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The casual observer
Thos.P.Jackstraw Updated: 2004-07-12 09:13
The casual observer is not qualified to make a real study of anything. If you are in China your sampling is biased by tourists and carpet baggers, punctuated occasionally with those who have genuine and sincere interests. You never get to meet the regular guy who never even leaves the US -- which is most of them; in fact, they don't even ever think of China, must less of coming to meet you. Travel to China is mostly constrained to older, wealthier adventurers and businessmen, which in the past has been carpetbagging opportunists (well, I should include greedy Bill Gates, here) and more recently by sincere interests (as IBM).
How many in times, when I was in Europe did the English speakers talk to me about Rambo and John Wayne? Or tell me of some favorite American film or series, like Miami Vice? Too often! It was either that or how nasty the American foreign policy was. There most benign interests, in conversation was all movie garbage! There was never anything as glorious or magnificent as a Miami Vice, there are only just a bunch of regular cops, normal guys not unlike any other; John Wayne and Stallone are fakes, nothing real about either of them, in life or in the movies.
The Europeans have the same bias as the Chinese, I think.
I watched an interview of Elaine Chao, the appointed Secretary of Labor under George Bush. She arrived from her homeland China in 1960, at the age of 8. She said Americans are tolerant, generous, of high energy, and with a great sense of fairness, that strangers and neighbors were very helpful and caring, devoid of customs and traditions, not shy, and free to speak their minds and join in, without a need for invitation or other traditional trappings of other cultures. This lady is very smart, and that is her opinion as given to the Chinese interviewer for the Chinese audience in China. She said Americans are versatile and the land is full of opportunity because advancement is based on hard work and merit, not on who you may know -- a pretty good mark for us, I should say!
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