I am worried about my home country, the UK. Whenever I read a news story from there, it reads as if Great Britain should be renamed Malignant Britain. The news is dominated with horror stories from a Clockwork Orange-like world [note 1], where society has gone wild with disorder caused by knife-wielding gangs of school children in hooded tops terrorizing the nation making "happy slap" [note 2] videos and drinking alcopops [note 3].

Our British "red-top" (The Sun, The Star, The Mirror) tabloid newspapers cannot be to blame for creating such mass-hysteria, for surely they are the moral vanguard of our culture. (This last statement is rich with what we like to call "British sarcasm." Of course, the tabloid newspapers of Britain sell vast amounts of paper with small words printed largely in scandalous non-detail. Most of the story is left to the imagination of readers, who are reading those "dumbed-down" papers purely because they have no imagination.)

In Korea, where I spent a year living and teaching, the philosophy of the Chinese scholar Confucius (551-479 B.C.) is deeply implanted into the culture, perhaps more so than in China itself. His teachings are manifest as a system of how to live and are taught in schools as proverbs from an early age. Many of these ancient principles are still adhered to in today's modern society, and are fairly universal concepts. Among them are harmonious notions: politeness, kindness, helpfulness, respect for elders and care for nature-intrinsic and embracing concepts that cannot easily be disregarded. I read that another Chinese philosopher and disciple of Confucius, Mencius, advocated superiors in authority taking advice from inferiors to sustain good governance. Is it possible to equally transplant the teaching of good manners of school children to adults?

In the West, we have no widespread equivalent system á la Confucianism that we conform to. It's disappointing to me that in my country there is no such founding moral code to guide people with simple rights and wrongs. Some of the teachings of Confucius echo the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus, from the New Testament, and indeed religion can provide a similar moral structure to life, but it is often sneered at or rebelled against since it requires subscription to the belief systems of the religions.

Certainly in Malignant Britain, where people commonly dump household waste (fridges, mattresses, etc) out of cars into tranquil forests, burgle the homes of the elderly, give birth in order to receive welfare handouts and free apartments, and then embarrassingly charge our own youth with all of society's failings, we need to examine ourselves. The respect and discipline of Korean school children when I taught there never failed to amaze me, or cause me to consider that we adults have forgotten something: The respect children give to adults is not always returned!

Britain's unruly children are served with "ASBO's" (or "anti-social behavior orders"), a way of humiliating our children, restraining their movements, and marking them publicly as troublemakers. It's like the modern version of creating a social outcast by pelting him with rocks to herd him out of the village. The idea is to protect society from anti-social behavior. Sadly, some children now regard the ASBO as a badge of honor for their crimes or behavior. When ASBO's are dished out like candy, kids might naturally look at it as something to be proud of. When I was younger, if most of your mates had something, you often also wanted one. Whether it's a pair of trainers or a government sanctioned stigmata, the same possibly now applies.

How to explain the lack of guidance in British youth, and rise in lawlessness generally, and the seeming social obedience of youth in China and Korea? Is it a case of free individual will against conformity? Perhaps the penalties on crimes are harder here. There are many cases of leniency in the UK, indeed there are accounts of juvenile delinquents being sent on free travel excursions to broaden their horizons. Some deterrent! Perhaps it is just down to Confucius, whose name and teachings still elicit some admiration today in both Koreans and Chinese that I have asked since beginning this article.

Two and half thousand years ago, he said this, "If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good."

It is indeed a shame when children are ingrained with bad manners simply because the parents have no idea about good manners. Like the father at a football match who stands by his son in a crowd shouting racist abuse onto a pitch (another pathetic sight I've witnessed in the UK). If parents are to set an example of propriety for their children, how about the Golden Rule of Confucianism, which is this:

The adept Kung asked, "Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?" The Master replied, "How about shu [reciprocity]: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?"

Note 1: A Clockwork Orange-a "future dystopia" novel written by Anthony Burgess depicts a society where the youth have become an out-of-control menace that derives pleasure from violence.

Note 2: Happy Slapping-a violent and unprovoked assault on strangers that is recorded by assailants on video phones to be watched later.

Note 3: Alcopops-nickname for a range of alcoholic beverages, cunningly produced by drinks manufacturers, who saw that they could lure more teenagers to drink distilled spirits if they made it taste like sugar and fruit based soft drinks.

The author lives and works in Beijing