Americans and Unicorns
Spring 1999, Beijing, China
By M. Morford
If it seems like a cliché that we only learn about home when we are far away, it is only because it is true. I taught at a university in China for a year and I’m sure that I learned far more about America than I did about China.
Seemingly simple questions reveal, well, I’m not sure what they reveal….
One day a student raised his hand: “Our Chinese English teacher told us this, but we don’t believe it. Is it true that in America, poor people are fat?”
I blundered, “Uhhh. Yeah.”
The Chinese government claims that no one starves. Yet the evidence on the street is that no one is far from it. And yes, in America, the world of Hollywood, Mickey Mouse, and redheads, poor people tend to be fat and rich people tend to be thin.
A few days later, in another class, a student asked, “In America, do poor people ride bicycles?”
“Uhhh. No.”
“What do they do?”
“They drive cars.”
Stunned silence.
“They drive used cars.”
More stunned silence.
In Beijing in 1999, there were essentially no used cars and (according to that year’s census) more bicycles than people. One census stated that one percent of the population of the city owned cars. In spite of that low figure, there were horrendous traffic and parking problems.
“Who rides bicycles in America?”
Here was a tough question. Who does the bike riding in America?
To American children a bicycle is a toy. To put a bike in the realm of common transportation would be laughable. Even for a child.
“Americans ride bikes for fun and relaxation, hardly anyone “goes anywhere” on a bicycle.”
I realized that I had confirmed their most fantastic assumptions about America being the land of infinite possibility. There was no doubt in their minds that America was the land of incomprehensible miracles, opportunity and contradictions. God Bless America.
“Who are the peasants in America?”
“Huh?”
“Who are the peasants in America?”
“Peasants? In America?”
“Yes. You know, the people who do all the manual labor, the farming, the cleaning, those who pick up the garbage on the streets.”
It is true that in China, as with other “developing” countries, you can see these people literally everywhere sweeping streets, cleaning, or farming with bare hands or hand made tools. My Chinese students told me that approximately 90 percent of China’s population consists of peasants with no education and no hope of education – for themselves or their children.
“Oh,” I said, finally comprehending what they were asking. “You mean like Europe 500 years ago!”
Oops. After only a few months in China I had made many clumsy statements like that one, but I was too caught up in the conversation to realize how awkward and offensive my statement must have been and, as I had discovered earlier (and would experience later) my students were extraordinarily gracious and forgiving.
After this clumsy beginning I was thrilled that I had finally grasped what they were asking. They were looking at a familiar social and cultural element and looking for the corollary in America.
But I still didn’t have an answer.
One of the students eagerly spoke up, “Are farmers in America peasants?”
In my mind I visualized the preposterous contrast of a scrawny barefoot rice farmer with a handmade hoe with his American counterpart in a massive air-conditioned quarter-million-dollar computer-driven agricultural apparatus. Not to mention the education required at virtually every level of agriculture in America.
I just said “No. Farmers in America are well-educated and use sophisticated machinery.”
“Who picks up the garbage?”
I hedged. Certainly not peasants, I thought. The concept of unionized garbage collectors was too alien to even attempt to explain.
“Who ARE the peasants in America?”
I still don’t know.
As one English audience Asian journal put it in the spring of 1999, “Many Asians believe in fantastical creatures like unicorns and Americans.”
It was finally beginning to make sense to me….
M. Morford (Morf) currently lives in Tacoma, Washington. He has taught for about 20 years, in every unlikely situation, including state prisons, Native American Tribal colleges, his local rescue mission, as well as for online courses at the university level. He has also taught for both children’s language camps and at universities in China. His favorite things are interesting foods, wacky music, swimming, riding his bike, and afternoon naps.
Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, December 15th, 2006 | Email This PostThis entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 12:01 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
5 Responses to “Americans and Unicorns”
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December 15th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I am surprised he couldn’t answer that Mexican Americans and illegal Mexican citizens are the ppeasants in America.
