Do Americans have any morals?That's a good question.Many people insist that ideas about right and wrong are merely personal opinions.Some voices,though,are calling Americans back to traditional moral values.William J.Bennett,former U.S.Secretary of Education,edited The Book of Virtues in 1993to do just that.Bennett suggests that great moral stories can build character.The success of Bennett's book shows that many Americans still believe in moral values.But what are they?
To begin with,moral values in America are like those in any culture.In fact,many aspects of morality are universal.But the stories and traditions that teach them are unique to each culture.Not only that,but culture influences how people show these virtues.
One of the most basic moral values for Americans is honesty.The well-known legend about George Washington and the cherry tree teaches this value clearly.Little George cut down his father's favorite cherry tree while trying out his new hatchet.When his father asked him about it,George said,"I cannot tell a lie.I did it with my hatchet."Instead of punishment,George received praise for telling the truth.Sometimes American honesty-being open and direct-can offend people.But Americans still believe that "honesty is the best policy."
Another virtue Americans respect is perseverance.Remember Aesop's fable about the turtle and the rabbit that had a race?The rabbit thought he could win easily,so he took a nap.But the turtle finally won because he did not give up.Another story tells of a little train that had to climb a steep hill.The hill was so steep that the little train had a hard time trying to get over it.But the train just kept pulling,all the while saying,"I think I can,I think I can."At last,the train was over the top of the hill."I thought I could,I thought I could,"chugged the happy little train.
Compassion may be the queen of American virtues.The story of "The Good Samaritan"from the Bible describes a man who showed compassion.On his way to a certain city,a Samaritan man found a poor traveler lying on the road.The traveler had been beaten and robbed.The kind Samaritan,instead of just passing by,stopped to help this person in need.Compassion can even turn into a positive cycle.In fall 1992,people in Iowa sent truckloads of water to help Floridians hit by a hurricane.The next summer,during the Midwest flooding,Florida returned the favor.In less dramatic ways,millions of Americans are quietly passing along the kindnesses shown to them.
In no way can this brief description cover all the moral values honored by Americans.Courage,responsibility,loyalty,gratitude and many others could be discussed.In fact,Bennett's bestseller-over 800pages-highlights just 10virtues.Even Bennett admits that he has only scratched the surface.But no matter how long or short the list,moral values are invaluable.They are the foundation of American culture-and any culture.
Sunday, 14 December 2008
Thursday, 11 December 2008
I'm a Chinese-American
On February 22, during the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the Seattle Times sports pages carried an article with the secondary headline "American outshines Kwan, Slutskaya in skating surprise".As one reader commented in an angry note to the editors, "The sub-headline, of course, implied that Kwan is not American. That hit the nerves of many Chinese-Americans such as I, who, on more than one occasion, are perceived and treated as foreigners, as if people with yellow skins can't be American." The Seattle Times apologized for the mistake, describing it as the result of sloppy editing. But I was reminded of the story about Bruce Lee, the famous kung-fu actor: when he first met his mother-in-law (a Caucasian) and introduced himself as an American born in the USA, she allegedly replied, "You're an American citizen, not an American."
Having lived in the US for decades, I am not unfamiliar with racial discrimination. Interestingly, discrimination can be positive (in other words, I have sometimes been treated better than members of other groups) as well as negative, and such treatment can come from people of all races: Anglos, Africans, Hispanics, even other Asians. How should we people of Chinese origin interpret all this? Is the Michelle Kwan flap an indicator of enduring racial discrimination in the US?
Webster's New World Dictionary defines "to discriminate" as "(1) to distinguish, (2) to make distinction in treatment; show partiality or prejudice." Thus, racial discrimination is about distinguishing among people, showing antipathy towards some on the basis of race and ethnicity. Almost 40 years after the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act, racism is alive and well in America, just as much as in any other part of the world. From my experience, the American style of racial discrimination can be classified in three ways: hereditary, tactical and inferential.
