Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
The elephant in the room of the LC is Asian culture. This can be seen in Guanxi Networks, which are mutual webs of reciprocal obligations, often tied strongly to family. Lee put his admittedly "unspiritual" son Philip in charge of the LC business office, not because he was qualified, but because he was related to Lee. Of course this isn't exclusive of the Asians: if someone wants to get into Yale it helps that Grand-Dad was Vice-Provost. But in Asian culture I daresay it's especially pronounced. Ergo, Timothy got Daystar and Philip became "The Office".
The point I want to make is that we never saw this cultural influence, believing the Lee narrative that somehow China was (somehow) "virgin soil" for God to raise up something apart from fallen human culture. So when fallen human culture began trampling us to death, we couldn't see it. Even though we got crushed by it. It's amazing, really.
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As someone with an "Asian-American mind" (if I may), I would venture that this aspect of things was less obvious when the LC (in the USA) was made up mostly of White Americans.
However, with every passing day, the LC is become more and more particular in its demographic: more Asian, more rich, more urban, and more elitist (in terms of education). Visit the FTTA today, and you will find that 70-90% of the population is either Asian-American or actually from Asia, and that the great majority of those come from wealthy families. LC young people are under constant pressure to attend elite universities on the East and West Coasts. The whole phenomenon is resulting in a cultural shift in the LC that is making it more and more unrecognizable to the original "baby boomer" generation that was captivated by Witness Lee in the 1960s and 1970s. It also means that the up-and-coming demographic of LCers feel more and more disconnected with anything that might be considered more traditionally American.
LC leaders know this, and it's the reason why there is so much emphasis on fixing the "racial ratio" and "gaining 'typical' Americans." But it's a lost cause if you ask me.