After freshening up at the hotel for a bit, it was only 3:00 PM, so we decided to get a bit of sightseeing in. The major thing that Nanjing is know for outside China is the Rape of Nanking as termed in American history textbooks, now seemingly recognized properly at the Nanjing Massacre.
To this effect, we went to the appropriate memorial, named the Memorial for Compatriots Killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression (侵華日軍南京大屠殺遇難同胞紀念館/侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆) after eating at a western restaurant. The food was quite good, there was just too much of it, so we ended up overeating.
The whole memorial was quite somber, as it was designed. The memorial was designed on a black and charcoal gray template, with the death toll on a cross made purposefully dirty juxtaposed with walls across a gray-pebble courtyard (evocative of Zen gardens) from the museum.
One point popped into the back of my head. It probably would have just gone away if my friend didn’t say anything about it. This memorial wasn’t built over any sort of ruins. The museum had fake ruins adorning the materials about the conflict and in no way was this site more historical than the rest of Nanjing.
This friend happened to have seen some of the major holocaust sites in Germany. She said that the Nanjing Massacre Memorial lacked the same authentic feel that Dauchau concentration camp did. I could see her point, but being that most of the museums that I’ve been to in the United States have been built on nothing more than their foundations of concrete and steel, this fact didn’t irk me.
The museum was more informative than anything else. Everything stated was presented as fact, and though the words “Japanese Invaders” were used more than once (or twice), artifacts from the conflict seemed to be displayed in a very impartial manner (though at the same time it was quite clear what country you were in).
It made me realize how much about Asia, and for that matter the world outside Anglophone North America and Europe I don’t know. I construe it as a simple statement on our Eurocentric public educations. I remember that in sophomore year of high school, the state set up a curriculum based on “World History,” but with our class being European History Advanced Placement, we were going to wait until after the AP test in May to cover the rest of the world. Thought it seemed to be a daunting task, covering the rest of the world in less than a month, we failed to accomplish anything at all. Instead, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail as well as Forrest Gump.
I do understand that in comparison with the eleven million people (six million Jews) that the Nazis killed, a simple 300,000 doesn’t seem like much by the Imperialist Japanese. The fact of the matter is though that 300,000 people make up still 300,000 lives, each one precious in its own regard.
To make matters special, whereas Germany likes to distance itself from its Nazi past, it is highly questionable whether Japan cares to do the same. Maybe 300,000 is a high estimate; “impartial” observers estimate 260,000; but Japanese historians head down to 100,000. I suppose the number isn’t important, but some Japanese officials say that all the deaths were military-related and that no war crimes occurred (being that you aren’t to target civilians nor attack when civilians are known to be present). Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to go pay respect to the Japanese memorial honoring their fallen soldiers in the conflict.
The fact of the matter was that Japan was clearly the one that violated the well-established international law principle of territorial sovereignty, and in doing so continued to murder innocent civilians. I don’t hold anything against the Japan of today, because what’s past is the history. And though you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, I well understand many Chinese people’s anti-Japanese sentiment.
I suppose in some ways I’m a product of the whole conflict. Had Japan as well as Germany not started their courses in history in World War II, I, James Philip Jee, as I know myself would not be here today. People like to take guesses at my families’ histories. In Guilin, one American tourist decided to guess without solicitation that I have relatives who moved to the United States to build the railroads. Almost everybody assumes that having parents that are Chinese (meaning ethnicity) means that you can speak Chinese. To them it makes so much sense when I say that my mother’s from Hong Kong yet so much humor when I say my father’s from Detroit.
Because my parents didn’t meet in China, I don’t say my family’s from China, though I am proud of my Chinese heritage. In fact, my father’s never been outside of North America, so to say so would be an inaccuracy. If the conflict never started, would my mother’s parents have moved from Hangzhou? Would I have a much different set of relatives? Would I even exist? Could I be an only child?
Though my circumstances are rooted in a history so ugly, I guess I can say that thanks to my parents I have reestablished my roots in a way that they never would have predicted. In a way, I like to think that no one predicted it would come out this way.
I understand that I am one privileged individual. While I wouldn’t call myself filthy rich, I understand my circumstances well as being well, and it bothers me to see wastefulness in life and in spending.
So there is a reason I went to visit Nanjing, and it’s fitting in a way that it happened to be my last trip out of Hong Kong before my time here. Never should I forget where my past lives have been lived out, never should any one forget the horrors that we people have placed each other under.
I’ve come to appreciate my roots for my culture and my heritage for my traditions. I’ve come to respect my nation as something to subscribe to and my state as something to rely on, and though immigration regulations places restrictions where people are allowed to reside and work (which most notably means that certain places are more prosperous than others), we are all ultimately people, and the future of who we are and where we are lies nowhere else than with us.
Showing posts with label race and ethnicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race and ethnicity. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Nanjing: Planes, Trains, and the Paparazzi
So my last full-fledged trip of this term started out as all the others—with transportation of course. This one required more than the others though, because as my travel buddies were aiming to save money, we opted to take trains over planes.
Nanjing is 733 miles or 1,180 kilometers from Hong Kong and would have taken two hours to fly there. As trains go, the one going from Shenzhen (Hong Kong’s Mainland border city) to its terminal at Nanjing Station would have taken twenty-five hours. In contrast, the train to Shanghai South Station would take eighteen hours and then a high-speed train to Nanjing would add on two hours from Shanghai Station via a twelve-stop metro journey. We opted for the latter.
And we couldn’t take one of the MTR through trains, which go almost non-stop to either Shanghai or Beijing from Kowloon (Hung Hom Station), because they go every other day, which for our schedule happened to fit on the wrong days.
Chinese trains are annoying. They’re decently convenient time-wise and reasonably priced. The problem is that you can’t book tickets online. I went to a travel agent (China Travel Service) and found that you have to book tickets at the stations themselves. Hong Kong’s train stations are owned and operated by the MTR Corporation, the same company that owns and operates the subway system. This means that to buy tickets in advance, you would have to truck yourself the hour and a half north to Shenzhen to buy your tickets since the rail facilities here are neither owned nor operated by the same people in Mainland China.
This trek up to Shenzhen wasn’t too appealing, and we figured we’d be able to get tickets shortly before departure, since we did the same for one person for the train to Guilin. Also, there was only one train scheduled each way each day, so we figured that ridership did not afford more than one train a day. Ultimately, we had to find our way up to Nanjing, because we’d already paid for the hotel and I’d already booked my flight back.