There is a professional person I know who, though brilliant in many ways, likes to make openly derogatory remarks about African-Americans. For him, being mean to blacks is part of his heritage.When people are brought up to believe that whites are whites, blacks are blacks, and naturally, Chinese are Chinese, you have a sort of "hereditary" discrimination. This is passed from generation to generation unless something is done about these people's attitude towards racial differences.
Years ago, the Chinese community filed a lawsuit against the State of California accusing it of discriminatory treatment of the Chinese.The plaintiffs pointed out that a certain number of Chinese students had been rejected by California's public universities despite shavings better marks and test scores than some successful applicants. The probable reason? The universities wanted to admit additional non-Chinese ethnic-minority students so as to seem more culturally diverse. Such discriminatory behavior was "tactical" because the Chinese students just happened to be standing in the way of university administrators. When it becomes institutionally beneficial to change the attitude towards Chinese students, the tactics will change accordingly.
Finally, people like to stereotype. This is an inferential process based on limited data. Many Chinese think that Westerners are wealthy and well-educated and live happier lives. This is because the few Westerners they have encountered seem that way. Similarly, many Americans, bombarded by media images of young Asians winning awards and scholarships, believe all Chinese students are smart, hard-working over-achievers. What Chinese and Americans alike do not seem to realize is that they are using a poor sample to make inferences about the underlying population. Just as there are many impoverished, uneducated, unhappy Westerners, there are likewise many lazy, under-performing Chinese. Some Americans err in making inferences about the Chinese, who in turn take offense at their mistaken notions.
What recourse do we have? Against hereditary discrimination there is only the slow process of enlightening people to the historical evil and vile everyday pettiness of discriminating on the basis of race. Over time less of this mentality will be transmitted to the next generation. Tactical discrimination needs to be exposed in the media and the courts. When that happens, there ceases to be any advantage in it. Inferential discrimination can be gradually overcome through education. A better-informed population will make fewer shallow judgements.
Maybe the next time somebody tells me that I am not an American I should say, "I'm glad you noticed that. I'm a Chinese-American and proud to be one!"
Having lived in the US for decades, I am not unfamiliar with racial discrimination. Interestingly, discrimination can be positive (in other words, I have sometimes been treated better than members of other groups) as well as negative, and such treatment can come from people of all races: Anglos, Africans, Hispanics, even other Asians. How should we people of Chinese origin interpret all this? Is the Michelle Kwan flap an indicator of enduring racial discrimination in the US?
Webster's New World Dictionary defines "to discriminate" as "(1) to distinguish, (2) to make distinction in treatment; show partiality or prejudice." Thus, racial discrimination is about distinguishing among people, showing antipathy towards some on the basis of race and ethnicity. Almost 40 years after the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act, racism is alive and well in America, just as much as in any other part of the world. From my experience, the American style of racial discrimination can be classified in three ways: hereditary, tactical and inferential.
There is a professional person I know who, though brilliant in many ways, likes to make openly derogatory remarks about African-Americans. For him, being mean to blacks is part of his heritage.When people are brought up to believe that whites are whites, blacks are blacks, and naturally, Chinese are Chinese, you have a sort of "hereditary" discrimination. This is passed from generation to generation unless something is done about these people's attitude towards racial differences.
Years ago, the Chinese community filed a lawsuit against the State of California accusing it of discriminatory treatment of the Chinese.The plaintiffs pointed out that a certain number of Chinese students had been rejected by California's public universities despite shavings better marks and test scores than some successful applicants. The probable reason? The universities wanted to admit additional non-Chinese ethnic-minority students so as to seem more culturally diverse. Such discriminatory behavior was "tactical" because the Chinese students just happened to be standing in the way of university administrators. When it becomes institutionally beneficial to change the attitude towards Chinese students, the tactics will change accordingly.
