
A modern saint and sinner - terpua
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9968985
======
ivankirigin
I noted this the other day:
[http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2007/10/samizdata_quo...](http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2007/10/samizdata_quote_241.html)

"I belong to a Facebook group called "Che Guevara was a murderer and your
T-Shirt is not cool". It has 10,935 members."

------
bilbo0s
You know the issue with getting people to subscribe to Americanism around the
world is the way we go about it. Chinese culture, for example, is just as
hegemonic as our culture is. I was in Dakkar, and I could go to a Chinese
restaurant. It is getting that way across sub-saharan Africa as well, the
Chinese are everywhere. Even in Zimbabwe people love Jet Li, Jackie Chan and
Chow Yun-Fat. The story is the same in South America or Eastern Europe. Yet
everyone hates us, and can't wait to learn more about China.

Why?

I travel a lot and have struggled with that question. I am frustrated because
I am challenged to think up a reasonable answer to it. I think part of the
reason though is the difference in the messages. The West, and the Arabic
world for that matter, send messages like the one in this article, 'Our way is
better because look at how the other way sucks'. Where as the Chinese or the
Japanese send messages like 'Our way is better because we do x, y, and z'. The
focus of their message is ALWAYS on their own positive values. If they had
their way, the developing world be oblivious to the very existence of America
and the West or Christianity, Islam and the Middle East.

Articles like this encourage people to go out and get more information on Che.
The flip side of that is that they invariably come across information on
Batista. Then, at the next dinner party, they are fairly well informed on why
the Cubans would turn to iron-fisted despots like Che and Castro to improve
their lots. Then you end up trying to argue that the United States would never
again get in the business of forcibly maintaining the power of a system like
the one that existed in Cuba prior to Castro. And they, rightfully, point to
George and Condi and ask if you really believe that.

I am without answers. I am frustrated. And I am saddened. I know that there
are people in the United States who have what many would consider to be wise
values. Respect for others, quiet confidence, wisdom enough to properly weigh
the need for strength, flexibility, and balance in most situations. What
escapes me is that, somehow, what bubbles to the top are people who preside
over profligate spending, gross neglect and DISRESPECT of others (Katrina),
and the careless employ of strength without regard to flexibility or balance.

We are trying to win hearts and minds. Our leaders of the past 20 or 30 years
have made it necessary for us to write articles like this. They have made it
necessary for us to send 160000 guys with guns to 'win' those hearts and
minds. I don't know much about how hearts and minds are won, that said, it
seems to me that something is woefully out of place.

~~~
alaskamiller
That's ridiculous; China will of course emphasize their positive values for
the Western world. That veil is all they have to maintain legitimacy on its
people. A country that severely limits on what you can and can not see in
media, a country that forcibly removes its own citizens with causes that makes
American imminent domain laws like child's play, a country that has consistent
human rights violations, a country with a ruling oligarchy that has time and
again shown it's willing to barter political power with the incentives of
capitalistic greed.

Yeah, of course that country is going to put out its best face. It bans people
from spitting in the streets and have shuttled the homeless and the beggars
from the cities just so that a piddling game can be held so that the world can
be dazzled and fooled.

I'm also not quite sure why people in foreign countries liking Jet Li somehow
makes it that Chinese culture is spreading. That's equivalent to saying people
like Schwarzenegger and equates that as American culture.

~~~
bilbo0s
The spread of pop culture is one of the reasons that many anti-American
zealots latch onto as justification. So yes, Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson,
McDonald's and Starbucks, they all have a great deal to do with the perceived
American cultural hegemony. As Jet Li, Jackie Chan and, foolish as it may
seem, Chinese restaurants, all have a great deal to do with Chinese cultural
hegemony.

The question that confuses me is this. Why worry ONLY about American cultural
hegemony, when CLEARLY the Chinese cultural hegemony is also an issue? Why
worry ONLY about American cultural hegemony, when Japanese cultural hegemony
is also an issue?

I maintain that there is something subtle here that we are somehow missing.
There HAS to be. Why do the French blow up McDonald's and not the restaurants
in the Chinese section of Paris over by Le Marais? There are as many
instructors of Chinese martial arts in Munich as there are hip hop clubs. Why
single us out? There are MORE girls playing with Tomagotchis than there are
listening to Hannah Montana. Why does she need so much more security?

Everything you wrote in your post as touching China is (somewhat) factual. Yet
most non-Americans consider the United States and Iran to be the prime threats
to global peace. Why?

In short, what I am saying is that none of this makes sense to me. That this
situation is very disconcerting.

If there are non-Americans reading this thread, I would REALLY like your
opinion on these matters.

~~~
Caligula
I think it has to do with the dominance of american culture that is changing
every aspect of their lives.

You mentioned Jet Li, Jackie Chan. They are more known internationally for
their American movies than anything they made in HK.

Also Chinese food is American. The food you would have at an American Chinese
restaurant has little in common with what you would experience in China. The
same American Chinese food was exported to France. So its more American than
anything else.

The martial arts instructors you mention exist largely because of Hollywood.

The reason people dislike America is because its the wealthiest, most powerful
nation on earth that can do whatever it wants regardless of what other nations
think, and it does.

~~~
bilbo0s
I think that is part of it, but Hollywood does not explain all of it. Chow
Yun-Fat was big in Europe long before 'Anna and the King'. When we put him
into video games, we put him in the roles that he played in his HK films, the
roles that he played in his american films were far less memorable. Zhang Ziyi
is an amazing actress and the world knows this because of 'Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon', though 'Rush Hour 2' was really good, as you said. And women
the world over LOVE the film '2046'. I take that DVD with me where ever I go,
in case I get a date. It is ALWAYS a winner. With a name like 'caligula' you
should make sure this movie is in your collection too.

Having been obliged to eat at crappy Chinese restaurants from China Town in
Havana, Cuba to Hong Kong, I have to say that it all tastes the same to me.
That said, I am sure if I set my sites on the higher end restaurants I would
probably find the difference in the 'experience' that you spoke about.

I think maybe you might be right about Hollywood pushing martial arts though.
This still leaves open the question of the worldwide fixation with things like
Chinese medicines for example.

