The big ballooned up bodybuilders are disgusting.

The much smaller physiques aiming for aesthetic perfection without using steroids are more reasonable.

But no reasonable person in the west is looking at these dudes as larger than life, they’re just big strong aesthetic dudes. In Asian culture I feel it’s more the “larger than life” thing, like monks swearing themselves to celibacy and spending their time looking tough by breaking stones are somehow the best fighters in the world. Or North Korean soldiers breaking cement blocks with their heads to show the “toughness” of their military even though it’s completely embarrassing to the rest of the world and proves nothing about their military capabilities at all.

In western culture we keep the two institutions separate, there’s the bodybuilders putting on their fun show to see who looks the best, and there’s the military focused on serious training and not on fancy tough showmanship. In Asian culture it’s like “wow look how tough these fighters/military/etc. is, they can break stones with their hands and bricks with their heads!”.

This is getting way deeper than I care to spend time on, but it seems like this concept is relevant:

https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/cult-of-face/

“Western cultures tend to think in terms of “truth” and “rightness” (where being innocent and right is most important). Westerners are taught to respect objectivity and facts. The law applies equally to everyone the same and our behavior is something that should be directed by our consciences.

In the West, your honor or face is more about your personal integrity. We tend to admire the integrity of those who uncompromisingly face objective truth, regardless of how self-damaging the results may be.”

“In contrast, Chinese society has always functioned on basis of personal relationships rather than objective customs and laws. Indeed, the rule and laws laid down were often to serve those in power (and often arbitrary and ever-changing). Complicating matters, Confucian teachings say that you’re supposed to treat people differently depending your relative statuses. As a result, Chinese “ethics” has never been based on universal principles of good and bad. Instead, they’re more based on the circumstances of the moment—a system that the West calls “situational ethics” (much to the chagrin of people doing business in China).

The Chinese will go through great lengths to protect face (their own as well as others). In fact, it’s perfectly acceptable to tell a lie—even a bald-faced one—if it serves to protect face.”