One loves this and the other loves that, but ultimately we drink from the same well

Thirty-five years or so ago the conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, when it was rather more staid than it is today, had an advertising slogan that vaunted the reliability, and in a sense the predictability, of its contents: "Times change. Values don't." Since those Cold War days the world has changed a lot more than the author of that slogan could possibly have imagined.

Apart from China's opening-up since 1978 or the way the face of Europe was transformed just before and since German reunification, you only need to consider for a nanosecond changes in technology and communications to be convinced that in a sense we live on a different planet.

But what of those values? Have they lived up to their billing as immutable, and is there any such thing as the often vaunted universal values?

In looking at this question if you put under the microscope two peoples - Chinese and Germans - you could hardly go astray.

Few would debate that a value that is core to all of us is happiness and our pursuit of it. There is nobody who does not want to be happy, but the way that happiness is perceived and the way it is attained reflects values of history and culture particular to different people in different countries.

For Chinese the concept of happiness is more family bound, one reflected in the relationship between parents and their children. For them, familial harmony, including children supporting their parents and parents caring for their children, is an essential elements in their lives. This is reflected in the central role the family has in the country's folk festivals.

In June the Chinese celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival, which commemorates Qu Yuan, China's earliest great patriotic poet. He embodies the Chinese pursuit of traditional and spiritual idealism. On that day the whole country, from north to south and from east to west, celebrates in many ways, such as eating rice dumplings, and dragon boat racing. But the celebration transcends those festivities, and it goes far beyond the walls of the home.

In South China whole villages gather together for dragon boat races, and the festive spirit is given a push along as well-known chefs are brought in to prepare a dragon boat dinner for the contestants. But it would be wrong to see this as simply an excuse for a load of fun and sumptuous eating; the nub is that Chinese people attach great importance to the collective and to social groups.

By contrast, young people in Germany, by and large, put a great deal more emphasis on independence. They prefer to tackle problems without outside help, and they tend to travel individually. Chinese youths are different: they mostly prefer to travel in groups, the reason being that they want to be able to look after each other.

During important folk festivals such as Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, China habitually lives through what is regarded as the world's largest mass movement of people, when migrant workers return to their homes. During Spring Festival, migrant workers, by hook or by crook, find a way to head home for the holiday, with the heavy pressures on public transport and public services that implies. This important holiday is celebrated by the family unit. Everyone puts on their best clothes, serving the best food they have, and with different generations of people gathered. So you may think this is simply a Chinese version of the Western Christmas.

But in China the relationship between children and their parents is greatly different from the Western concept of the family. Even after children grow up, their parents continue to plan their careers and lives, and the children continue to receive money from the old folk. In many poor families it is not uncommon for parents to scrimp and save so their children can go to university, or even abroad. It is clear to everyone that the children will have an obligation to support their parents. In China, especially in big families, the aged rarely go to - let alone are put into - nursing homes, most living with their sons and daughters, enjoying the warmth and affection that is their due.

On very basic questions of life, young German people show themselves to be completely different. In a survey of overseas and Chinese students in our college most respondents reckoned that they did not regard money as the most important thing in life. In fact German students said that they thought money was the least important thing in life, but the Chinese did not go that far.

In the Western media, young Chinese are often depicted as being highly materialistic. In fact, China is far from alone in having people who use piles of money as a measuring stick and whose lives are devoted to the pursuit of the renminbi, the almighty dollar, euros, or something else. It is true that in emerging economies, where the vast majority have lived lives of penury, the embrace of materialism may seem stronger than elsewhere. That fuels critics in industrialized countries who scoff at this new found consumerism. In China itself, of course, there are many who decry this materialistic bent, too. Nevertheless, it puts the similarities and differences between Western and eastern ideas of happiness into focus.

For a start, our perceptions on the different levels of happiness are similar, with material wellbeing on the first level, followed by general happiness, and a feeling of spiritual fulfillment at the top. In China nowadays it is clear that for most young people pursuing happiness by seeking materialistic wealth is the top priority. Only after that goal is achieved are their eyes likely to be fixed higher, ultimately toward spiritual happiness. Perhaps in five years or so, Chinese youths, provided they have attained that higher goal of spiritual well being, will have views about happiness that coincide with those of their German counterparts.

When all is said and done, different cultures and values shaped by two different histories, social developments, and what the Germans call Weltanshauung, or outlook on life, cannot dispel the fact that the way people in both countries view happiness is remarkably similar. When I arrived in Germany for the first time some years ago I braced myself for a culture shock, but was pleasantly surprised at how "undifferent" Germans were to me, whether it was sharing a passion for soccer or any number of other more difficult-to-explain loves and hates.

Being from the land of Confucius thought, I am obviously heavily influenced by that, but in the land of Luther I was far from awestruck by its Christian values. It showed me that Confucian and Christian values correlate much more than we may think and that the values they espouse are, ultimately, universal.

One of those values is this: as long as someone's pursuit of happiness does not interfere with yours, you should not stop them, and that applies to everyone everywhere no matter their race, color or creed.

So if we do all share these values, what on earth is the difference between us? What happens when every culture develops its own set of beliefs, even if their common source is this well of universal values? The streams from this well eventually head off in different directions, and the problem begins when it comes to dealing with conflicts of interest.

If I collide with others in my pursuit of happiness, what do we do? Can we split the difference and go halves? If we both fall in love with the same person, how do we split the love? That dilemma, and the nature of wisdom, is perfectly distilled in the ancient tale of two women who quarreled over who was the mother of a baby and were told by King Solomon to resolve the matter by cutting the baby in two with a sword.

In the modern world we often hear politicians who have won elections telling their partying supporters that even though they have vanquished a political foe "the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us". In talking of values that Chinese, Germans and all other cultures hold dear, you could say the same thing.

The author is a professor at the Chinese-German College, Tongji University in Shanghai. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily 08/03/2012 page11)