Finally, people like to stereotype. This is an inferential process based on limited data. Many Chinese think that Westerners are wealthy and well-educated and live happier lives. This is because the few Westerners they have encountered seem that way. Similarly, many Americans, bombarded by media images of young Asians winning awards and scholarships, believe all Chinese students are smart, hard-working over-achievers. What Chinese and Americans alike do not seem to realize is that they are using a poor sample to make inferences about the underlying population. Just as there are many impoverished, uneducated, unhappy Westerners, there are likewise many lazy, under-performing Chinese. Some Americans err in making inferences about the Chinese, who in turn take offense at their mistaken notions.
What recourse do we have? Against hereditary discrimination there is only the slow process of enlightening people to the historical evil and vile everyday pettiness of discriminating on the basis of race. Over time less of this mentality will be transmitted to the next generation. Tactical discrimination needs to be exposed in the media and the courts. When that happens, there ceases to be any advantage in it. Inferential discrimination can be gradually overcome through education. A better-informed population will make fewer shallow judgements.
Maybe the next time somebody tells me that I am not an American I should say, "I'm glad you noticed that. I'm a Chinese-American and proud to be one!"
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Jazz And The Essence of America
Considering how jazz is transcribed in Chinese (jueshi), you may be misledsintosassuming that it is an aristocratic cultural form. Nothing could be further from the truth. It originated among black Americans at the end of the 19th century, at a time when they occupied the very bottom of the American social heap.
So how has something that was created by a once downtrodden and despised minority acquired a central place in today's American culture? Mr Darrell A Jenks, director of the American Center for Educational Exchange, and also a drummer in the jazz band Window, analyses the phenomenon for us here. Jazz: the soul of America
Perhaps the essence of America is that you could never get two Americans to agree on just what that might be. After thinking about it for a while, we might chuckle and say, "Hmm, seems like being American is a bit more complicated than we thought." Certainly things like individualism, success (the "American Dream"), innovation and tolerance stand out. But these things come together because of our ability to work with one another and find common purpose no matter how diverse we might be.
Some, like African-American writer Ralph Ellison, be-lieve that jazz captures the essence of America. For good reason,for in jazz all of the characteristics I mentioned above come together. The solos are a celebration of individual brilliance that can't take place without thesgroupsefforts of the rhythm section. Beyond that, though, jazz has a connection to the essence of America in a much more fundamental way. It is an expression of the African roots of American culture, a musical medium that exemplifies the culture of the Africans whose culture came to dominate much of what is American.
That's right, in many respects America's roots are in Africa. Read Ralph Ellison's perceptive description of the transformation of separate African and European cultures at the hands of the slaves:
"...the dancing of those slaves who, looking through the windows of a plantation manor house from the yard, im-itated the steps so gravely performed by the masters within and then added to them their own special flair,burlesquing the white folks and then going on to force the stepssintosa choreography uniquely their own. The whites, looking out at the activity in the yard, thought that they were being flat-tered by imitation and were amused by the incongruity of tattered blacks dancing courtly steps, while missing com-pletely the fact that before their eyes a European cultural form was becoming Americanized, undergoing a metamor-phosis through the mocking activity of a people partially sprung from Africa." (Ralph Ellison, Living with Music, pp 83-4).
Jazz brought together elements from Africa and Europe, fusing themsintosa new culture, an expression unique to the Americas.
Out of this fusion came an idea that we Americans be-lieve central to our identity: tolerance. Both cultures repre-sented in Ellison's passage eventually came to realize each other's value. Americans acknowledge that in diversity is our strength. We learn every day that other cultures and peoples may make valuable contributions to our way of life. Jazz music is the embodiment of this ideal, combining elements from African and European culturesintosa distinctly American music.
Jazz reflects two contradictory facets of American life. On the one hand it is a team effort,swheresevery musician is completely immersed in what thesgroupsdoes together, lis-tening to each of the other players and building on their contributions to create a musical whole. On the other hand, the band features a soloist who is an individual at the extreme, a genius like Charlie Parker who explores musical territoryswheresno one has ever gone before. In the same sense, American life is also a combination of teamwork and individualism, a combination of individual brilliance with the ability to work with others.