We were wrong on both accounts. The train was to leave at 13:29 and arrive at Shanghai South at 6:58, so early in the morning on Friday we got to Shenzhen. We went up to the counter and we were kindly informed that there were no beds left. This meant that we had to buy a seat. Fine. We had to get up to Nanjing, and a seat would do just that, so we bought our tickets and started counting down the hours until hell.
Now I know how I do with long flights. I’ve got a yearly quota for the number of flights over five hours I can handle. This train was going to be eighteen hours sitting. In comparison, my flight from San Francisco was only fourteen hours long and my flight earlier this summer from Los Angeles to Zurich was but eleven.
Well, anyways, the time came and we all got squished while queuing to get onto the train. I always thought it was pointless to squeeze onto mass transit vehicles, because if you’ve got a ticket, you’re getting on, and the vehicle isn’t going to go any sooner if you get on it first. Oh well.
The train was set up in tables. On half of the train, there were six seats in two rows of three around a four-person table. On the other half of the train, there were four seats in two rows of two. In between was an aisle just slightly bigger than that on an airplane.
Like the train to Guilin, in between the sleepers and the seats there was the dining car. While looking for it, I realized I had no idea how to call in Mandarin, so I called it a restaurant, and the staff looked at me like I was stupid. Instead, we met a businessman named Sharp that had approached us half because he was just being friendly and half because he was taking advantage of the opportunity to practice his English with us (my white friends more than me).
Eventually we got our dinner and found wandered back to our table set up. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the seats were facing in the same direction, because the guys across from us wouldn’t stop staring at us, half because my friends are white, half because I was speaking English, and entirely because we were all associating ourselves with each other.
What made the trip worse was that it just seemed to get more and more crowded. People were crowding the areas between cars as well as making use of the bathroom sinks and floors as beds. With pooper stoopers, the floor just got dirtier and dirtier, and it was pretty apparent as seen by the color what this dirt was actually made of. These people who wandered onto the train without a seat I assumed paid to stand, but took the opportunity to claim a seat when one arose. After going to the wrong side of the train (because Car No. 1 was connected at the back to Car No. 16), we found some guys in our seats. I asked them to move in Mandarin, and an older man replied to me in English “switch seats.” Without gesturing which seats to switch to, had he meant switching at all, we just waited until they got out of our seats. In the process of moving themselves and their stuff, they had to move their circular saw from under one table to another, which I thought was peculiar. We had just gone through x-ray security not fifteen minutes ago.
Needless to say, I read an entire book in one sitting (though it was only 180 pages long) in two hours and proceeded to eat two trays of Mandarin oranges and one tray of bananas that we paid ¥10 CNY in total for. After exhausting things to do (because it was difficult to pull my binder out of my bag to study) it was about time to go to sleep. We had hoped that they’d turn off or at least dim the lights after 11:00 p.m. But when 11:00 p.m. came and went, we hoped for midnight. And by the time I fell asleep it became apparent that the lights were there to stay. I got all of about five hours of sleep on that eighteen-hour train ride. One of my friends got as little as half an hour. We all decided that airplanes are much better than hard seats on Chinese trains.
We arrived at Shanghai South Station at about 7:30 a.m. but had to stay there until the ticket office opened at 8:00 a.m. to help my friends buy tickets back for later in the week. I was to leave from Nanjing by air but they were going to come back to Shanghai to scout the place out. One of them studies Mandarin but neither of them felt they had the capacity to negotiate hard-sleepers back to Shenzhen. I actually found that I did the whole thing without any effort. They got their train tickets back, and what’s better is they got hard sleepers—so the hellish ride there wouldn’t be a hellish ride back.
We ate breakfast at a place called Mister Donut in the train station. My problem with eating doughnuts is that they make me feel like a doughnut in the short term as well as in the long term.
Next up, we had to get from one train station to the other, because trains to Nanjing left from Shanghai Station, and we were currently at Shanghai South Station. This was anticipated and hence smooth. For ¥4 CNY, we went the twelve stops along Line 1 of the Shanghai Metro to Shanghai Station.
Although it was going very well, at Shanghai Station, our luck had apparently run low. We waited to buy train tickets to Nanjing at the automated machines and waited for a long time. By the time we got up to the front, the every other machine went out of order, including ours, so we were ushered a block down to the ticket office. It was packed. Luckily we got our train tickets without much ado.
Waiting turned out to be a prelude for what was to come next. Already in the eighteen-hour train, our group of three had elicited many looks from the Chinese countrymen. What are two white people doing in a Chinese long-distance train? What is that Chinese guy doing with them? Is that English they’re speaking? 我听不懂! Needless to say, I explained to a lot of people who asked that they’re Scottish and Australian. If you care, I’m American. Yes, they’re my classmates and we study in Hong Kong.
In the waiting room in Shanghai Station though, we noticed though that people were taking pictures. My friend said, “Paparazzi, twelve o’clock.” I looked. There, on one knee a guy had his camera phone out with the lens noticeably popped out, snapping away at the white people. Another guy had a full-on camera out. One of their flashes went off. I wondered if these people saved these pictures for their friends and went like “I saw white people at Shanghai Station!” I don’t think my friends got their pictures taken in Beijing, and I thought Shanghai had more tourists and non-Chinese business people and non-Chinese people in general. Like I said though, this incident was a prelude.
The train journey from Shanghai to Nanjing was about two hours in length. The modern high-speed trains of China Railway High-Speed (CRH) were a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined than the aging conventional rail ones. The staff were friendlier as were the passengers themselves, though granted this time we were all facing the same direction. The English displayed on the message board in the cabin was a little shotty and all, but at least it was understandable—bottom line was that we weren’t there for the English.
While napping, one of the staff members picked up my friend’s camera and woke her up. He said something to the effect of she should put that camera away because people can take it while she’s sleeping, especially because there’s nothing pretty to take pictures of inside this train. Between each statement, he would say, “” to which she would nod her head. I thought that she was actually answering his questions, that she did understand what he was saying like he asked. She was just nodding yes. So here’s a lesson: like my mom’s friend said, if you don’t understand something, it works more often than not to answer in the negative. No!
After arriving in Nanjing, we had our hotel address on a piece of paper (in pinyin only, unfortunately). We got in an unregulated taxi by accident and got ripped off. For the three of us, he charged ¥200 to take us to our hotel, which wasn’t that far away. However though, he helped us through our address dilemma, since it seems that most people in China don’t read pinyin (because they read the harder characters). He drove us to one hotel, where we asked concierge where our hotel was. They didn’t know the hotel’s name (it was a Holiday Inn, but no one calls it that because it has a Chinese name), so he said he would take me to the address. I said that was great. Later, looking at a map, the hotel was super close to one of the metro stops and we could have gotten there, had we planned better, for ¥2-4 each. Oh well. Lesson learned.
