Some people's thinking behind helping other people

Talking to Francesca about paying back has brought to mind something I wrote in my journal on my film shoot in 1988 in China, analysing the Chinese way of interacting with each other.

These are my own impressions/analysis, based on my own first-hand experience and what I’ve heard from other people.  (My friend Valerio will be sure to protest that not all Chinese think like that.  Yes, yes, Valerio.)

The Chinese traditionally think of doing good in terms of:

1. paying back, even to the point of doing something good (first), based on “I might need him/her at a later point.”  I don’t like this self-centred approach. Why only help someone because you might benefit later?  (A Libyan woman said to me, “I helped because that person might well be my mother, so I’d want someone else to be nice to my mother.”  But why can’t kindness be dished out just for its own sake? If I’m an orphan with no family or friends, I’d still help for the sake of helping.)

2. same approach as before but this time it’s “I will go to Heaven / be reborn into a better life next incarnation”.  Again, self-centred.

3. I don’t know the person seeking help but we have a mutual friend, so I’m doing it for that mutual friend.  Again, more often than not, it’s because I don’t want that mutual friend to think ill of me — cf. having no qualms about not helping a stranger with no mutual friend between us. So, it’s still self-centred.