Cow Conundrum in Colonial Kowloon

   Kowloon, early 1950's:  several villagers walk into the magistrate's office.  Why are they there?  It's about the cow, one of the men says.  Which cow?  The one that's eating the grass. Whose cow is it?  It's from another village.  Which village?  One over the mountain.  So someone must bring the cow over the mountain to your village?  No.  Well how does it get to your village?  It doesn't come to our village.  Well you just said that this cow from another village is eating your grass.  Yes, it is. Well, how does the cow get over the mountain to eat the grass in your village if no one brings it?  How does it get back home to sleep at night?  It sleeps in our village.  What does the cow's owner say about that?  Nothing.

     On and on the young British magistrate questions the villagers about this case of the cow, through two old-hand Chinese interpreters in the court.  The magistrate is new at his job, he's unprepared, he's overwhelmed by the absurdity of the case.  It takes just about forever to piece together the real reason the villagers have come to see him.  It's not really about the cow after all.  The man complaining about the cow has married a second wife.  The first wife owns the cow.  She's threatened to go back to her home village with her cow.  Why?  She's lost face because the new wife has just given birth to the man's first son.  The man doesn't want to lose the use of the cow if his first wife leaves with it to go back to her village.  That's why they're visiting the magistrate.

     The roundabout, confusing nature of the fact-giving is typical of other conversations the British magistrate has had with Chinese in the 3 years he's been doing government work in Hong Kong.  The magistrate goes to see his Buddhist friend.  Why is it that I'm having such trouble getting the Chinese to explain something to me systematically, beginning to end, he asks.

     The friend explains the ancient Chinese idea that "anyone who wishes to succeed in life has to be single-minded in purpose."  Aha.  This is what the magistrate has been observing in Chinese people's intent focus on their own individual affairs.  Getting the ideas out of their own head into someone else's head isn't important to the Chinese, not in court or anywhere else.  And they're not interested in what's in the other person's head, either.  That's why Westerners think that Chinese are self-centered.  On the other had, Chinese think Westerners spend too much energy focusing on things outside their own affairs.  

     All of the above is from Myself a Mandarin, the memoirs of Austin Coates, which I'm reading and enjoying.  It was published nearly 45 years ago, but it's interesting to contemplate the relevance of these ideas about Chinese single-mindedness vs. Western diffuse thinking.