Nanjing is 733 miles or 1,180 kilometers from Hong Kong and would have taken two hours to fly there. As trains go, the one going from Shenzhen (Hong Kong’s Mainland border city) to its terminal at Nanjing Station would have taken twenty-five hours. In contrast, the train to Shanghai South Station would take eighteen hours and then a high-speed train to Nanjing would add on two hours from Shanghai Station via a twelve-stop metro journey. We opted for the latter.
And we couldn’t take one of the MTR through trains, which go almost non-stop to either Shanghai or Beijing from Kowloon (Hung Hom Station), because they go every other day, which for our schedule happened to fit on the wrong days.
Chinese trains are annoying. They’re decently convenient time-wise and reasonably priced. The problem is that you can’t book tickets online. I went to a travel agent (China Travel Service) and found that you have to book tickets at the stations themselves. Hong Kong’s train stations are owned and operated by the MTR Corporation, the same company that owns and operates the subway system. This means that to buy tickets in advance, you would have to truck yourself the hour and a half north to Shenzhen to buy your tickets since the rail facilities here are neither owned nor operated by the same people in Mainland China.
This trek up to Shenzhen wasn’t too appealing, and we figured we’d be able to get tickets shortly before departure, since we did the same for one person for the train to Guilin. Also, there was only one train scheduled each way each day, so we figured that ridership did not afford more than one train a day. Ultimately, we had to find our way up to Nanjing, because we’d already paid for the hotel and I’d already booked my flight back.
We were wrong on both accounts. The train was to leave at 13:29 and arrive at Shanghai South at 6:58, so early in the morning on Friday we got to Shenzhen. We went up to the counter and we were kindly informed that there were no beds left. This meant that we had to buy a seat. Fine. We had to get up to Nanjing, and a seat would do just that, so we bought our tickets and started counting down the hours until hell.
Now I know how I do with long flights. I’ve got a yearly quota for the number of flights over five hours I can handle. This train was going to be eighteen hours sitting. In comparison, my flight from San Francisco was only fourteen hours long and my flight earlier this summer from Los Angeles to Zurich was but eleven.
Well, anyways, the time came and we all got squished while queuing to get onto the train. I always thought it was pointless to squeeze onto mass transit vehicles, because if you’ve got a ticket, you’re getting on, and the vehicle isn’t going to go any sooner if you get on it first. Oh well.
The train was set up in tables. On half of the train, there were six seats in two rows of three around a four-person table. On the other half of the train, there were four seats in two rows of two. In between was an aisle just slightly bigger than that on an airplane.
Like the train to Guilin, in between the sleepers and the seats there was the dining car. While looking for it, I realized I had no idea how to call in Mandarin, so I called it a restaurant, and the staff looked at me like I was stupid. Instead, we met a businessman named Sharp that had approached us half because he was just being friendly and half because he was taking advantage of the opportunity to practice his English with us (my white friends more than me).
Eventually we got our dinner and found wandered back to our table set up. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the seats were facing in the same direction, because the guys across from us wouldn’t stop staring at us, half because my friends are white, half because I was speaking English, and entirely because we were all associating ourselves with each other.
What made the trip worse was that it just seemed to get more and more crowded. People were crowding the areas between cars as well as making use of the bathroom sinks and floors as beds. With pooper stoopers, the floor just got dirtier and dirtier, and it was pretty apparent as seen by the color what this dirt was actually made of. These people who wandered onto the train without a seat I assumed paid to stand, but took the opportunity to claim a seat when one arose. After going to the wrong side of the train (because Car No. 1 was connected at the back to Car No. 16), we found some guys in our seats. I asked them to move in Mandarin, and an older man replied to me in English “switch seats.” Without gesturing which seats to switch to, had he meant switching at all, we just waited until they got out of our seats. In the process of moving themselves and their stuff, they had to move their circular saw from under one table to another, which I thought was peculiar. We had just gone through x-ray security not fifteen minutes ago.
Needless to say, I read an entire book in one sitting (though it was only 180 pages long) in two hours and proceeded to eat two trays of Mandarin oranges and one tray of bananas that we paid ¥10 CNY in total for. After exhausting things to do (because it was difficult to pull my binder out of my bag to study) it was about time to go to sleep. We had hoped that they’d turn off or at least dim the lights after 11:00 p.m. But when 11:00 p.m. came and went, we hoped for midnight. And by the time I fell asleep it became apparent that the lights were there to stay. I got all of about five hours of sleep on that eighteen-hour train ride. One of my friends got as little as half an hour. We all decided that airplanes are much better than hard seats on Chinese trains.
We arrived at Shanghai South Station at about 7:30 a.m. but had to stay there until the ticket office opened at 8:00 a.m. to help my friends buy tickets back for later in the week. I was to leave from Nanjing by air but they were going to come back to Shanghai to scout the place out. One of them studies Mandarin but neither of them felt they had the capacity to negotiate hard-sleepers back to Shenzhen. I actually found that I did the whole thing without any effort. They got their train tickets back, and what’s better is they got hard sleepers—so the hellish ride there wouldn’t be a hellish ride back.
We ate breakfast at a place called Mister Donut in the train station. My problem with eating doughnuts is that they make me feel like a doughnut in the short term as well as in the long term.
Next up, we had to get from one train station to the other, because trains to Nanjing left from Shanghai Station, and we were currently at Shanghai South Station. This was anticipated and hence smooth. For ¥4 CNY, we went the twelve stops along Line 1 of the Shanghai Metro to Shanghai Station.
Although it was going very well, at Shanghai Station, our luck had apparently run low. We waited to buy train tickets to Nanjing at the automated machines and waited for a long time. By the time we got up to the front, the every other machine went out of order, including ours, so we were ushered a block down to the ticket office. It was packed. Luckily we got our train tickets without much ado.
Waiting turned out to be a prelude for what was to come next. Already in the eighteen-hour train, our group of three had elicited many looks from the Chinese countrymen. What are two white people doing in a Chinese long-distance train? What is that Chinese guy doing with them? Is that English they’re speaking? 我听不懂! Needless to say, I explained to a lot of people who asked that they’re Scottish and Australian. If you care, I’m American. Yes, they’re my classmates and we study in Hong Kong.
