I have been a neighbor of a Chinese family’s for almost a decade. For this reason, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to more than a dozen of them. And recently, for no apparent reason, I began to articulate: it seems to me — I may well be mistaken… — that the Chinese, as a rule, is less vain than the Westerner. Deepening my investigation, I found that in China there is not, for example, political debate. Oh, look at that! I always thought that a world without political debates would be less rough and that, summarily, every debate of ideas is, rather, a war between vanity. And ordinary Chinese feel no need to see debaters vying for intelligence, proving to the public the wisdom of their own ideas! And ordinary Chinese do not turn on the radio to hear the political commentator say, “I have the best analysis!”, or to hear the economic commentator predict, “Such a measure will fail!”. Ordinary Chinese, it seems to me, makes taking care of their own life; and China, it seems to me, is hardly going to burst into debates, controversies, seeing hatred shed anywhere one looks, with its citizens in a fight, aggressive with each other, almost killing themselves by stupid personal opinions on issues that, not enough the ignorance, they do not keep them the slightest possibility of effective action. For a moment, I find ordinary Chinese superior to the greatest of our scholars.
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