Nguyễn Tuấn
Sự thô lỗ của Tàu.
Nếu nói về mức độ hỗn xược và vô giáo dục trong ngoại giao thì có lẽ Tàu cộng là số 1. Phản ứng trước tin Thủ tướng Úc ủng hộ Mĩ điều tra nguồn gốc của virus Vũ Hán, bài xã luận trên Hoàn Cầu Thời Báo (cái loa của Đảng Cộng sản Tàu) viết về Úc như sau:
"Nước Úc lúc nào cũng gây hấn đó đây. Giống như kẹo cao su dính vào đế giày của Tàu, và thỉnh thoảng bạn phải tìm một viên đá để tẩy xoá nó." (Australia is always there, making trouble. It is a bit like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes. Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off [1]).
Phải công nhận họ có cách nói rất hình tượng. Cũng là sáng tạo đó chớ.
Thật không có gì để nói về lời lẽ chỉ có thể mô tả bằng hai chữ: "mất dạy". Theo sau bài báo này là viên đại sứ Tàu ở Úc lên tiếng đe doạ bằng một thứ ngôn ngữ mà báo chí Úc còn sững sờ. Sững sờ vì sự thô bỉ chưa từng thấy trong thế giới văn minh.
Nhưng có lẽ người Việt chúng ta thì chẳng ngạc nhiên gì với ngôn ngữ của Tàu cộng. Họ còn dùng những từ vô văn hoá hơn như thế với Việt Nam. Chúng từng gọi Việt Nam là "đứa con hoang đàng"! Đặng Tiểu Bình, thần tượng của không ít người Việt, từng gọi Việt Nam là "gã du côn ở Đông Nam Á". Ngay cả kẻ thất học cũng không nói như mấy kẻ này.
Điều kì lạ là khi báo chí nước ngoài viết về những hành động gây hấn của Tàu cộng, thì quan chức của chúng than là "bị tổn thương". Nói cách khác, họ thô lỗ với nước khác thì ok, nhưng báo chí nước khác nói lại thì họ bù lu bù loa ! Kể cũng lạ.
Nước Tàu có một nền văn hoá lâu đời và đặt ra những qui ước đạo đức và lễ nghi cung đình, nhưng chẳng hiểu sao sau thời Mao thì có quá nhiều người trong hệ thống cầm quyền Tàu ăn nói lỗ mãng như chúng ta thấy. Chỉ có thể là nền giáo dục Maoist tạo nên những người như thế. (May phước là Việt Nam gần bùn mà không hôi tanh mùi bùn).
Cách đây vài năm, vì bực mình trước những cách nói hỗn xược của Tàu cộng, nên tôi viết một bài bình luận [2]. Đây là bài bình luận thứ 2 tôi viết về Tàu, và nghe ban biên tập nói là có rất nhiều người đồng tình. Trong bài đó, tôi viết rằng trong thế giới lí tưởng người ta kì vọng giới ngoại giao dùng từ ngữ lịch lãm, chớ không phải trịch thượng, để tạo ra một thế giới tốt hơn, nhưng lí tưởng đó hình như là quá xa xỉ cho nhiều quan chức Tàu [2]. Câu này xem ra vẫn còn đúng.
===
China’s 'New' Language of Diplomacy
A notable characteristic of Chinese officials in international conferences and media is that their language is unusually blunt and rude in a manner that has done nothing to aid China’s effort to be recognized as a civilized member of the world diplomatic community.
Among Chinese officials and diplomats, politeness and respect seem absent from their discourse in international forums. After a recent visit to Vietnam, Yang Jiechi, a state councilor with a foreign policy portfolio, declared in the Chinese media that his objective was to lecture his Vietnamese counterparts.
A certain section of the Chinese media even called Vietnam a “prodigal son.” The comments were made amid a dangerous standoff between China and Vietnam in the disputed Paracel Islands. The language is patronizing and impudent. Indeed, to many Vietnamese, the reference of “prodigal son” is not only offensive, but can also be likened to an ideology of colonialism.
What’s interesting is that for a country aiming for superpower status, when the shoe is on the other foot, the Chinese dragon can be remarkably vulnerable to slights. Fang Kecheng, a Chinese blogger and master’s degree candidate in journalism at Peking University, a couple of years ago counted up the times foreign ministry spokesmen said officially that Chinese’s “feelings had been hurt.” According to Fang’s analysis, Chinese’s feelings were hurt at least 140 times by at least 42 countries as obscure as Iceland and Guatemala as well as a bunch of organizations since the Communists threw out the Kuomintang in 1949..
Typically, a statement goes like this” "The (incident/statement) grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, gravely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and damaged the political basis of China-(offending country) bilateral relations."
Victor Mair, a linguist writing in The Language Log at the University of Pennsylvania in the US, decided to check how often the phrase “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people” occurs in Google. The Chinese, Mair reported, had their feelings hurt 17,000 times by 2011. The country with the next most hurt feelings was Japan, with 178. Third was the United States, with five. Both actors Brad Pitt and his wife, Angelina Jolie, hurt Chinese feelings at different times, Pitt by appearing in a movie about Tibet and Jolie by inadvertently referring to director Ang Lee, a Taiwanese, as Chinese.
By contrast, China has used stiff language on a long string of countries besides Vietnam, none of which reported “hurt feelings.”
In December last year, for instance, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a vicious criticism of Australia during a televised face-to-face meeting with the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. A senior Australian diplomat described the incident as the rudest speech he has seen in his 30-year career as a diplomat.
In July 2011, Philippine officials decided to ban a senior Chinese diplomat from meetings because of his rude behavior.A memorandum from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said that the Chinese diplomat exhibited “conduct unbecoming of a diplomat.”
In her recent memoir, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that in the 2010 Asean Regional Forum in Hanoi the then-Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi lost his composure and launched into a 30-minute monologue, after Asean ministers complained that China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea had triggered anxieties among ASEAN countries.
At one point Yang declared that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact” – a point that was totally irrelevant to the discussion.
That kind of rude behavior from Chinese officials is now increasingly prevalent in international political and diplomatic forums. Early this month, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the world witnessed an ill-mannered outburst from a Chinese general in response to comments from US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinto Abe.
Hagel listed a number of serious frictions in the South China Sea and warned China against "destabilizing actions." Abe talked about China's aggressive moves in the South and East China seas, and urged countries to respect the rule of law. In response, Lieutenant General Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army said that the remarks by Hagel and Abe were “simply unimaginable.” It seems clear that the general was not comfortable with facts.
In fact, rude language in China’s diplomacy is not new at all. Documents retrieved as early as the 15th Century show that Chinese emperors used such language to threaten neighboring countries that they considered barbarians. Their writing style was short and to the point, and their words utterly disrespectful.
One of Chinese emperors’ favorite usage was “China is a big country,” a construction that obviously survives today. Language and culture are transmissive. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising to see the reference to “big country” by Chinese officials.
In an ideal world, one would expect diplomats to use polite and respectful words, not patronizing expressions, to make the world better. However, that ideal seems to be a luxury for many Chinese officials. It has recently been noted that Chinese tourists exhibited "uncivilized behaviors" when they traveled overseas, and their behaviors harm the country’s image. In a similar way, those ill-mannered words – no matter what the circumstances – uttered by Chinese officials in international forums can only harm the country’s prestige and do nothing to advance their argument.
Dr. Tuan V. Nguyen is a freelance commentator currently living in Sydney, Australia
No comments:
Post a Comment