In the waiting room in Shanghai Station though, we noticed though that people were taking pictures. My friend said, “Paparazzi, twelve o’clock.” I looked. There, on one knee a guy had his camera phone out with the lens noticeably popped out, snapping away at the white people. Another guy had a full-on camera out. One of their flashes went off. I wondered if these people saved these pictures for their friends and went like “I saw white people at Shanghai Station!” I don’t think my friends got their pictures taken in Beijing, and I thought Shanghai had more tourists and non-Chinese business people and non-Chinese people in general. Like I said though, this incident was a prelude.
The train journey from Shanghai to Nanjing was about two hours in length. The modern high-speed trains of China Railway High-Speed (CRH) were a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined than the aging conventional rail ones. The staff were friendlier as were the passengers themselves, though granted this time we were all facing the same direction. The English displayed on the message board in the cabin was a little shotty and all, but at least it was understandable—bottom line was that we weren’t there for the English.
While napping, one of the staff members picked up my friend’s camera and woke her up. He said something to the effect of she should put that camera away because people can take it while she’s sleeping, especially because there’s nothing pretty to take pictures of inside this train. Between each statement, he would say, “” to which she would nod her head. I thought that she was actually answering his questions, that she did understand what he was saying like he asked. She was just nodding yes. So here’s a lesson: like my mom’s friend said, if you don’t understand something, it works more often than not to answer in the negative. No!
After arriving in Nanjing, we had our hotel address on a piece of paper (in pinyin only, unfortunately). We got in an unregulated taxi by accident and got ripped off. For the three of us, he charged ¥200 to take us to our hotel, which wasn’t that far away. However though, he helped us through our address dilemma, since it seems that most people in China don’t read pinyin (because they read the harder characters). He drove us to one hotel, where we asked concierge where our hotel was. They didn’t know the hotel’s name (it was a Holiday Inn, but no one calls it that because it has a Chinese name), so he said he would take me to the address. I said that was great. Later, looking at a map, the hotel was super close to one of the metro stops and we could have gotten there, had we planned better, for ¥2-4 each. Oh well. Lesson learned.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Germans All Have Blond Hair and Blue Eyes
I guess I just can’t shake it off. Most incidents are minor and not worth mentioning, except perhaps in larger contexts, because a constituency is made of its smallest parts, right? At this point, I don’t plan to exempt myself from this observation, because I know I do it too—I just wish it would all stop.
I guess the basis of this whole thing starts from a simple rule of thumb in English class in high school—never make absolute statements in essay writing. I’ve learned a long time ago now that applies to speaking now, because almost all absolutes are wrong, if even by the smallest degree. I’ve just learned that if all people believe the same absolute, it’s fake truth wills out against the real truth—which I guess is to be expected, since as records are reflections of events and not the events themselves, what’s “true” is largely up to interpretation, whatever the truth may be.
I’m guessing that this post is just going to amount to episodes of logical fallacies and the sense I’ve made of them.
The Germans
I once said to my group of friends here, something something something “is like saying that everyone in Germany has blond hair and blue eyes—it’s just not true.” Now, I’ve seen the statistics and I’ve seen it for myself (meaning I’ve been to Germany), but the fact that even though a vast majority of Germans have blond hair and blue eyes, the fact of the matter is that not all of them do, even if you only include ethnic Germans in Germany. I’ve met plenty of people from Germany who don’t have blue eyes and plenty more who don’t have blond hair.
My logic was lost on them though, as it often seems that 95% equals 100%, but any one who’s studied any form of science (natural or social) would tell you that it’s not the same, however damn close it is.
My statement got the reply, “Well have you ever been to Germany? Because I’m always surprised by the sheer number of blond-haired, blue-eyed people there”—to which I said yes, and that it’s still not all, to which I was rebutted, “Yeah but it’s a lot”—and I to that I said that yes, there are a lot, but it is still not all, and that’s the bottom line. And though I was ultimately right in logic, my statement got rejected because the falsity of notion and not the logic was what was agreed to.
In the Middle of China
Fine. On the train to Guilin, this guy started a conversation in Mandarin with me and the three other people in my group. I was the one with the highest proficiency (with two being nil), so I did most of the talking. They all said where they were from (Scotland, Australia, and Norway), and I said I was from the United States, using it as an excuse for my lack of proficiency. I am well aware that I’m noticeably of Chinese decent (though many perceive my attitude of that fact as meaning that I’m ashamed of my past or that I’ve got false notions about my appearance—both of which are false), so the guy pressed further at me. I asked the others what I should tell him.
One friend said that I should say that my family’s from China. I told her that’s not true (because to me that would imply that my parents met in China and moved to the United States, which isn’t true, with one parent never having been outside of North America and the other speaking better English than Chinese). By that logic though, I should have asked my Australian friend whether she would say that her family is from Britain, since her father’s from there and that overall she could trace her entire ancestry back to the Isles, because I’m pretty sure she would have said no.
American Dad
It seems funny to me that no matter how much things are illogical, the most superficial aspects of something just make up for the rest, even if it makes something more illogical.
Just a couple days ago, I got asked where my father is from since I always say that I’m trying to learn Cantonese, partly so that I can use it back home with my mother, who’s originally from Hong Kong, having left the Crown Colony at the age of eleven. I said Michigan, which is the complete truth.
Though I ultimately understand, I’ve always wondered why I get such a variety of reactions when I say my dad’s from Detroit. The fact of the matter is that that’s the truth. It’s where he was born and where he spent the first half of his childhood (the other half being in Chicago). He’s got those annoying double negatives to prove his difference in dialect.
So my friend asked me just a few days ago where my dad was from. I said Michigan, which elicited surprise. I was kind of taken aback. I wasn’t offended, but I was surprised, because I spend a lot of time with this friend and I’m sure I’d told her before. She had it in her head for some reason that my dad’s from Hong Kong like my mom is. I said that if that were the case, my Chinese would likely be much better—native even, if not at least near.
The Locals
The time I went to dinner with my floor here, I got local students asking how I could possibly American. After all, I look Chinese. To that I tried to say that why can’t you be both, or why can’t you be one in certain aspects and the other in other aspects? Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey that, nor could I convey my surprise that those students have never heard of populations that are not homogenous. (Hong Kong is 95% Han Chinese whereas the United States is less than 70% non-Hispanic white with California coming in at less than 50% non-Hispanic white.)
