddon and souls including the Aswins, and, in my estimation, of far greater value than a semester in Economics.

One example of culture not being passed along to me personally is the trade of Surveying. Used to be a father-to-son kind of thing, until my grandpa decided to scat, and within two generations, surveying is gone, although the men have inhabited every corner of the country, Alaska to Florida, New York to the Mexican border. Now if I was interested in surveying, I could go get a four-year degree specifically for it. Same with land. You can't keep trades or land, but you may buy them back from the system, if possible.

A lot of those vanished memories are not very nice. The oldest female matriarch I could find stories about, was considered so evil, she was decapitated in bed. From what I am able to tell, the old European times were extremely violent in almost every generation, and settling the new world was much more an escape for peace, than it was empire-building, in fact the opposite, judging from the Revolution, anti-Federalism, and hatred of banks. If we could wormhole 1819-->2019, this would be prominent, but nobody since then seems to have been much besides a drone worker. Whatever they fought for has been replaced by a shill.

The replacement produces things like Lincoln's Monument; our system produced Forbidden City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City)[/URL] of Beijing. Timelessly about the same as it was a thousand years before being built. Not any different from the little Lithuanian houses if you can read it.