Things Americans honestly cannot explain to the Chinese
I admit I’m at a loss for words sometimes. Rarely so, because my ability to talk, and
persuade is paramount to my having a successful business. Still over the course of time, when myself
and the Chinese talk, things come up, where, well….it’s difficult to use either
common sense or logic to explain away some of the peculiarities of the American(or
Western)
way of life.
Here are a few:
Jesus rising from the dead
Oh yes, I remember it well.
We were all sitting together one day in the autumn cool of Guangzhou, 0n
a grassy field(are there still grassy fields in Guangzhou?), when everyone
started pestering me about Christianity.
I was 23 and shall, um, we say a somewhat more strident
follower of the subject than perhaps can be said today. With pride I explained the basic tenets of
Christianity. Leading up to the climax,
I explained as well as I could the crucifixion. I jumped around a bit, describing how
Christians were thrown to the lions, and persecuted for ages, by those godless
Romans. Than with a proud and believing voice I explained how Jesus rose
from the dead. That I fully believed in
this, and that the fact he did rise from the dead is perhaps the basic tenement
of our faith.
While explaining with pride the core of Western
Civilization, there was nearly complete silence, with the occasional question. My whole spiel took 15 minutes. It was obvious to me that the Chinese indeed
really knew nothing about the West. And
were really soaking up this opportunity to learn, via a real live
Westerner. It was up to me to
“represent”. I was very proud that I
was the one that could proudly explain to the godless Chinese such an important
part of our culture.
When I was finished there was complete silence.
The glow on my face was surely evident.
Than maybe after 5 seconds, their processing of my story was
complete. From within the crowd of
people I had been speaking with, a voice finally spoke up:
“Nonsense”.
That’s right dammit.
I tell a story of Jesus rising from the dead, and someone actually says
to me the equivalent of “bullshit”. Someone
didn’t actually didn’t believe me. What
blasphemy!
I was truly taken aback.
Angry, actually.
Than in unison nearly everyone present laughed.
Truly, I was offended.
I didn’t know what to say. How
could someone not believe Jesus didn’t rise from the dead?
“How can someone rise from the dead?” , they asked
“Well….it was Jesus”, I muttered
“I don’t believe it,” another one simply said.
“You need to have faith”, I replied. I was now beginning to get a bit angry. I felt the urge to criticize China. I just didn’t know where to begin. It had yet to dawn on me the uphill
struggle one naturally has trying to explain the ability of one to rise from
the Dead.
Lesson? Explaining
the concept of Christianity is a lot easier if you leave out the “rising from
the dead” part.
Why are Americans so fat?
Fat people. No, not people like me......I mean really, really, you gotta be kiddin' me fat people.
There is nothing more embarrassing for me in China than
seeing an obviously overweight American .
At first I thought it really was no big deal. I really didn’t get what the Chinese
obsession with weight was.
Chinese all think I’m fat.
I’m a 6 footer, 185 lbs. Or 1.83
to the rest of you. And from the kid in
Tibet to nearly everyone else, I’m considered “fat”, or “Da duzi”. Yes, I
protrude a bit. So what? Yet
the longer I live in China, and I the older I get, ie, the more conscious I am
of my health, the more I’ve come around to the Chinese sense of bewilderment.
When I see a 350 lb man I blush with embarrassment.
I was at the Shenzhen airport awhile back and came across a
huge American, easily over 300 lbs, struggling to walk out of the departure
area. He was sweaty, grimaced, and had
an aura of shame about him. Or should have. I wasn’t sure he was gonna be able to make
it without fainting. Every single
Chinese person waiting there just stared.
And stared again. I wanted to
blush. I remember I was filled with
disgust. True, the older I get, and the
more I try to take care of myself, the less sympathy I have for someone that
doesn’t make the effort to do the same.
Chinese often ask me why we Yanks are so damn fat. I try to offer reasons that I think will make
sense:
Processed food.
Advanced countries have made having to go shopping on a daily basis
obsolete. You see, processed foot is
the best thing to come along to fight global hunger……
Culture. Fast food
is in our blood. Salt and
cholesterol….yummy!
Walmart. The king of
cheap. The king of processed food. It’s
actually made living without vegetables possible.
Convenience.
As a last line of defense, however, I then I try and turn it
around.
Our buildings have elevators.
We drive. We don’t
need to bike to work.
