Jul 26 2006
American Culture?
Remember had dim sum with Shange and Matthew in Beijing. Shange is a Mormon living in SF and Matthew is from Connecticut and went to U Chicago, working as a Foreign Service officier in Beijing after a tour in Korea and Taiwan.
During the meal, Matthew complained Beijing’s nightlife is not even as good as in Taiwan. But Shange has been saying that Beijing is so much a western city.
The two Americans can’t agree with each other on whether Beijing is American enough. That is probably the least surprising in the U.S. because America is so much about embracing diversities (within a boundry of course). A prep boy (I guess) does not feel he has to adjust to a Mormon–no one can claim he is the orthodox American.
The problem I felt so repugnant about is that, in Beijing, on the one hand, there is this strong pretention of being the center of the world but at the same time a mindless drive to mimic the West. The West becomes an object with an Platoian essence that is in fact just some slangs in a rich language.
Before the Chinese can really embrace their own diversity, there won’t be a real Chinese cultural renaissance.