The Disconnect of the Upper Echelons
What’s the funniest is who knows what. Earlier this week, I walked into the Finance office to apply for my caution money back (a $350 HKD deposit) now that the semester is coming to an end. I asked for the proper forms not knowing what I needed, and though I’m 華人, I got the form for exchange students. The secretary for the office had heard my foreignness in my accent and judged my origin based on that rather than my skin color, so to speak. This feat would not have seemed so impressive had the pro-vice-chancellor on Monday not said what she said.
As I said earlier, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Amy Tsui came in to speak at the last lecture of Hong Kong and the World. I’ve got my opinions of school administrators, most of which along the theme of being disconnected and haughty (though not overtly arrogant). She of all people is someone you would expect to get this straight, having done her Ph.D. (in linguistics) in the United Kingdom.
Seeing our class of forty in attendance, she noticed the two white people in the lecture hall and referred to them as the “two foreigners in the class,” (though there were about ten of us), without thinking that maybe some of us happen to be of Chinese decent. Of all people, I would have expected her to understand well that culture, like language, is passed down through socialization and isn’t dictated in our genes. (Unlike the many people back home, including some of the people closest to me, who overtly believe that I am more comfortable around people who look like me rather than the people in my hometown—composition: 85% white).
I guess it just goes to show that those at the uppermost echelons of society are often the most ignorant whereas those of us who have our feet firmly planted on the ground—the ones who interact with everyday people—really know what’s going on.
Add It All Up
The bottom line is that I hold none of the above statements against the people who uttered them. This is because I’m well aware that as much as I try to monitor myself and bring myself back down to logic, I still fall victim to the same forces.
So the base line is that I really dislike when people hate that they are expected, especially in public situations, to be politically correct all the time. All that means is that you ultimately don’t care about anyone else (in feelings, emotions, situations, etc.), even if you think you are just joking. It gets worse when such is followed by a request not to judge, and I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I already will have.
Just try and try hard, that’s all I can and do hope for.
I guess the basis of this whole thing starts from a simple rule of thumb in English class in high school—never make absolute statements in essay writing. I’ve learned a long time ago now that applies to speaking now, because almost all absolutes are wrong, if even by the smallest degree. I’ve just learned that if all people believe the same absolute, it’s fake truth wills out against the real truth—which I guess is to be expected, since as records are reflections of events and not the events themselves, what’s “true” is largely up to interpretation, whatever the truth may be.
I’m guessing that this post is just going to amount to episodes of logical fallacies and the sense I’ve made of them.
The Germans
I once said to my group of friends here, something something something “is like saying that everyone in Germany has blond hair and blue eyes—it’s just not true.” Now, I’ve seen the statistics and I’ve seen it for myself (meaning I’ve been to Germany), but the fact that even though a vast majority of Germans have blond hair and blue eyes, the fact of the matter is that not all of them do, even if you only include ethnic Germans in Germany. I’ve met plenty of people from Germany who don’t have blue eyes and plenty more who don’t have blond hair.
My logic was lost on them though, as it often seems that 95% equals 100%, but any one who’s studied any form of science (natural or social) would tell you that it’s not the same, however damn close it is.
My statement got the reply, “Well have you ever been to Germany? Because I’m always surprised by the sheer number of blond-haired, blue-eyed people there”—to which I said yes, and that it’s still not all, to which I was rebutted, “Yeah but it’s a lot”—and I to that I said that yes, there are a lot, but it is still not all, and that’s the bottom line. And though I was ultimately right in logic, my statement got rejected because the falsity of notion and not the logic was what was agreed to.
In the Middle of China
Fine. On the train to Guilin, this guy started a conversation in Mandarin with me and the three other people in my group. I was the one with the highest proficiency (with two being nil), so I did most of the talking. They all said where they were from (Scotland, Australia, and Norway), and I said I was from the United States, using it as an excuse for my lack of proficiency. I am well aware that I’m noticeably of Chinese decent (though many perceive my attitude of that fact as meaning that I’m ashamed of my past or that I’ve got false notions about my appearance—both of which are false), so the guy pressed further at me. I asked the others what I should tell him.
One friend said that I should say that my family’s from China. I told her that’s not true (because to me that would imply that my parents met in China and moved to the United States, which isn’t true, with one parent never having been outside of North America and the other speaking better English than Chinese). By that logic though, I should have asked my Australian friend whether she would say that her family is from Britain, since her father’s from there and that overall she could trace her entire ancestry back to the Isles, because I’m pretty sure she would have said no.
American Dad
It seems funny to me that no matter how much things are illogical, the most superficial aspects of something just make up for the rest, even if it makes something more illogical.
Just a couple days ago, I got asked where my father is from since I always say that I’m trying to learn Cantonese, partly so that I can use it back home with my mother, who’s originally from Hong Kong, having left the Crown Colony at the age of eleven. I said Michigan, which is the complete truth.
Though I ultimately understand, I’ve always wondered why I get such a variety of reactions when I say my dad’s from Detroit. The fact of the matter is that that’s the truth. It’s where he was born and where he spent the first half of his childhood (the other half being in Chicago). He’s got those annoying double negatives to prove his difference in dialect.
So my friend asked me just a few days ago where my dad was from. I said Michigan, which elicited surprise. I was kind of taken aback. I wasn’t offended, but I was surprised, because I spend a lot of time with this friend and I’m sure I’d told her before. She had it in her head for some reason that my dad’s from Hong Kong like my mom is. I said that if that were the case, my Chinese would likely be much better—native even, if not at least near.
The Locals
The time I went to dinner with my floor here, I got local students asking how I could possibly American. After all, I look Chinese. To that I tried to say that why can’t you be both, or why can’t you be one in certain aspects and the other in other aspects? Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey that, nor could I convey my surprise that those students have never heard of populations that are not homogenous. (Hong Kong is 95% Han Chinese whereas the United States is less than 70% non-Hispanic white with California coming in at less than 50% non-Hispanic white.)
The Disconnect of the Upper Echelons
What’s the funniest is who knows what. Earlier this week, I walked into the Finance office to apply for my caution money back (a $350 HKD deposit) now that the semester is coming to an end. I asked for the proper forms not knowing what I needed, and though I’m 華人, I got the form for exchange students. The secretary for the office had heard my foreignness in my accent and judged my origin based on that rather than my skin color, so to speak. This feat would not have seemed so impressive had the pro-vice-chancellor on Monday not said what she said.
As I said earlier, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Amy Tsui came in to speak at the last lecture of Hong Kong and the World. I’ve got my opinions of school administrators, most of which along the theme of being disconnected and haughty (though not overtly arrogant). She of all people is someone you would expect to get this straight, having done her Ph.D. (in linguistics) in the United Kingdom.
