Voices
to undo the choices I made when
I was a child. They could hardly be
called “choices.”
Whenever I visit China, I realize my mother was right: I should
have paid attention in Chinese
school. Saturday mornings would
have been better spent practicing
the stroke order of complex ideograms, not watching cartoons on
television, though I still remember the theme song of Hong Kong
Phoeey, the crime fighting dog.
Despite what I might like to
think, I have the same prejudices
as anyone else. When I meet an
Asian American from Texas or the
Deep South who has a twang or a
drawl, I too am dumbfounded for
a moment. I want to ask them how
they ended up that way.
They of course are perfectly
normal from their own perspective. It’s not as if they wanted
to be unusual to the rest of the
world. They sound exactly like the
people they grew up around even
if they don’t quite look like them.
The common observation is that
the Chinese know much more about
us than we know about them. As
the stereotype would have it, my
students in fact worked extraordinarily hard by our standards.
One was reading economist Adam
FRANK H. WU
HUFFINGTON
10.14.12
Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in English, for fun.
But they also were like their
peers here. Late into the night they
watched the television show Prison
Break, on what I assume were pirated DVDs, and they were astonished at my lack of interest in the
show. They did not believe my assurances that life in the States did
not resemble any of the shows of
which they had become fans.
I finally asked one
The
of them if he could fly
common
through the air.
observation
He replied, not
is that the
sure of my intention,
Chinese know
“No...”
much more
I then explained
about us
that many of us on
than we know
this side of the Paabout them.”
cific Ocean grow up
watching kung fu
movies depicting
Asians flying through the air. Then
he understood my point.
Nonetheless, whether through
great thinkers of the past or prime
time hits, the Chinese are becoming multicultural in spite of their
nationalism. We should not be surprised when they expect to contribute as equals to the development of “rule of law.”