The American Hypocrisy and Multicultural Respect
Why am I writing about China? Simple—many Americans do not respect the differences between cultures. They say they do, but I don’t believe them. During the 2008-2009 school year, our daughter returned home one day to tell us that her history teacher talked about China and said the people had to be very depressed to live under a totalitarian government like the Communists.
Retired citizens playing Chinese chess in a Shanghai park.
When our daughter attempted to disagree, the teacher and the entire class put her down, so she shut up. Now it is January 2010 (another school year), and she came home recently and said the same thing happened during another class discussion, but this time she stayed quiet and fumed.
I taught English and journalism in American public schools for thirty years. The high school where I taught was a spicy multicultural soup where I learned that teachers should know what they are talking about or keep quiet.
Our daughter, a senior in high school now, was born in Chicago and grew up speaking English. Her mother was born in Shanghai and survived Mao’s Cultural Revolution (which caused the deaths of at least thirty million). My wife came to the United States in the 1980s when she was twenty-eight. Our daughter has been to China sometimes twice a year during her eighteen years, and she speaks fluent Mandarin with no accent. She has also been learning Spanish since Middle School.
I wanted to educate that ignorant teacher with facts about China, but my wife and daughter said not to stir the pot (very Chinese). I’ve been to China many times and have never seen the people depressed as I’ve seen in the country of my birth. I was born in Southern California soon after World War II. My ancestors come from Ireland, England and Europe.
When in China, you hear little about the government unless you listen to the official, government media. The people are too busy enjoying life to be bothered by a government that is doing all it can to raise the standard of living for 1.3 billion Chinese. I see more depression and anger in America during more than six decades of life than I have seen in China the last ten.
There are seventy million communists in China and more than a billion people that love life and live it to the fullest without chasing one material thing after another with credit-card debt.
My wife has an American-born friend who broke into tears once because she couldn’t charge a two thousand dollar jacket–her credit cards debt was maxed out. I’ve never seen or heard of that type of behavior in China. I’m sure it happens, but I haven’t witnessed it. Most Chinese live simple lives in simple, but crowded, surroundings. Over the years, I’ve discovered that family, friends and gaining an education are more important to most Chinese than buying material junk.
______________
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
iLook China 
[…] first post was American Hypocrisy published on January 28, 2010. The first paragraph says, “Why am I writing about China? […]
Kudos to your daughter! She showed true pride in who she is and couldn’t tolerate people slandering a culture they barely understand. However, if I was her I probably would have stayed quiet the first time round as theres no point reasoning with a group of people who want to believe the bad things about China.
Its not only China that Americans disrespect but pretty much every culture different from their own. Middle easterns are constantly slandered by western media and the reports on libya and quadaffi are ridiculously one-sided. About 50% of libyans still support quaddafi yet CNN and BBC only interview those opposed to quaddafi’s rule. I recently did some research on how quaddafi supposedly ‘mistreats’ his people and the results were shocking to say the least. Under quaddafi’s rule, libyans have free medicare, education, housingloans, and even free land for farmers! Before the recent unrest, they had the highest HDI and the 4th highest GDP per capita in Africa. Apart from that, all libyans who study in US universities are give FULL scholarship by quaddafi’s government. Does this sound like mistreatment at all?
The conflicts in libya are purely racial(just like for all the other middle eastern countries). For example, if a country was 50% Chinese and 50% indian and there was an was an indian leader, the Chinese would be opposed to the leader no matter how good the leader is. The western leaders want to defeat quaddafi as he has always been strongly anti-western. If they succeed in doing so, all the prosperity and progress libya had under quaddafi will become anarchy, poverty, and misery. For the sake of the libyan people, I strongly hope quaddafi stays in power.
I just learned something new about Quadaffi and Libya and another reason to distrust what we learn from the meida. Thanks.
[…] are not smarter than everyone else is. They just work harder and have different values than Americans. The best way to learn about another culture is by comparing and contrasting that culture with […]
[…] Foreign Minister urges patience in Iran nuclear talks, maybe America, in its endless ” wisdom“, should listen before millions die in more needless wars. I’m sure that China […]
[…] Read the Introduction to iLook China. […]
[…] Read the Introduction to iLook China. […]
[…] Read the Introduction to iLook China. […]
[…] Read the Introduction to iLook China. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Photos from China Trip Part IIIChina Trip Part 2China Trip Part 4 […]