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Event Highlights
Book Seminar: “Privacy is Thicker than Water” Sharing Session
2024-10-08
The ‘Book Seminar: “Privacy is Thicker than Water” Sharing Session’ organized by Maritime Silk Road Society was held on 8 October. The author, Mr Tony Lam shared his thoughts on the research.
Firstly, Mr Lam introduced the origin of the Chinese word “privacy” and its definition, and extended it to the related concept of “rights” mentioned in modern China. He cited several positive and negative descriptions of the concept of “rights” at that time, and explained that the concept of “rights” in modern China was close to the meaning of the current concept of “privacy”. He also cited examples from ancient literature to analyze the significance of the ancient concept of “rights” which is far from the modern China one.
Then, Mr Lam presented a number of opinion surveys which reflected the differences between Chinese citizens' views on privacy and those of Western societies. The majority of Chinese citizens believe that interests are more important than privacy, and that the right to privacy is less important than other freedoms or rights. In the past 20 years, Chinese citizens believed that privacy was mostly about interpersonal relationships, whereas “privacy” in the English context was mostly concerned about business corporations and governmental organizations. These examples show that the same term could be interpreted differently in different social environments.
Finally, he reiterated that western societies share different social values and culture with us, and that any new ideas or things should be adapted to suit our society and not be implemented blindly.
