A little American goodwill

There's a load of heated press in China these days about the evils of foreigners.  From a cellist who was a jerk to an old woman to the drunken English guy assaulting a Chinese girl, the foreign devils seem to be doing nothing positive.  Maybe things have changed since my two years abroad, but I still like to think there are plenty of outstanding expats in China.  Americans abroad are American diplomats, no way of cutting it, and they should make as much of a positive footprint as they can.

Not to toot my own horn so loudly, but there are a few moments in China when I did my part spreading American goodwill.  Obviously as an English teacher at Changchun University of Technology I had a classroom full of students from across China who were open to my cultural diplomacy, but even small things made big differences.

I went ice skating one day in the dead of winter, and I met a family with a few Chinese children on the lake.  Without batting an eye I taught them how to skate backwards, and they loved it!  The parents were impressed and we all shared good times.

During the 2009 spring festival I took a boat from Dalian to Qingdao, 3rd class.  We had to cross the Bohai (Bo Sea, saying "Bohai Sea" is redundant...) and I was legit scared out of my mind- The sea was particularly rough at the time, the captain even considered it too dangerous to cross but said "whatever" and did.  In the hull I was on the verge of getting seasick, but held myself together.  The room was packed with rural Chinese, very dark skinned folk from the countryside returning home for the holidays, and that was also a bit intimidating; I was the only white skinned person on board.  Usually I'm not very concerned when it comes to standing out in a crowd, but the boat was intimate and we were packed together.

Well, rather than let the situation get awkward I introduced myself and asked the kids in the cabin if they had English names.  They were shy at first until I offered to give them their own English name; the change in atmosphere was palpable.  I gave them all English royal names and explained the significance; Elizabeth, Victoria, James etc... the play was so successful even the adults wanted a name!  In the end we all became friends, someone opened a bottle of Chinese liquor, and I somehow managed to keep my stomach in order despite being on a boat sloshing side-to-side.

Maybe the most diplomatic thing I did was with another American buddy of mine on the train from Lanzhou to Dunhuang.  Before leaving the university my administrator friend gave me two bottles of the finest Beijiu, the stuff Mao Zedong drank, and when I checked it out they were worth $100 a pop!  Not something I would ever dream of buying on my own, much less what the average Chinese person would be able to drink in their whole lifetime.  With that in mind I opened one of the bottles on the train and toasted to everyone who cared to join.  It was very cool, and I know the experience left a lasting impressions on the Gansu peasants we caroused with.

Lasting impressions are what matters when a foreigner is abroad.  Many Chinese don't meet foreigners on a regular basis, and when they do it had better be something positive they can remember.  The flip side is Boxer-Rebellion, it's early KMT, it's Cultural Revolution, it's a dark side of Nationalism that spawns on the net and overflows into the streets (think anti-Japanese moments in near history).  I've heard experts label Chinese people as having a "Superiority-Inferiority" complex, the truth is they're people and people want respect.  Plain and simple right?