Academic jazz, this
morning. Mr. Bunky Green, another alto
player and another Charles Mingus big band alumnae who is playing an
appropriately Dustybrine number this morning “East & West” from the 1979
release “Places We’ve Never Been.” I say
“academic” because he developed a career at this time as a leading jazz
educator at the University of Chicago and later at the University of North
Florida, Jacksonville. The Wiki page on
the gentleman is a bit paltry and doesn’t do much to explain his unique first
name. If he had it since his early days,
one can only imagine he developed some thick skin as to what anyone else
thought of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunky_Green
Sensitivities to perceived affronts are a natural defense
mechanism. This person doesn’t respect
our tribe and is therefore a threat. I
assume we’re hot wired to identify with a sense of collective identity and
ascribe value to it as something that we somehow, may want to defend. In the “old world” ethnic and national
identities are often fused. My “new
world” identity in the New York area involved many cross cutting cleavages:
ethnicity, class, race, religion, gender.
Nationality only becomes pressing when you head over seas.
What would I be “thinned skinned” about? In the north east of the U.S. ethnicity was
very important and it was clear to me growing up who was Italian and who was a
“WASP.” Irish assimilation had been so
thorough and early that it was almost absurd to imagine a genuine slight that
would sting against my Irish American identity.
Traveling in England, later, I could sense a raw prejudice, and note my
reaction to it. Anti Catholic bias was
perhaps the same. I didn’t consider
myself one of the faithful and the identity was broadly assimilated. Occasionally you’d hear a slight by someone
“outside” and I’d be surprised to find myself a bit defensive, even though
technically I wasn’t supposed to care.
The first time I went overseas I went to the U.K. and to
Ireland. This was, not surprisingly the
first time I could consider my nationality objectively. I had, at the time a rather thoroughgoing
critique of my country and its role in the world and assumed a bond with other
critical thinkers globally as to the limits and shortcomings of the United
States. This, from my manuscript “The
Seven Deadly Starbucks” (7DS) on an early recollection of international thinned
skin:
I can recall going to the U. K.
as a twenty one year old. Hatred of Ronald Reagan was so thorough and complete
for me as if it were a mental constant. Then a protest wall, a scathing
caricature of Reagan surrounded by anti American slogans, angry faces, yelling.
Reagan and I fused suddenly into countrymen collaborators staring down an angry
mob of otherness. Of course I could raise my fist and shout, “yeah, Americans
hate him too.” and actually mean it, but my mind immediately and momentarily
went instead, to guilt and self-protection. This, before I could worry about
being cool or deciding what I felt.
Those callouses are rather well worn on my skin now, having
lived half my adult life overseas. But
frankly Americans, and certainly white, suburban, middle class American males
of Irish Catholic ancestry have a buffer of predominant imagined normalcy. I can and do, of course, ponder and
acknowledge the complexity gender roles, race roles, and national roles. Though I think, for better or worse, I can
count on comparatively thick skin when someone casts all men as bad, or all
whites as bad, or all Americans as bad, etc.
It doesn’t take a gymnast’s prowess to hear a slight against any of
those groups, understand that it is not necessarily a slight against me
personally.
All this to say that in China, Chinese people, who are of
Han Chinese descent and are Chinese nationals, seem to reckon with slights
against the nation differently. To
stereotype, people seem thin-skinned. There
is 岌岌可危[1] to be on guard against. Is that really so?
Americans have enjoyed the illusory, temporal privilege of
arbitrating a certain sort of world-order for the last seventy years or so,
with the world’s largest economy and predominant military, to buttress their
notions of self. Rhetorically there is a
neutral, meritocratic platform that welcomes anyone to “become” American,
separating tribal, ethnic identity from a national identity. And America has created uniquely modern and
potent soft power that has enormous attraction to people who may not care at
all or in fact be repulsed by the American dollar or the country’s military
power projection.
All this colors the way Americans confront
“anti-Americanism” overseas. Some pride
and some disdain are always there in equal measure. Bring it on.
It’s a topic that, I am generally willing to explore with any but the
most stentorian or bigoted person. In
China, intelligent people meanwhile, are often very sensitive about hearing
critiques of China their nation (which for 90+% of the population is also their
tribal ethnicity. )
With some distance, the dynastic history, in which Han
civilization is civilization, despite
the regular indignities of conquest by neighboring Khitian, Liao, Mongol or
Qing. Nothing known (with the exception
of Indian Buddhism) could even remotely compete with the manifest glory of Han
civilization. Then, maritime Europe
presses its way in, the industrialized world forces China’s subjugation on
unequal terms and China must endure one hundred and fifty years of humiliation
and chaos, until today, when it is finally, undeniably rising. For a non-Chinese, or a Chinese who has lived
overseas, to return and point out challenges, inconsistencies, let alone venal
governance, wanting social graces, is the exasperating, annoying, and unwanted
noise of someone who “doesn’t understand.”
The Times blog which they call Sinosphere often has good
material. Yesterday a young Chinese
reporter named Hellen Gao had an excellent post entitled: “Back in China,
Watching My Words.” http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/back-in-china-watching-ones-words/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=World&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body She describes a conversation with her
grandmother who was once a reporter herself.
Explaining to her grandmother what her hopes are as a reporter, her
grandmother chides her that she is naïve.
She is made to feel unqualified to comment on the nation she grew up
in. Later her grandmother is caustic
with her because she even hinted that foreigners would be interested or could
comprehend, her story.
I wrote a few days back about the pollution, again. I get as annoyed as any Chinese person, by
all the negativity. If it’s so bad,
leave. And it’s not “so” bad. It’s a remarkable privilege to be here at
this epicenter of civilizational resurgence.
There are wondrous things and annoying things, as there are anywhere and
if the nation is to strengthen and improve it needs to be able to absorb
respectful critique and engage intelligently.
Indignity was no place to have a
nuanced discussion from. One fears that ‘resurgence’
will not be so either.
American grandparent fears would be different. Foreigners trying to understand America:
what’s to worry about that? They get it
wrong, they get it right, who cares?
America, like China is narcissistic enough to assume that everyone would
want to know about who we are. Freed
from any tribal sensitivities, the nation as merely a modern social political
experiment with an albeit pockmarked but generally sturdy track record,
examination isn’t threatening and misperception is likely to seen as humorous,
more than anything else. But here in
China, where for most people the tribe and the country are one and the track
record is only beginning to stabilize, critique, even well meaning or innocent
critique and examination from outside, is still very threatening.
All of this will be further disturbed soon, if the following
news report is correct and China’s economy finally overtakes the U.S. in size,
far sooner than people had expected. On the one hand, its just data point. But clearly it is also an auger. It will
force a different critique in and of America that the country hasn’t
specifically experienced yet. Then
again, it might all just be bunk that rhymes with junk, and never come to
pass. But I doubt it.
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