Seeing our class of forty in attendance, she noticed the two white people in the lecture hall and referred to them as the “two foreigners in the class,” (though there were about ten of us), without thinking that maybe some of us happen to be of Chinese decent. Of all people, I would have expected her to understand well that culture, like language, is passed down through socialization and isn’t dictated in our genes. (Unlike the many people back home, including some of the people closest to me, who overtly believe that I am more comfortable around people who look like me rather than the people in my hometown—composition: 85% white).
I guess it just goes to show that those at the uppermost echelons of society are often the most ignorant whereas those of us who have our feet firmly planted on the ground—the ones who interact with everyday people—really know what’s going on.
Add It All Up
The bottom line is that I hold none of the above statements against the people who uttered them. This is because I’m well aware that as much as I try to monitor myself and bring myself back down to logic, I still fall victim to the same forces.
So the base line is that I really dislike when people hate that they are expected, especially in public situations, to be politically correct all the time. All that means is that you ultimately don’t care about anyone else (in feelings, emotions, situations, etc.), even if you think you are just joking. It gets worse when such is followed by a request not to judge, and I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I already will have.
Just try and try hard, that’s all I can and do hope for.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Notes on a Close
Eventually all things come to an end. Eventually I will have to go back to the United States, finish my university degree, find my life, and establish my career. And I know that eventually will start to take place around noon on December 21, when I have to board a plane back to Los Angeles via San Francisco.
It all had to end eventually, I keep telling myself, but somehow it’s just not enough. I didn’t even come here that long ago. I now have just under three weeks left here and I arrived only fifteen weeks ago. Though I keep telling myself that I couldn’t’ve extended for a year, I know that my biggest piece of advice to others will be take the whole year—because now I wholeheartedly believe that it is.
I know that there are people who disagree with me. I’ll wait until they go back to their home countries and see if they still feel the same way, and if they do, so be it. I know I still feel like I’m learning every day, but I know some of the people I talk to remain close-minded and naïve. I guess I wouldn’t be the best to judge naïveté, but the fact that many of them haven’t made the slightest attempt (but a phrase or two) to learn Cantonese is a huge indicator.
I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, though, as cliché as that is. I have one friend who attends Berkeley in the States but is studying abroad at HKU like me this semester because she felt like I do now. She filed to extend and was accepted, and now that she is staying, she’s not going home for the holidays, and she feels that she misses her family.
So the best thing to do is to reserve judgment I suppose. I’ll wait to get back home, I suppose. I’ll see the wide roads and giant cars (one of which I’ll likely be transported in), I suppose. I’ll see the wastefulness that Americans are so known for possessing and realize that people in Hong Kong aren’t all that different. Maybe by the time I get back, I’ll understand intuitively and subconsciously in addition to consciously that we are all just people, and that everything else really doesn’t matter.
I'm not ready just yet to go back—but then again, who is really ready for anything?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
It all had to end eventually, I keep telling myself, but somehow it’s just not enough. I didn’t even come here that long ago. I now have just under three weeks left here and I arrived only fifteen weeks ago. Though I keep telling myself that I couldn’t’ve extended for a year, I know that my biggest piece of advice to others will be take the whole year—because now I wholeheartedly believe that it is.
I know that there are people who disagree with me. I’ll wait until they go back to their home countries and see if they still feel the same way, and if they do, so be it. I know I still feel like I’m learning every day, but I know some of the people I talk to remain close-minded and naïve. I guess I wouldn’t be the best to judge naïveté, but the fact that many of them haven’t made the slightest attempt (but a phrase or two) to learn Cantonese is a huge indicator.
I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, though, as cliché as that is. I have one friend who attends Berkeley in the States but is studying abroad at HKU like me this semester because she felt like I do now. She filed to extend and was accepted, and now that she is staying, she’s not going home for the holidays, and she feels that she misses her family.
So the best thing to do is to reserve judgment I suppose. I’ll wait to get back home, I suppose. I’ll see the wide roads and giant cars (one of which I’ll likely be transported in), I suppose. I’ll see the wastefulness that Americans are so known for possessing and realize that people in Hong Kong aren’t all that different. Maybe by the time I get back, I’ll understand intuitively and subconsciously in addition to consciously that we are all just people, and that everything else really doesn’t matter.
I'm not ready just yet to go back—but then again, who is really ready for anything?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Fame
The last time I traveled to Shenzhen, it was poorly orchestrated and we didn't end up seeing that much. I wanted to go back. So the Monday before last, I hoped on the MTR East Rail Line and did just that. With the tickets costing less than $10 USD each way, I figured it would definitely be worth it to go back and check out the place better since last time we ran out of daylight to fully see the place.
Just as a refresher, Shenzhen is the Special Economic Zone (city) in Mainland China that borders Hong Kong to the north. As I remembered through this trip there, Shenzhen is a very new city, set up to take advantage of Hong Kong's special status. My aunt and uncle recounted to me months ago how it used to be a nice, relatively quiet place until its designation as a SEZ in 1980. At that time the city boomed as the mountains were gutted to reclaim the sea. Today, Shenzhen serves as a reminder to how fast development can occur in China. Though it lacks the same level of recognition of Hong Kong, it has at least one million more residents (officially) than Hong Kong.
Admittedly, this trip to Shenzhen was not entirely about sightseeing. I needed a haircut. My uncle told me that it cost him more to cut his hair at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Clearwater Bay, Kowloon than at the local barber in Fremont, California. From this, and in addition to asking my friends here how much they cut their hair for in Hong Kong, I figured it might be worth it to venture out into Mainland China, hereonout in the post referred to as China.
China is known for being cheaper than Hong Kong, as most people would presume. As I would find out later on, some parts are (way) cheaper than others--but that's for later. Shenzhen is famous for its massages--so I figured why not put the two together and and make an experience out of it. As I would later calculate, the haircut and massage (which were inseparable services) plus the round-trip journey on the MTR cost just a little more than a simple haircut in Hong Kong--so I justified this extra expense (less than $5 USD) in the experience to be beheld, or in my case relaxed. A friend of mine felt the same way, so I didn't go alone.
After a couple hours in Hong Kong (bus and subway), we got up to Shenzhen before 11:00 a.m. and proceeded into China. Border control was standard and expected, though this last passing gave me just four pages left in my passport for visas and entry/exit stamps (out of the original fourteen).
Right on the other side sits Shenzhen's main train station, so to prepare for Guilin the coming weekend, we bought tickets to lessen what had to be done later, as well as to save our seats (or in our case beds) in both directions. A friend of mine asked for them in Mandarin, which I later found out I had a lot of trouble doing, but more on that later.