We hope that many Chinese friends can bring their own unique contributions to our music, adding their own culture to our American heritage. As Ralph Ellison said of the US, "We have the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and we have jazz."
So how has something that was created by a once downtrodden and despised minority acquired a central place in today's American culture? Mr Darrell A Jenks, director of the American Center for Educational Exchange, and also a drummer in the jazz band Window, analyses the phenomenon for us here. Jazz: the soul of America
Perhaps the essence of America is that you could never get two Americans to agree on just what that might be. After thinking about it for a while, we might chuckle and say, "Hmm, seems like being American is a bit more complicated than we thought." Certainly things like individualism, success (the "American Dream"), innovation and tolerance stand out. But these things come together because of our ability to work with one another and find common purpose no matter how diverse we might be.
Some, like African-American writer Ralph Ellison, be-lieve that jazz captures the essence of America. For good reason,for in jazz all of the characteristics I mentioned above come together. The solos are a celebration of individual brilliance that can't take place without thesgroupsefforts of the rhythm section. Beyond that, though, jazz has a connection to the essence of America in a much more fundamental way. It is an expression of the African roots of American culture, a musical medium that exemplifies the culture of the Africans whose culture came to dominate much of what is American.
That's right, in many respects America's roots are in Africa. Read Ralph Ellison's perceptive description of the transformation of separate African and European cultures at the hands of the slaves:
"...the dancing of those slaves who, looking through the windows of a plantation manor house from the yard, im-itated the steps so gravely performed by the masters within and then added to them their own special flair,burlesquing the white folks and then going on to force the stepssintosa choreography uniquely their own. The whites, looking out at the activity in the yard, thought that they were being flat-tered by imitation and were amused by the incongruity of tattered blacks dancing courtly steps, while missing com-pletely the fact that before their eyes a European cultural form was becoming Americanized, undergoing a metamor-phosis through the mocking activity of a people partially sprung from Africa." (Ralph Ellison, Living with Music, pp 83-4).
Jazz brought together elements from Africa and Europe, fusing themsintosa new culture, an expression unique to the Americas.
Out of this fusion came an idea that we Americans be-lieve central to our identity: tolerance. Both cultures repre-sented in Ellison's passage eventually came to realize each other's value. Americans acknowledge that in diversity is our strength. We learn every day that other cultures and peoples may make valuable contributions to our way of life. Jazz music is the embodiment of this ideal, combining elements from African and European culturesintosa distinctly American music.
Jazz reflects two contradictory facets of American life. On the one hand it is a team effort,swheresevery musician is completely immersed in what thesgroupsdoes together, lis-tening to each of the other players and building on their contributions to create a musical whole. On the other hand, the band features a soloist who is an individual at the extreme, a genius like Charlie Parker who explores musical territoryswheresno one has ever gone before. In the same sense, American life is also a combination of teamwork and individualism, a combination of individual brilliance with the ability to work with others.
We hope that many Chinese friends can bring their own unique contributions to our music, adding their own culture to our American heritage. As Ralph Ellison said of the US, "We have the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and we have jazz."
Monday, 1 December 2008
American Food
"You are what you eat."Nutrition experts often use this saying to promote better eating habits.What we put in our mouths does become a part of us.But we can look at this statement another way.What we eat reflects who we are--as people and as a culture.Do you want to understand another culture?Then you ought to find out about its food.Learning about American food can give us a real taste of American culture.
What is "American food"?At first you might think the answer is easy as pie.To many people,American food means hamburgers,hot dogs,fried chicken and pizza.If you have a "sweet tooth,"you might even think of apple pie or chocolate chip cookies.It's true that Americans do eat those things.But are those the only kind of vittles you can find in America?
