[OpenIndiana-discuss] [oi-dev] [illumos-Developer] OpenIndiana and illumos, part 2

[Christopher Chan]

On Sunday, November 21, 2010 10:19 PM, Gabriel de la Cruz wrote:
> Dear Mr Christopher Chan
>
> Different points of view, remarks, or complains of any short from person to
> person shouldn't be understood as serious faults to the honor of anyone, as
> long as we do not involve insults. In my opinion all wounds from the
> previous fire should be now cured, and I honestly don't think the current
> thread even points out to the past.

I just lost context because I treated Gary's post here as a new thread. 
I did not realize Jose was ranting about Garrett's displeasure with the 
current state of affairs. Hence why I said "what seems to be a 
sarcastic" because it, by itself, is not sarcastic but if coupled with 
the rant, it could be but I was not sure. I am sure you would have 
noticed that I was just trying to feel Jose out.


> For whatever that might have cause disturbance for you, I should apologize.
> After analyzing the situation for some time I would like to highlight the
> possibility of cultural or interdisciplinary misunderstandings in the
> back-end of the current conflict. Probably we are misunderstanding certain
> responses as more insulting than what they really are for the one expressing
> them. It is obvious that we talk the same language, but probably we are
> missing the real meaning of things. In Europe the use of irony is very
> frequent, for example French are specially difficult in that sense, they
> could spend the whole day throwing subliminal irony over you and still be
> your best friends. And yes they complain, all the time, for everything. If a
> french guy mocks at you by twisting the nicest poetry, you are not supposed
> to get angry but probably you are expected to pay back, but always between
> the lines, not really fighting back. Another example all the way around
> could be expressions like; "chéng zhǎng", if translated as "grow up" could
> be pretty humiliating at some places in Europe, while is not as harsh if you
> read it in Chinese.

Just for your information, I maybe ethnic Chinese physically but I sure 
am not Chinese. I understand quite clearly what 'Grow up!' implies and I 
have absolutely no idea what 'cheng zhang' means or rather I can only 
guess at what the equivalent of 'cheng' would be in Cantonese but I am 
completely lost about 'zhang'. You could say that I am more African than 
I am Chinese even though I have spent the last twenty or so years in 
Hong Kong.


> I meet daily with designers and we appreciate non sense commentaries as it
> is efficient while brainstorming, as well we like the conversations to be
> free from any form of censorship or even moderation as may things could
> otherwise just vanish.

You may have noticed that I specifically said we cannot have Jose or 
anybody else keeping their mouths shut when they have something to say.


> The relationship with respect and figures of authority are not the same all
> around the world, I never had the pleasure to visit Hong Kong, but I can
> share some curiosities from the time I was living in Beijing; I remember I
> was hanging around Renmin University during a whole summer, I was meeting
> daily one of the persons who were coordinating the foreign students, as I
> was joining some interesting lectures and excursions just because of my own
> interest. That person asumed I was student because of the fact I was meeting
> regularly with the group of Finnish students, and kept all the way treating
> me with a very official attitude, he was sweating under the sun with me but
> kept all the time a perfectly correct manners, not even showing he needed
> water.  But one of those extremely hot days, he realized I was a faculty
> member, not a student, so he suddenly relaxed completely down and was
> finally able to enjoy the time together. He didn't need to show his position
> anymore... We had quite much better time after this moment. This might seem
> very normal for a chinese, but to me it was all a discovery!. Probably I
> have been mistreating my Chinese student for years, treating him as if he
> was just my self..

I have no idea what 'mainland' Chinese thinking is like but I daresay 
that in some (most?) respects it would be way better than the 
narrow-mindedness of a good portion of the local Hong Kong population 
(local Chinese and Pakistani communities especially - strange that they 
also invariably make up the poorer sections of Hong Kong) except for 
maybe certain community etiquette like queuing up for a bus.


> What I came to say is, we are very different, I do not think there is bad
> intention anywhere in this list, people complains when they have to, but
> within some limits. Respect does not take the same form everywhere, we
> should just apply a *presumption of innocence* concept, no one is guilty
> unless we can prove something else.
>
> If you were around the corner, I would invite you for a beer, what is in my
> terms certain form of honor.
>

Thanks, I know that one and I would heartily accept if you were here but 
with a glass of wine as I get beer rashes. (We are very different :p)