After that we got food and headed off to get our hair cut. The particular place that we went to had to services available: haircut plus Thai massage, and haircut plus Chinese massage. The Thai-style one was longer in duration and more expensive at ¥50 CNY while the Chinese-style one was ¥40 CNY. Not being a huge fan of massages, viewing them more as painful than relaxing, I went for the Chinese-style one and my friend went for the Thai-style one.
I swear they washed my hair at least three times (because I lost count). When that was said and done they wrapped a towel around my head and proceeded to give me the massage. Parts were painful and others were soothing, though in the end I can't say I felt calmer or anything like that. While my masseuse was massaging my left arm, she received a phone call and ended up distracted, massaging that one arm for like ten minutes. Because of the lack of barbers (or for my elitist friends "hair-stylists"), I was told I was going to have to wait for a while before getting my hair cut, so they recommended I just upgrade to the Thai one, so I did--hey, it's all part of the experience, right?
When it was time, I sat in the chair and watched as my hair fell to the floor. As this was the first time cutting my hair since I left California, there was plenty being removed to go around. For the first time in months I could feel the air hovering around my now naked ears. The thing is though that the barber was cutting my hair kind of funny. I felt like it was becoming a mushroom.
In my primary- and secondary-school days, I would hate having my hair cut, and as a result it would grow out. While most wouldn't really care, because it would just get long, my hair happens to be really quite thick, and as such, it would grow more out than down. No matter what style haircut I would get, it would always become mushroom-shaped.
And now my hair was being cut mushroom-shaped.Though I write as if I was doing all the communication, I wasn't. My friend was helping me communicate all the way through alternation between Mandarin and Cantonese that was making my head turn round as I was being asked where I was from and proceeded by something to the effect of "you're Chinese descent." So in this process, My friend helped me ask the barber to make it smaller, and slowly it became so. When he thought it was done, I was sent back to the bed-sink complex for a rinse-off. He then cut it shorter, which required another rinse-off.
After that, to my surprise, he began spiking my hair. Sometimes I push up the front, but that was the only day that I've ever walked around in public with a head full of spiked hair, but whatever. I experienced first-hand what Shenzhen is famous for.
We finished off that day by doing some more sightseeing (which was highly uneventful) followed by street food (which was highly delicious and incredibly cheap). On the journey back to Hong Kong Island, I looked through my passport and realized just how extensively I've traveled. Before coming, I thought I might not even be allowed to exit the SAR without being able to come back to resume my studies as a student based on the wording of my immigration visa. Now all the entrances and exits (plus my Chinese visa) have filled up my pages, and now I have no choice but to say "yes" when people ask, "Are you well traveled?".
Back to my passport, it was advised that some states don't let you into the country without at least four empty passport pages. So this morning, I went to the United States Consulate-General here in Hong Kong and got additional pages added to my passport. They fit kind of funny, but they get the job done.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Just as a refresher, Shenzhen is the Special Economic Zone (city) in Mainland China that borders Hong Kong to the north. As I remembered through this trip there, Shenzhen is a very new city, set up to take advantage of Hong Kong's special status. My aunt and uncle recounted to me months ago how it used to be a nice, relatively quiet place until its designation as a SEZ in 1980. At that time the city boomed as the mountains were gutted to reclaim the sea. Today, Shenzhen serves as a reminder to how fast development can occur in China. Though it lacks the same level of recognition of Hong Kong, it has at least one million more residents (officially) than Hong Kong.
Admittedly, this trip to Shenzhen was not entirely about sightseeing. I needed a haircut. My uncle told me that it cost him more to cut his hair at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Clearwater Bay, Kowloon than at the local barber in Fremont, California. From this, and in addition to asking my friends here how much they cut their hair for in Hong Kong, I figured it might be worth it to venture out into Mainland China, hereonout in the post referred to as China.
China is known for being cheaper than Hong Kong, as most people would presume. As I would find out later on, some parts are (way) cheaper than others--but that's for later. Shenzhen is famous for its massages--so I figured why not put the two together and and make an experience out of it. As I would later calculate, the haircut and massage (which were inseparable services) plus the round-trip journey on the MTR cost just a little more than a simple haircut in Hong Kong--so I justified this extra expense (less than $5 USD) in the experience to be beheld, or in my case relaxed. A friend of mine felt the same way, so I didn't go alone.
After a couple hours in Hong Kong (bus and subway), we got up to Shenzhen before 11:00 a.m. and proceeded into China. Border control was standard and expected, though this last passing gave me just four pages left in my passport for visas and entry/exit stamps (out of the original fourteen).
Right on the other side sits Shenzhen's main train station, so to prepare for Guilin the coming weekend, we bought tickets to lessen what had to be done later, as well as to save our seats (or in our case beds) in both directions. A friend of mine asked for them in Mandarin, which I later found out I had a lot of trouble doing, but more on that later.
After that we got food and headed off to get our hair cut. The particular place that we went to had to services available: haircut plus Thai massage, and haircut plus Chinese massage. The Thai-style one was longer in duration and more expensive at ¥50 CNY while the Chinese-style one was ¥40 CNY. Not being a huge fan of massages, viewing them more as painful than relaxing, I went for the Chinese-style one and my friend went for the Thai-style one.
I swear they washed my hair at least three times (because I lost count). When that was said and done they wrapped a towel around my head and proceeded to give me the massage. Parts were painful and others were soothing, though in the end I can't say I felt calmer or anything like that. While my masseuse was massaging my left arm, she received a phone call and ended up distracted, massaging that one arm for like ten minutes. Because of the lack of barbers (or for my elitist friends "hair-stylists"), I was told I was going to have to wait for a while before getting my hair cut, so they recommended I just upgrade to the Thai one, so I did--hey, it's all part of the experience, right?
When it was time, I sat in the chair and watched as my hair fell to the floor. As this was the first time cutting my hair since I left California, there was plenty being removed to go around. For the first time in months I could feel the air hovering around my now naked ears. The thing is though that the barber was cutting my hair kind of funny. I felt like it was becoming a mushroom.
In my primary- and secondary-school days, I would hate having my hair cut, and as a result it would grow out. While most wouldn't really care, because it would just get long, my hair happens to be really quite thick, and as such, it would grow more out than down. No matter what style haircut I would get, it would always become mushroom-shaped.