(have you ever considered it how strange the Chinese might
think of us merely “walking” or “biking”
for exercise?)
We’re able to eat meat.
Our escalators don’t breakdown. (If you’ve ever ridden the Shenzhen subway
as relentlessl y as I have, you’d know what I’m talking about.)
So I try a little too shamelessly to use the advanced state
of our society as an excuse. Problem is,
even I can’t buy what I’m saying.
I remember when my wife came back to China a few years ago. It was in August and by the 2nd
or 3rd day she was back to her usual bitchy self. The weather, the “why are we walking so much!”
snarl on her face. She had totally forgotten what China was like, (or about?).
Bottom line, these are legitimate reasons. But not legitimate enough to explain away
self responsibility, either. Walmart
has Greek Yogurt. It has whole wheat
bread. I think they also have
veggies. A bowling ball gut doesn’t
develop overnight. The Chinese are
right to mock us and laugh in unison.
Yes, the Chinese are getting fatter, too. Wealth does that. But they eat veggies, too. And that white stuff.
White-Black relations in America.
Do we even have to bring this up?
One would think that electing Obama would’ve been
enough. Even Chris Rock would shut
up. But alas, it apparently isn’t.
True observers of American culture will immediately
understand we do not talk much about Hispanic-White relations, or Asian-White
relations, or anyone else. But the
whole “Black thing” is still sensitive, and is still forefront to our perceived
progress as a Nation. It is a barometer
for the Social Progress we’ve made.
Now I need to stop here, and aloud state that there can be
no question that in my view America is the least racist country in the
world. We’re doing pretty damn well for
a society where only half of us are WHITE.
Thus this article is in itself an exercise in Irony. We don’t have race riots. We don’t have slums packed with immigrants
constantly fighting with the Police. Interracial
mixing of the populace is highly visible and commonly seen. And it is acceptable.
Rather, the biggest problem, I’d argue is the reluctance of
1st generation parents to get with the program, and allow their
offspring to…well, to mix. The Chinese
mom and dad….the Korean, etc. One of
America’s biggest challenges is the vast majority of new immigration from
homogenous countries. Quite frankly, I
have to wonder why they even show up in America….? All they do is make a beadline for the
nearest ethnic suburb. They don’t even
have to learn English! In California
especially. The driving test is in
Chinese, the grocers, etc. Seriously,
why are you here? It is the poor kids of
these offspring who have it rough. The “world
within a world” lifestyle they have comes to a shattering end when they go to
school. (Sorry your teacher doesn’t
speak Mandarin!)
Enough with the segueway….back to Black and White America.
How does someone in the USA even begin to talk about this to
a non American?
The ironic thing is that the Chinese are a racist
people. Not a knock on China. Homogenous societies just are. Yet all attention is on us. Life for a black man in China is hell. I won the lottery. A white man born and raised in America. I get treated better purely because of my
skin. The fact I speak Chinese
helps….alot!
Yet one would think with all the other minorities in America
that the emphasis on Black America would go away. But it doesn’t.
Why does the world(and the American media)still put it’s
spotlight on how Black America gets by?
Maybe it’s because Black America plays a very dominant role
within our society. Music, sports. America is a much better place because of
our Black People. How can any
reasonable person deny this? Yet the
Chinese, and others all think we hate each other. That’s not the case at all.
When one can see a mixed couple walking the streets of
Memphis, or Atlanta, without a stir, that says a lot. Black White relations are
a lot better than they were when my mom was a teenager. There are no Jim Crow laws. No lynchings.
No policies designed to “contain” and keep the black man down. The black man in America is an almost
extinct creature within our society.
Black men kill black men everyday, and they do so in droves. White people kill black people, too. And vice versa. A black man even killed my brother.
Yet all it takes is one public, and controversial incident
to take place, and the whole world thinks America is abt to go up in
flames.
The older I get the more I truly realize how Blacks were
legally shit upon within America from before the Revolution up through at least
the 60’s. Lynchings in the South were
commonplace. And no one cared. Think about it. You could be pulled from your bed, for any
reason, including none, and hung from a tree, without penance, in the American
South, ever since the first slave landed, until only recently.
“You lookin’ at my daughter, nigger?”
“You getting’ uppity with me, boy?”
Has a White Man ever been convicted of killing a Black Man
in the South, and gone to prison for it, before 1970? So, yeah, the Black Man had it’s reasons for
getting pissed, and being pissed off.
