Every Chinese with average education is familiar with the words of Chairman Mao saying we should conduct, as often as possible, "criticism and self-criticism". This tenet was at one time a popular slogan and was, more or less, put into real practice.

However, recent years have seen a decline in the utility of this philosophy. It is also trumpeted less often. If you look carefully into what people do every day, not much wisdom is needed to reach the conclusion that more people, more of the time, are more into praise than criticism, if any of the latter at all.

Being modest used to be a biggest personal virtue in Chinese culture. There is a joke that goes like this: One American said to a Chinese lady that she was beautiful and attractive. The lady answered "nali, nali", which means in Chinese "I am not that beautiful, and you have over-praised me". But her interpreter interpreted the sentence literally into "where, where". Then the American, not knowing the meaning of "where, where" in the Chinese context, answered, "Everywhere, everywhere".

Today such a joke would make less sense. When a Chinese student is praised by foreigners that his or her English is good, he or she will no longer say "Oh no, my English is poor". Today, even if one's English is poor, he or she shows no reluctance in putting in his or her resume that he or she has "excellent English abilities" and may even claim to know some French or Japanese, though actually what he or she knows is only limited to "Merci" and "Pardon".

In this era, everything, from shampoo to people, needs marketing and advertising. And neither marketing nor advertising likes the idea of modesty. They may like the first half of Mao's tenet - criticism - but certainly not the idea of self-criticism.

Apart from more self-praise, we praise others more often today. In so-called "criticism meetings", what people often say is actually disguised praise. Such praise does not require much effort to dish out because it is as easy to utter as superficial criticism.

All this is progress, I think. After all praising and self-praising is a lot healthier than boasting and self-boasting, than flattery and self-flattery, or than criticism and self-praise. And there must be at least something to deserve such praise. Indeed we have achieved a lot, worthy of a whole bunch of praises. This is why I say it is progress.

But what is a little less comforting is to see the upsetting decline in people's ability and willingness to make criticism and self-criticism. Today, people are more interested in praising and self-praising than criticizing and self-criticizing. Criticizing oneself is considered hypocritical. Criticizing others is considered foolish. Everyone frowns a little on hearing criticism. This is human nature. But society makes progress through criticism. This is the lesson of history.

We live our lives differently these days, before the boss and before ourselves. But what we do in the day is different from what we ponder at night. This is justifiable and natural. But the point is, while we are constantly painting a rosy picture of others and ourselves, while our criticism and self-criticism can't help deteriorating in terms of quality into complaining and self-complaining or into superficial praise and self-praise, we should, on the other hand, remain fully alert to the possibility that we are losing our ability to criticize, especially our ability to make reflections and make self-criticism. Ultimately, these are the two wheels that effectuate the progress of mankind. And we must know that genuine criticism is as hard to find as genuine praise.

Let's make some reflections on ourselves tonight, therefore. Then we will have a better tomorrow than if we do not make such reflections.

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