And now my hair was being cut mushroom-shaped.Though I write as if I was doing all the communication, I wasn't. My friend was helping me communicate all the way through alternation between Mandarin and Cantonese that was making my head turn round as I was being asked where I was from and proceeded by something to the effect of "you're Chinese descent." So in this process, My friend helped me ask the barber to make it smaller, and slowly it became so. When he thought it was done, I was sent back to the bed-sink complex for a rinse-off. He then cut it shorter, which required another rinse-off.
After that, to my surprise, he began spiking my hair. Sometimes I push up the front, but that was the only day that I've ever walked around in public with a head full of spiked hair, but whatever. I experienced first-hand what Shenzhen is famous for.
We finished off that day by doing some more sightseeing (which was highly uneventful) followed by street food (which was highly delicious and incredibly cheap). On the journey back to Hong Kong Island, I looked through my passport and realized just how extensively I've traveled. Before coming, I thought I might not even be allowed to exit the SAR without being able to come back to resume my studies as a student based on the wording of my immigration visa. Now all the entrances and exits (plus my Chinese visa) have filled up my pages, and now I have no choice but to say "yes" when people ask, "Are you well traveled?".
Back to my passport, it was advised that some states don't let you into the country without at least four empty passport pages. So this morning, I went to the United States Consulate-General here in Hong Kong and got additional pages added to my passport. They fit kind of funny, but they get the job done.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, October 26, 2009
You Guys
Last week in my Hong Kong and the World class, we had James Thompson, CEO and founder of Crown Holdings International, as a guest speaker to talk to the class about United States-Hong Kong relations.
As an American businessman living in Hong Kong, he had some good things to say about the place, perhaps too many good things. And before I start getting called a pessimist or what have you, he knew a lot about business—and that was about it. And business is good right now. It’s easy to set up shop with little bureaucracy and maintain profitability with low taxes.
Admittedly, he probably knows more about Hong Kong than I do, but after 15 years of living here, it was pretty clear that he lived in foreigner’s Hong Kong. He seemed to be speaking from the heart, but then again he was a high-profile businessman. The content of what he said suggested that though he spoke with decorum, business and Hong Kong for foreigners was all he knew.
And I could very well be wrong, but out of how he phrased one particular statement, it seemed to me that business was the primary focus of his living—so much so that cultural insensitivity becomes commonplace.
First off, what do I mean by foreigner’s Hong Kong? Well, I’ll preface this by saying that I am still a foreigner to Hong Kong both culturally and officially. I’d be among the first to admit that I do not understand it any meaningful extent—not yet, maybe not ever. When I first thought of Hong Kong, I envisioned the skyline of Victoria Harbour of the skyscrapers alongside the mountains that everyone’s seen in postcards.
That first night I took the taxi to Sassoon Road from the Airport Express Station, I was a little more than surprised to see the buildings behind the skyline. It’s like I knew they were always there, just never how they looked like.
And that’s how I’d describe foreigner’s Hong Kong in the figurative sense. (as Crown Holdings did set up shop in Sha Tin, which is quite far from Central Hong Kong). From the way he described his daughter’s ability to speak Mandarin, he suggested that he himself lacks a significant grasp of Cantonese or Mandarin.
And this makes sense since it’s quite easy to get around Hong Kong in English. Though most don’t speak proficiently, many service workers know amounts necessitated by their work.
So back to James Thompson’s appearance as a guest speaker for one of my political science classes, he did a good job politically in his speaking, acknowledging the widespread presence of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students in the lecture hall.
And he ended his presence with one comment about Asians—not Hong Kongers or Chinese, but Asians. He recounted the story of his daughter (applying as someone from Hong Kong) to the University of California, Berkeley. Though white with a European surname, she and her application for admission were rejected with the memo that they’d already filled the Asian quota for that year (though affirmative action is now officially banned in public settings in California).
That little anecdote was summed up, addressing the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students as, “Well, you guys are doing something right!” Apparently James Thompson doesn’t get the difference between Asians in California (or seeming anywhere else) and those from East Asia. This was met with approval by laughs from most of the class.
They say that you learn something new every day. That day, I confirmed something the same.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
As an American businessman living in Hong Kong, he had some good things to say about the place, perhaps too many good things. And before I start getting called a pessimist or what have you, he knew a lot about business—and that was about it. And business is good right now. It’s easy to set up shop with little bureaucracy and maintain profitability with low taxes.
Admittedly, he probably knows more about Hong Kong than I do, but after 15 years of living here, it was pretty clear that he lived in foreigner’s Hong Kong. He seemed to be speaking from the heart, but then again he was a high-profile businessman. The content of what he said suggested that though he spoke with decorum, business and Hong Kong for foreigners was all he knew.
And I could very well be wrong, but out of how he phrased one particular statement, it seemed to me that business was the primary focus of his living—so much so that cultural insensitivity becomes commonplace.
First off, what do I mean by foreigner’s Hong Kong? Well, I’ll preface this by saying that I am still a foreigner to Hong Kong both culturally and officially. I’d be among the first to admit that I do not understand it any meaningful extent—not yet, maybe not ever. When I first thought of Hong Kong, I envisioned the skyline of Victoria Harbour of the skyscrapers alongside the mountains that everyone’s seen in postcards.
That first night I took the taxi to Sassoon Road from the Airport Express Station, I was a little more than surprised to see the buildings behind the skyline. It’s like I knew they were always there, just never how they looked like.
And that’s how I’d describe foreigner’s Hong Kong in the figurative sense. (as Crown Holdings did set up shop in Sha Tin, which is quite far from Central Hong Kong). From the way he described his daughter’s ability to speak Mandarin, he suggested that he himself lacks a significant grasp of Cantonese or Mandarin.
And this makes sense since it’s quite easy to get around Hong Kong in English. Though most don’t speak proficiently, many service workers know amounts necessitated by their work.
So back to James Thompson’s appearance as a guest speaker for one of my political science classes, he did a good job politically in his speaking, acknowledging the widespread presence of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students in the lecture hall.
And he ended his presence with one comment about Asians—not Hong Kongers or Chinese, but Asians. He recounted the story of his daughter (applying as someone from Hong Kong) to the University of California, Berkeley. Though white with a European surname, she and her application for admission were rejected with the memo that they’d already filled the Asian quota for that year (though affirmative action is now officially banned in public settings in California).
That little anecdote was summed up, addressing the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students as, “Well, you guys are doing something right!” Apparently James Thompson doesn’t get the difference between Asians in California (or seeming anywhere else) and those from East Asia. This was met with approval by laughs from most of the class.
They say that you learn something new every day. That day, I confirmed something the same.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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