Except for Thanksgiving turkey,it's hard to find a typically "American"food.The United States is a land of immigrants.So Americans eat food from many different countries.When people move to America,they bring their cooking styles with them.That's why you can find almost every kind of ethnic food in America.In some cases,Americans have adopted foods from other countries as favorites.Americans love Italian pizza,Mexican tacos and Chinese egg rolls.But the American version doesn't taste quite like the original!
As with any large country,the U.S.A has several distinct regions.Each region boasts its own special style of food.Visit the South and enjoy country-style cooking.Journey through Louisiana for some spicy Cajun cuisine.Take a trip to New England and sample savory seafood dishes.Travel through the Midwest,"the breadbasket of the nation,"for delicious baked goods.Cruise over to the Southwest and try some tasty Tex-Mex treats.Finish your food tour in the Pacific Northwest with some gourmet coffee.
Americans living at a fast pace often just "grab a quick bite."Fast food restaurants offer people on the run everything from fried chicken to fried rice.Microwave dinners and instant foods make cooking at home a snap.Of course,one of the most common quick American meals is a sandwich.If it can fit between two slices of bread,Americans probably make a sandwich out of it.Peanut butter and jelly is an all-time American favorite.
Americans on the go also tend to eat a lot of "junk food."Potato chips,candy bars,soft drinks and other goodies are popular treats.Many people eat too many of these unhealthy snacks.But others opt for more healthy eating habits.Some even go "all natural."They refuse to eat any food prepared with chemicals or additives.
American culture is a good illustration of the saying "you are what you eat."Americans represent a wide range of backgrounds and ways of thinking.The variety of foods enjoyed in the U.S.reflects the diversity of personal tastes.The food may be international or regional.Sometimes it's fast,and sometimes it's not so fast.It might be junk food,or maybe it's natural food.In any case,the style is all-American.
What is "American food"?At first you might think the answer is easy as pie.To many people,American food means hamburgers,hot dogs,fried chicken and pizza.If you have a "sweet tooth,"you might even think of apple pie or chocolate chip cookies.It's true that Americans do eat those things.But are those the only kind of vittles you can find in America?
Except for Thanksgiving turkey,it's hard to find a typically "American"food.The United States is a land of immigrants.So Americans eat food from many different countries.When people move to America,they bring their cooking styles with them.That's why you can find almost every kind of ethnic food in America.In some cases,Americans have adopted foods from other countries as favorites.Americans love Italian pizza,Mexican tacos and Chinese egg rolls.But the American version doesn't taste quite like the original!
As with any large country,the U.S.A has several distinct regions.Each region boasts its own special style of food.Visit the South and enjoy country-style cooking.Journey through Louisiana for some spicy Cajun cuisine.Take a trip to New England and sample savory seafood dishes.Travel through the Midwest,"the breadbasket of the nation,"for delicious baked goods.Cruise over to the Southwest and try some tasty Tex-Mex treats.Finish your food tour in the Pacific Northwest with some gourmet coffee.
Americans living at a fast pace often just "grab a quick bite."Fast food restaurants offer people on the run everything from fried chicken to fried rice.Microwave dinners and instant foods make cooking at home a snap.Of course,one of the most common quick American meals is a sandwich.If it can fit between two slices of bread,Americans probably make a sandwich out of it.Peanut butter and jelly is an all-time American favorite.
Americans on the go also tend to eat a lot of "junk food."Potato chips,candy bars,soft drinks and other goodies are popular treats.Many people eat too many of these unhealthy snacks.But others opt for more healthy eating habits.Some even go "all natural."They refuse to eat any food prepared with chemicals or additives.
American culture is a good illustration of the saying "you are what you eat."Americans represent a wide range of backgrounds and ways of thinking.The variety of foods enjoyed in the U.S.reflects the diversity of personal tastes.The food may be international or regional.Sometimes it's fast,and sometimes it's not so fast.It might be junk food,or maybe it's natural food.In any case,the style is all-American.
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