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David Maier's avatar

Hi Jim-

I've followed your China writing through the years, and have always been struck by your consistent, and persistent, witness that China is a complex and baffling country, whose inherent nature morphs and dissolves the more one steeps in it.

The one aspect of American culture which I wish we could change is, for lack of a better phrase, the powerful compulsion to create a de-humanized Bogey Man. Whether it was the Southern (and confessedly Northern) fear of empowering the bogey man of the enslaved population, the Red Scare of the Cold War, the Muslim terrorists, or the opposite political party, we have a habitual urge to create a singular, evil monster under the bed.

A few years ago (shortly after her 11 hour sit in a Congressional hearing), I asked a work colleague, a Republican, in the gentlest of tones, to help me understand why there was so much demonization of Hillary Clinton. His face immediately reddened and he said, quite forcefully, "YOU DEMOCRATS...." and I don't remember the rest of what he said. I was shocked by the depth of his rage, speaking to me as a unified body of the opposite political party. I was not challenging him; I was expressing my own, individual befuddlement, asking for some clarification.

Whether it was the insanity of going into Iraq with decidedly arrogant ignorance of the Shi'ite and Sunni divide, and the belief that Iraqis would, as a body, unite around the beneficent liberation by the Western saviors; or the cultural ignorance of believing that we could bring anything like Western democracy to such a culturally and physically segregated, and industrially and infrastructurally underdeveloped country as Afghanistan; or [insert national opponent here], Americans seem, uniquely, to consolidate the milllions and billions into a single, unifying demon. (We did it with the Nazis, and perhaps that has solidified the urge; but see Rachel Maddow's illuminating picture of the less-than-unified nature of our view of Nazi's leading up to the war.)

As I go through life, I realize that the more experience I have, the less I know about my fellow human beings. The categories and pigeon holes I grew up with as a handy way to make sense of the world, have been dissolving, and my apparent arrogance in thinking that I knew much about anything, including my own racism, has become glaringly apparent.

Born in Kentucky but raised by parents from New York City, I grew up watching Jim Crow dissipate; and like Chief Justice Roberts, believed that racism was a thing of the past. But as I began to imagine myself walking in the shoes of the Other, I came to realize that I believed racism to be over because I, myself, had never experienced it.

The church in whose choir I sing, in Richmond, VA, has a direct action group, whose current, admirable charge is to improve housing and to solve the gun problem. Last night, our African American choir conductor acknowledged the worthiness of those goals. But he asked, from the depths of his fear, that something be done about policing in Richmond. And what we all saw, in that moment, was the deeply felt, and justified fear of a talented, artistic and quite brilliant choral conductor, who is a father to two boys, that he could easily have been, and may still become, Tyre Nichols.

We fair toned folk don't live in that fear; so how do we understand that the problem even exists? We cannot understand China without walking in the shoes of 1.4 billion people. We cannot understand our political opponents until we walk in their shoes. And we cannot do that if we approach them out of fear and rage. This is a particularly American trait that will continue to get in the way of any attempt to improve relations both within and outside our country. It is a huge problem. But it cannot be addressed until we actively name it, and face it.

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James's avatar

I have not lived full time in China like James & Deb, but I have been working there regularly for many years. To describe China as a complex and challenging country is an understatement. The only thing that is clear to me is that the average Chinese man or woman seems to have more energy and business sense than the average American, for reasons I will probably never understand. As others have also pointed out, on a one-on-one basis, there is no antagonism between Chinese and American people----this exists only at a governmental / political level. I would also say that age itself (if we are fortunate) brings the sense of knowing less and less for certain each year, and realizing that there are so many meaningful ways to live, eat, dress, worship, and work----this is the wonder of the world that too many Americans simply do not understand. They have been taught by those who want us to fear those unlike ourselves, rather than learn from those unlike ourselves. I have been blessed by the opportunity to work in nearly 70 countries over the course of a long business life, and this is something that I wish more Americans could experience. I feel certain that we would have a very different political / social country if more Americans would travel and gain first-hand experience of the rest of the world's cultures.

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