it’s the end of the world as we know it …
… and i feel fine
Back in America, when I first told people I was moving to China, some immediately expressed concern for my safety. Communism equals crises in the minds of most Americans, who still have an antiquated Cultural Revolution image of the country. Before I left, one of my former co-workers advised me to call the same person back home at the same time every week. That way, if one week I failed to make that call, my family would know something was wrong — they could call the American government and put into motion the process that would lead to my safe removal from the country. I never took her advice. And now, as my dear nation is in the throes of war, I find it strange that I feel much safer here in communist China than I would in nearly any city in America.
I was in class when the bombing began. The moment the fighting started, my mobile phone was bombarded with text messages telling me so. And so I talked about the situation with my students. Some foreign teachers had been advised not to do this — there is a general tendency here toward the separation of serious and school, of politics and pedagogy. But it seemed natural to me. I teach Conversational English, and this is what everybody in the world was talking about.
My students were up to the task. They had obviously been paying attention to the news. They knew the basics, and they also knew that’s likely all they would get from the state-run media. They had lots of questions. They even had a few opinions — quite uncommon in college classrooms in China. And I think they were surprised to learn that their views on the Iraq war — which, for the most part, echo the Chinese government’s views — are very similar to the views of their American teacher.
Still, they had some questions I couldn’t answer …
“Do you think American soldiers are as brave as Iraqi soldiers?”
“I’ve heard that many American soldiers are lonely and miss their families. What do you think about that?”
“If you were president, what would you do about the situation in Iraq?”
… and some facts that seemed a little far-out.
“I was impressed by the fact that George Bush has a very low IQ and that his wife Laura likes to keep a clean house.”
Of course, I couldn’t dispute her first claim, but I told her I wasn’t so sure about the second. I’m pretty sure the White House has its own cleaning staff.
I told my students that in recent weeks I had received calls and e-mails from America expressing concern for my safety. I told them that such sentiments are common for any American living abroad during war. And they laughed.
“You have nothing to worry about here,” one student said, shaking her head.
And, you know, she’s right. The Chinese have a knack for separating people from politics … it’s been done to them for the past 54 years. I haven’t experienced any anti-Americanism since I arrived here seven months ago. Hell, three hours after the war started, I ate lunch at my neighborhood Muslim restaurant. (I got some strange looks … but I always get strange looks.) Now, this silence doesn’t mean there’s no animosity toward Americans. I’m sure there is — I mean, people all over the world hate us right now. But, for reasons political and cultural, I don’t hear any of it over here.
Outside the classroom, I know most of my students aren’t talking about the war. Maybe some of the male students are intrigued because they want to compare the artillery used in the Iraq war to the guns and tanks they use every night in war games on their computers. But most students have shown more interest in who won the Academy Awards than who won a battle in Basra.
All this peace and quiet concerning the war has been rather, well, peaceful, really. I miss 24-hour coverage of basketball, not bombings. This is not the kind of March Madness I like to hear about. Here, if people are discussing the war around me, I cannot understand them. If television’s talking heads are talking about warheads, I cannot hear them … because I don’t watch TV. I can pick when I want to read about the war and choose whose stories I read. (It’s usually nytimes.com and slate.com, if you’re curious.) I like that I am not in a newsroom, that I am safe from the conservative clutches of the Fox News Channel.
My current view of America — from the outside looking in — is a confusing one. I am living in a liberal vacuum. All of the Westerners I associate with here are of like mind. Then we see opinion polls from back home saying that 70 percent of Americans support the war in Iraq … and we scratch our heads. We read quotes from Bush supporters who call Iraq “our enemy” … and we wonder what ever happened to Osama.
But, believe it or not, I feel as American as ever right now. I can stand up in front of my class and say that I don’t particularly care for my country’s president, that I don’t support his war — let alone understand it. I can say these things without fear, no matter if I’m in Shanghai or Chicago. I can say them because I’m an American. We have these freedoms. And if some one or some thing ever posed a legitimate threat to those freedoms, then in my mind that would be a war worth fighting. A lot of people are dying in the desert right now. My fear is that 10 years from now, we’ll still be trying to figure out what they died for.
So maybe my students will learn a little about what it means to be an American this semester. Sadly, they’ve already learned one of our most sobering sayings:
“War is hell.”
03.31.2003, 11:31 PM · Observations, Politics
5 Comments
Two thumbs up! As a native Shanghainese now becoming an American I couldn’t have agreed more of what U have presented here. America is about debate, which makes America so great. However, I am afraid that this war will destroy American’s image abroad over shadowing what America really stand for - Freedom and Democracy. Since I have been here in America, I have learnt that freedom and democracy we enjoyed here domestically may not as equally practiced, though promoted by American government worldwide. Let the others opinion heard may overrule by the Interests and benefit of American government. But American people do not have any equal sign of American government. People here can and will change this country if necessary. Looking forward to 2004 now.
Check this out… Interesting read from Salon.com
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/02/hell/index.html
As one of your Chinese students,I am deeply impressed by your lessons concerned about the war.It seemed to be the most heated discussion among us,every student has a lot questions cause we were so curious for a native American’s view.Though some questions seemed too sharp to answer,you did quite a good job:)
war is hell,hope less innocent people will get involved in this terrible war!
Dan, as always, quite an interesting read.
Just a simple perspective on the Iraq War: There have been 85 battle deat4@50
total deaths in the Iraq
War which has lasted 27 days.
The toll from 1991’s LA Riots: “After their acquittal, riots broke out and lasted for four days, leaving 55 dead and more than 2,000 injured.
Odd schtuff, but it starkly caught my attention as a use of life to provide freedom to a devasted country (under royal, iron-fisted rule) versus the display of democracy gone awry in America. The loss of life in any defense, protection, or provision of liberty is always painful, yet even those families of those lost in the battle for freedom find justice in the end result as people have a choice to be free. I think even Europeans, S. Koreans, and now Iraquis will agree that simply having a voice is well worth the price.
i agree that iraqis will likely be better off without saddam in power … but we could say the same thing about a dozen or so other nations in the world, too. do we use force in all of those countries to give the oppressed citizens “a voice”? countries have been at war in africa for decades, but do we step in an interrupt to provide “freedom” to those “devastated” countries? no. why? it doesn’t benefit us financially. we can talk about weapons of mass destruction — but so far we’ve turned up as many of those in iraq as we would in a search of the ivory coast. zero. this “war” was about money, oil and politics. nothing else. sure, we “won” — yay! — and president bush’s approval rating went up. the u.s. could pick on any number of countries in the world and win a war there, too. and maybe that’s the plan. keep the nation at war, keep the president’s approval rating high until nov. 2004. next stop: syria! or north korea. it doesn’t matter. whatever it takes to keep the country’s focus off of the dismal state of domestic affairs over the past three years. but is the war in iraq really over? the battles have stopped, yes, but i fear the war will wage on for years to come. we can say what we did was retalliation. we can call it whatever we want. i think we’ve started something that’s bigger and badder than mr. bush’s myopic mind can comprehend.