Originally written September 18, 2006
If puritan values are the foundation of what America was built upon two hundred years ago, despite having a head start in nation building, the Chinese seem to lack several qualities of what we have been raised to adhere.
There is an overabundance yet at the same time a spectacular lack of one personality characteristic here: shame
You see in women what we could only imagine existed forty to fifty years ago. There is a pecking order in society here, and the women seem know there place in it. I choose my words carefully here. There is an expression, children should be seen and not be heard or something to that effect. Chinese women are meant to be neither seen nor heard. In public, the elder women are as invincible as the homeless and beggars. When you have the moment to look on their faces, their expressions say a million things at once with no one word making sense. Its not as if they are quiet, its almost as if they don't want to be seen, and do their best to stay out of the way of other people. The younger women are from a completely different world, but not in the same respect as we compare the young and old back home. There is a connection to the old world, where they have a need to express their individuality in a sea of commonality, but are bound to what they see as respect to others. This respect is not courtesy, it’s being quiet, and while they show individual traits on the outside, on the inside they remain ashamed of being who they want to be and what they could be capable of.
On the other side of the world, there is a shocking lack of class here. Maybe our two cultures just differ in too many ways to expect the same from the Chinese. There are basic courtesies you extend to others. A cell phone ringing on a train, or literally screaming their gibberish into the phone in a crowded area. There is no respect for others; people do what they do to the detriment of those that have to share their space with them. On a crowded street, people don't give you the right of way, they don't care whether they're window shopping slows down the crowds. If it wasn't for the fact I am a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the average, I would be as invincible as the next person. Except I'm the big bad, and they know when someone does not belong.
My final observation this evening goes back to that misplaced sense of chivalry I from time to time try to bring back into the modern culture, albeit similar to my personal crusade to bring back big hair and the mullet. I sat in on a first year law school class the other day, a basic legal research and writing course. Either nostalgia or boredom brought me there that day. What passes as a professor here asks the english language deprived students what are examples of laws. She talks about how in some cultures, specifically excluding our present locale, men hold doors open for women, or offer to pull out their chairs when they sit at dinner. Now I don't do these things because it’s a culture thing, and certainly not because it’s an American thing. There are basic responsibilities a man has to those around him in general, whether being polite, charming, or just automatic, more is expected from us because we can offer it. That attention to detail separates men in America, from the charmers to the unfortunate, but to me it’s a matter of what should be expected from everyone. You don't find that same set of core values here. Maybe they exist in different forms, that attention is paid to details I have not seen.
It doesn't take much to separate yourself from the men and the boys. And I'm finding those acts translate no matter what language we speak.
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