December 16th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Well yes, though it took me at minimum, a few weeks to realize this relatively obvious answer - but actually that isn’t the answer. Illegal immigrants are, ahem…”illegal” therfore not even remotely recognized as either full citizens or even as anything other than temporary and disposable.
Plus, illegals comprise perhaps one percent of the US population - and in many parts of the country are invisible or non-existent. Far from the ever-present peasants you seen on virtually every street across Asia.
Perhaps a truer answer would be that machines do our dirty work.
BTW, on this issue I recommend the film “A day without Mexicans”.
December 17th, 2006 at 12:54 am
How insightfully profound regarding the conundrum of contrasting paradigms.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Well, I love teachers (having been one myself off and on for almost 20 years), but even I hadn’t been, I would certainly love Morf.
Great observations, Morf. Having gone to grad school at the University of Illinois, Chicago, with a number of students from the PRC, I can attest to their initial wonderment and suspicion when faced with commonplace American things like the array of choices in supermarkets, the luxury in which our pets live, the luxury of a 3-bedroom apartment with doorman, etc.
I always liked this oberservation from one of my Chinese friends best. The thing she simply couldn’t get used to in America, more than any other, she said, was paper towels. !!! Paper towels?? Yes, things you buy in order to Throw Away.
January 9th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I am glad Morf put my thoughts to print. Here are a few others that have been on my mind. I don\’t know if he thought them also, but my experience may have been different than his.
I had taught in China for three years, and to be frank, I had gotten used to the strange questions my students had asked me about how my country worked, and I had forgotten how confusing some of them got. When you teach English, you also teach culture. Sometimes in the middle of teaching culture you find yourself tangled in such vast differences that explainations don\’t work half as well as visual aids. I started picking and choosing movies to show so mys students could see what I could not say. The hard part about that was explaining to them as they watched the films was what was real and what was made up by Hollywood. It took me forever to convince them that most U.S. neighborhoods were quiet places with no car chases; that most American families don\’t run around having affairs; that most people don\’t act like those women in Sex and the City; the average American citizen needs a car just to survive, and some bicycles are expensive. I have to admit, I miss the public transportation they had in China. Taxi\’s everywhere for what I considered dirt cheap and busses that took you to nearly every place in cities with or without a metro.
But I think what I learned more in China is that we in the U.S. really know nothing about that country. I had to go there to see it for myself. It was nothing like I was told back in the States.
Both countries have funny notions about the other. When I wrote my family about my experiences and told them mainland China was not half as communist as we had been taught, they didn\’t believe me. When I recited all the details about the booming business I saw everywhere, they were flabbergasted. When I mentioned my Muslim, Christian and Buddhist students, they were shocked religion had even been allowed. I found a cell phone system superior to the ones we use in the States, more convenient to boot. I found fruit in abundance and of so many more varieties than in the States, as well as green leafy vegetables. And though I missed the variety of cheese we have (and continued to loathe the tofu varieties they had), I found the abundance of delicious food available at inexpensive prices something to love.
Yes, I also saw the poor. They were hard to miss. You would pass them while riding the bus to places. But I also saw the entrepreneuers, those that would even stoop to piracy to make a buck. Actually, alot stooped to piracy to the point that it was a joke among many that visited the country.
I have a Chinese roommate here in the U.S. now on a Fulbright scholarship. She is often offended by the presumptions her American co-workers make. They all ask her the same questions: How does she like the U.S.? & Does she plan to stay? I know our history is full of happy immigrants that came here for opportunity, but she said to me quite clearly, \”How rude are these people! Why would I want to stay here? I love my homeland.\”
Of course, I suppose she was born to priviledge. Several of the students I taught in China were also. They were the ones that ditched class, expecting to bribe their way into passing the exams. They didn\’t know what hit them when they failed my course. The poorer of my students knew their education was an opportunity to get out of their former circumstances, and they worked hard earning the grade they got. They are the ones that will succeed in the world.
Besides, I also know a few others that came to the U.S. to escape China. I had also tutored a brilliant boy who wanted desperately to leave the country, though I think his notions about the U.S. were a bit too much based off of TV (He was a big Sex in the City fan). I suppose the world is full of all types.