Jackie and I try to take a walk after school every day. We spend an hour or so reconnecting and exchanging the news of the day. We also pick up last minute groceries for our dinner. It’s quality time.
Last week our conversation drifted onto a topic that I thought would make an excellent subject for a blog posting. It’s a bit hard to synthesize it into a single sentence, but what we mulled over was the contradiction we find between the U.S. and China and their respective attitudes and practices vis-a-vis individualism and conformity.
Most of you, my readers, (that means Mom plus an unknown quantity) are Americans and therefore very familiar with the U.S. ethos (mythos?) of rugged individualism. We remember Old Hickory and the Rail Splitter, frontiersmen who could clear the land, build a cabin, plant the crops, and raise a family all while fending off the depredations of assorted hostile Indians, bad men, and wild animals. They came back to Washington unbeholden to any man or interest group and led us through formative stages in our national development. Others followed: Teddy Roosevelt charged from San Juan Hill to the White House. Kennedy went from the PT-109 to the same place. Even Ronnie, “The Great Communicator”, tamed the wild beasts of Hollywood before embarking on his political career. After making it to the White House his favored photo op was in Stetson and jeans while roughing it at Rancho Reagan.
Americans pride themselves in can-do and pulling themselves up from their own bootstraps. No one wants a handout. The government is best that governs least. And watch out for Big Brother.
China, on the other hand, is a communist country. It’s a one-party state in which the collective good is paramount and the mantra from the powers above is “harmony”.
Here even the ancient teachings of Confucianism say that the best society is based on individuals subordinating themselves to their position in society. This is the place where numberless, nameless, faceless, interchangeable parts of the population built the Great Wall and labored through the Great Leap Forward. The modern proletariat is as much a collection of anonymous beings as the famous terra cotta warriors of Xi’an. That’s what China is famous for.
So why do Americans, the lovers of the gunslinger and the misunderstood Rambo, people who take the law into their own hands to do what must be done, value being law-abiding so much? Why do Americans wait in lines, take their turns, drive as if obeying the rules of the road is a good idea, and accept that the price posted is the price they should pay?
And why do the Chinese work so hard to find ways to skirt the law? Why in China is a thing like a queue a quaint notion, why do people here think that it’s okay to head straight to the counter of a bank or post office, a ticket window or hospital as if their needs outweighed those of anyone foolish enough to be waiting their turn, why is doing business a matter of what you can finagle, and why is driving a crazy choreography of vehicles going the right way and the wrong way, never yielding until inspired by some arbitrary notion, speeding up or slowing down (even stopping dead in the middle of traffic) based on the logic of some lunar calendar known only to themselves?
When Jackie and I walk we can turn right or left after leaving campus. So approximately 50% of the time we end up turning toward our local commercial district. This “district” includes traditional stores and restaurants. It also includes many sidewalk vendors. It’s the “sidewalk” part of the commerce that I want to describe. The road in front of school is Junong Lu. Junong Lu has nice sidewalks along its length. Alongside the sidewalks there is stretch of land that is mostly open, dotted here and there with some small trees. The vendors set up by staking out a patch of sidewalk and covering it with their vegetables, dvds, packages of underwear and socks, the machine that cranks out the strange puffed curls of dough, etc. This means that the pedestrians, whether they are in a shopping frame of mind or not, must walk on the street. Of course the street is full of every wheeled conveyance known to man. Some of which are pulling U-turns, entering or exiting, going with the flow or against it, or even stopping to do some shopping. All of them are making some sort of noise. That could be their normal running noise, which, coming from the three-wheeled trucks and motorized tricycles, is deafening. Other common noises include the constant honking that means “I’m here” on Chinese streets. I’m not sure if the “better watch out for me” is implied or not. The only exception to all this cacophony-causing commotion is the silence of the electric bikes and scooters. They sneak up on you unannounced and only make their presence known when you catch them in you peripheral vision just before they run into you or nearly so.
Where is the harmony in all this? Where is the deferring of one’s selfish desires to the common good? How can so much unbridled individualism be the bread and butter of the communist workers’ paradise? I guess it’s in the same place that Americans put their rugged individualism when they’re sitting waiting for their number to be called at the DMV, or when they’ve bought the biggest SUV on the lot even though it’s only going to be used on trips to the supermarket, or when they vote for neighborhood covenants so that their development will have a consistent, predictable look.
Somehow both societies exist with contradictions. Since I can’t explain them in my own culture, darned if I’m going to figure it out here in China.
