An Eastern Concept?

Jet Li:

But if we are strong and believe in ourselves, it doesn't matter what people call us.

My mother calls me stupid and dumb all the time, but it's never affected me in the least because I've always known I was smart. She'll be really pissed off at me, and start telling me how stupid I am, and I just agree with her until she laughs.

My sister and friends are horrified when they either hear of it or witness it. "How can you let her say those things to you?" I shrug and answer, "Because I know it isn't true. So why not let her have her fun?"

Mom forgets that not everyone is like me; she gets in deep trouble when she calls other people stupid. I remember (always with a laugh) when my nephew asked her why she'd accuse him of being stupid and she denied it only to call him stupid in Chinese within 5 minutes of the question. He got hurt; she got flustered because all she was looking to do was let off steam and a wall would rise up.

Is this an Eastern concept? Or just an ego concept?

It might be an ego thing because I know coaches often tell their charges that they're weak or inadequate or something, just to rile them up into performing better. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about having such confidence in an area that no matter what is said or done, it's considered as ludicrous.

Remember Kung Fu, the TV show? It's sorta like how Caine saw the world around him. But gimme a break, Caine just acted like he was mentally retarded. I loved the fight scenes and the philosophy scenes in that series, but Caine himself? I wanted to whack him in the head and say, talk faster!

It's that philosophy I'm talking about. The philosophy of why should I bother to correct you when 1) correcting you is time-consuming, 2) you uttering such nonsense just goes to show the world what an idiot you are, and 3) besides, correcting you is bad manners cause no one wants their mistakes pointed out in public.

Is this purely an Eastern concept?