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Opinions: Finding the link between the East and the West


As I've written about China this semester, it's been necessary to focus on everything that's different here; it makes for better copy, and it's enlightening to contrast this country with my own.

Yet when I take stock of everything I've learned here the past few months, I find that we are more similar to the Chinese than we are different.

On the subway one day, I ran into a green-uniformed captain of the People's Liberation Army. That's not an uncommon occurrence; Beijing, the capital, is home to a large share of China's large military. This time, however, I was finally able to work up the courage to talk to a soldier.

I've wondered for quite some time what the soldiers here are like. They're all volunteers, as in America, but the People's Liberation Army serves a shady dual role as a supplementary police force, a safeguard against dissent. The tanks in Tiananmen weren't driven by cops.

Perhaps, then, it's a bit dangerous to be nosing around asking questions of army officers, but I couldn't resist; the captain was alone, and therefore more likely to answer honestly.

I start with the obvious, in the best Chinese I can muster, "You're in the army?" He hesitates for a moment, and then nods. I reciprocate to make him feel more comfortable. "Ahh, how interesting - I'm in the American Air Force." Truth, not a lie.

He laughs and shakes my hand, and I'm in. We chat and chat, and eventually I ask, "Why'd you join up?" He thinks for a moment; it took him by surprise. "Well, I love my country." I nodded and said, "Yeah, me too. You know, in America, some people are worried about you guys; there's so many of you."

He grins and replies, "We're more afraid of you."

Forgetting politics for a second, I can say that boys and girls have the same problems in the Middle Kingdom as they do in the states. In line at the supermarket, I notice from out of the corner of my eye a 4-foot-10 woman wearing overalls, makeup and way too much faux gold, while reading the riot act to her boyfriend.

She's pounding her feet on the floor, screaming with a red face. At one point, she grabs a package out of the cart and throws it to the ground. Everyone in the room is politely acting as though they don't notice her while waiting to see what she'll do next.

Her boyfriend, meanwhile, is standing there towering over her, not saying anything in reply or even moving, but with a look on his face as though the death penalty isn't such a bad idea, after all. As he absorbs this attack, I can't understand a thing she's saying to him (classroom Chinese is different from high-pitched-and-angry Chinese), but then again, I don't need to in order to know what's going on.

I catch his eye and shoot him a look that says, "Dude, I feel you. She's not worth it." He gives me the slightest of nods and a grimace in return. That's a cross-cultural moment for you.

Stories are fun to tell, but it's not even the specific incidents that show you how similar these people are to us; it's just little things that you pick up daily from overhearing conversations or spotting interactions.

Chinese teenagers get angry at their mothers because they're not allowed to stay out late at night. Chinese college students like drinking alcohol. Chinese boys chase after Chinese girls, and Chinese girls usually like it - depending, of course, on the boy. The Chinese worry about pollution, making enough money, health insurance and traffic jams.

They like basketball and Lexus cars. They hate liars, but they've all lied a few times.

Sure, they drink their milk hot, and they tend to spit on the sidewalks far more than is hygienic, but that's really nothing in the end. Like all people, the Chinese are just trying to get through life the best way they know how.

Reach the reporter at: spate@asu.edu.


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