I have the feeling that people from poor countries where human rights are considered to be a form of western decadence by the authorities, basically tend to kling on more to all kind of abstract things like 'tradition'. When you're raised to think that as a person you don't mean shit and your life is worth nothing, i think all the other things from wich you can derive meaning become more important. For many westerners the principle also aplies, that when you're poor and have no job, or a job that is simply humiliating, that you start to identify yourself with other things from wich you can derive a sense of pride or honour; 'the hood and your homies', manchester united, the church, patriotism and all the other senseless shit.
Many asians, the homies and manchester united-fans will ofcourse always deny that they have no self-esteem and think their life has no value but when you're raised to belief that mao-zedong was a great guy then you inevitably also belief that killing 100 million ordinary citizens is not such a big deal (btw, it was his ambition to kill about 300 million people) wich then inevitably must lead to the conlusion that your own life cannot be such a big deal either. Confusionism and taoïsm tend to be opposite's in this disregard for life, though. Confusionism tells you that you're life is worth shit and that you're supposed to shut up and be humble while the authorities are killing your family while taoïsm (wich the chinese government ofcourse tried to totally ban initially) tells you quite the opposite; that life itself is sacred.
BTW, i have asian ancesters myself as well, so if i have insulted anyone; take comfort in how much i must have insulted myself by now just as well.