(though not for killing my brother)
Now…could you ask what if China was that way to us?
“you like Chinese girl, white boy?”
“You got a problem with using Chopsticks, Big Nose?”
If China was like America back then, I’d have died a
thousand deaths already. Just last
night in the club a European was all over a girl at the bar, and I was just
certain he was gonna get his ass kicked.
( And they all would’ve thought he was an American!)
But our relations with Black America aren’t abt to explode
into the streets anytime soon. No matter
what they ask you here in China, whenever the news breaks of another incident
back home.
Now does that mean we’re all angels? The Black Man knows damn well his car better
not break down in a white suburb in the South anytime soon, because he’s
probably not gonna get any help from a passerby. (that’s the real reason you need a cellphone) How would the USA fare compared to other
countries, though? I tend to think we’d
come out ahead of most, in terms of tolerance.
That’s the irony: thx to the
Media, the world thinks Americans are at each others throats.
What if we took 10 million black people and dumped them in
say….Finland? Or Sweden? These so called tolerant societies gonna fair
well when they have large groups of people unlike their own in their midst? It’s hard to live with people that are different
from you. I’m sure it’s much more
difficult for a Chinese to live in America than it is for me. Maybe he’s a bit anxious. However, he has to realize that just because
he doesn’t have white skin doesn’t mean people don’t think he’s not
American.
When I’m in Shanghai buying something, believe or not, I would
upon occasion have the cashier give me the price in Shanghai Hua. WTF?
Aren’t you looking at my face? Same
think in Guangzhou….
Well, maybe they were just sleep walking that day, but in America
people still think that just because you are different doesn’t mean you aren’t
one of them. I would think that would
make a lot of folks a bit more comfortable within our society. Trust me, it’s totally the opposite for a
laowai in China or a Gaijin in Japan.
Otherwise,
why wouldn’t have these words for us to begin with?
I’d get fired from my job if I called someone a chink in
America.
These ancient civilizations lose a lot of their sheen when
you consider how deep rooted their words are for us, within all levels of
society. Am I the only one winking at
the irony here?
When’s the People’s Daily gonna start a campaign on that?
And I never even brought up our Hispanic population. For a nation has heterogenous as we are, I
think we’re doing ok, and certainly not on the societal edge of a cliff. We all fairly much get along….well, because
we have, too. None of us are going away
soon. None of us.
Which reminds me of what we’ve done to “address”
things.
Which brings me to……
Affirmative Action
Oh my, now I’m really at a loss here. I’ve
heard China has such a thing, too, you might be a bit shocked to hear. For peasants taking the Gaokao, or for a few
of their minorities, but I’m not sure in which context, or even of the accuracy
of the above. (I’m too lazy to research
this, today, I admit. I’ve been on this
article for 2 weeks already)
In true form and in relation to our penchant for “being fair”,
we feel great shame for past deeds done wrong.
There have been historical grumblings
before: let’s pay them reparations(never
gonna happen, where’s it gonna come from?), to “apologizing”…..(ditto…that
would just open a can of worms)
So we instituted the above instead, to correct the latent
injustice that has taken place. That is,
the practice of giving a job or promotion to someone based on race, when
everything else is even. It has been
good in thought, but not necessarily in practice. Until a White Man get’s jobbed of a promotion
it’s all good. We all support the attempt
to give a Black Man a good job until he deprives ME of one?
What to do?
Don’t know.
But it’s obvious that Blacks were pissed on, and never given
an opportunity to obtain anything worthy of feeding his family and buying a
house for a rather long time. The above
is better than nothing, and it’s not perfect.
I just hope I don’t get penalized for it one day, though.
But have you ever even attempted to explain this system to
the Chinese? ( What, America isn’t a
meritocracy? )
The Chinese are a bit puzzled by this whole thing. Oh how
citizenry from homogenous societies live such sheltered lives…!
Do I wonder what would happen if our society was run like
the Military, ie a merit based organization? Yeah, I do. But we’re too big for that. And if you want to see the effects of
banning such a practice, just take a look at the California University
System. Once AA was declared illegal
during the admissions process, the
acceptance rate for non Asian minorities into this prestigious school system plummeted
into I think single digits. Not sure
how denying blacks or Hispanics a college education at a prestigious school
helps the rest of us, though.
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