You can easily judge the character of a man by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him. -- Unknown
For the past several days, I have been unable to practice Chinese, develop lesson plans, reply to emails, or work on my law school applications. Any higher-level thought processes I might be capable of have been completely overwhelmed by my aching heart and screaming conscience.
In my ninth grade “Global Studies” class, I learned about the sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and abandonment of baby girls that takes place at astonishing levels in China. The stories of these practices made an impression on me like nothing else ever had. Even though it would be years before I would hear of feminism, I instinctively felt that there was something very wrong with valuing girls less than boys, and certainly it was downright evil to murder baby girls simply because they are girls.
That day’s lessons have stayed with me. In fact, what I learned in that class has in large part motivated my current year-long relocation to China. What I was completely unaware of until recently, however, was that the Chinese customs that privilege males over females are actually used as justification for the unhealthy attitudes toward girls. The customs aren’t questioned, and since the values are based on the customs, how could the values be wrong? I’ve had this argument made to me half a dozen times, and in none of the instances did the other person ever think to consider that perhaps the customs are inappropriate as well. “Thinking outside the box” is not a very Chinese thing to do, apparently.
Speaking about these cultural phenomena on a sociological level, though, isn’t what’s been keeping me up at night. What makes my heart ache is to hear a beautiful, intelligent girl tell me that it doesn’t bother her that her grandparents love her male cousin more, just because he’s male, or to see my immature and lazy (male) students act so smugly superior day in and day out. The young women at this university, even those who don’t have boyfriends and are otherwise unconcerned with marriage and parenthood, desperately want to have a son in the future. They don’t see anything wrong with preferring males; in fact, given their culture, it would be illogical not to prefer males.
Some cultural differences, such as music, food, fashion, etiquette, etc, are completely relative, and any preference for one culture over another would simply be a matter of individual taste. I would defend these aspects of Chinese culture to the end against any Westerner who thinks that their culture is superior. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the opposite of an arrogant, idiotic American who believes that the whole world should be like the USA. For me to be so upset, then, this must be a matter of a different sort.
I believe that the quote located at the beginning of this entry is true. Even if the Chinese customs that disadvantage females were immutable (although I don’t believe that they are), it’s still not right for females to be valued less. They can’t pass on your family name? Won’t be expected to live with you in your old age? Can’t work the land as hard? Can’t give you your “own” grandchildren? Love them equally anyways. Value them equally anyways. Even better would be to change the customs that have created the preference of sons over daughters, but if that isn’t possible, it’s still no excuse to prefer males. Letting the girls live is just the first step. The preference, in and of itself, is what I am taking issue with.
Think of the precedent that is set by the kind of thinking that values girls less than boys. If we as humans value others only to the extent that they are helpful and useful to us, we exchange our humanity for a cold, calculating kind of utilitarianism that creates a world I don’t think any of us would want to live in. We all have shortcomings and flaws, but instead of bearing with one another in patience and love, we would simply lower our view of the offending party’s level of innate worth according to the extent we were harmed by it.
The choice is either to value other human beings for their innate dignity, worth, and personhood, or diminish humanity altogether: those devalued for obvious reasons, and those doing the de-valuing by being allowed to develop such selfish patterns of thought. I don’t know if this aspect of Chinese culture will ever change. All I know is that I’m deeply troubled, and that I seem to be the only person here who is.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
D - Xi'an or bust
Well C and I have decided to go to the city of Xi'an for 十一（10/1 - The Chinese National Holiday). We get a week off from school and we didn't want to putter around campus for 7 days thinking about all the cool places we could be going.
Dalian has been a real success story for us in terms of a place to live. The air IS actually clean. It is a modern, accessible city and there's Western food when we think we can't take another bowl of rice. As expected, however, it completely lacks in the culture department. There's a few museums here and there but nothing that speaks to China's long history. The only place remotely close that qualifies is the city to the south of Dalian known as Lushun. There's a former Japanese prison where many Chinese were killed and they turned it into a museum on the occupation. Of course Lushun is also home to the Chinese Navy so parts of the city are forbidden to foreigners. Until we find someone who knows Lushun well we will probably avoid it so we don't have an uncomfortable meeting with a Chinese policeman.
So, Xi'an -- what's there? Well, Xi'an was the first capital of China and the home of the first emperor. A brutal but intelligent dictator named Qin Shi Huang united the warring clans of China into a single Chinese empire spanning much of modern China. As seems par for the course for ancient dictators, Mr Qin (Chinese surnames come first) decided he wanted to live forever, so he commissioned hundreds of sailors to go searching for the islands of eternal youth. Not surprisingly, they didn't come back - his response to their lack of results would not have been favorable. Failing to obtain eternal life through the usual means, Qin realized he must build a tremendous army to protect him in the afterlife. Thus he commanded the construction of the Terra Cotta soldiers, a massive group of life-size soldiers and generals surrounding his tomb. Qin likely shortened his lifespan by consuming mercury pills, which were thought to provide immortality. He spent so many resources of his empire on building the Terra Cotta soldiers that his reign was increasing brutal to keep control. Reportedly he kept body doubles and slept in a different place every night to ward off the assassination attempts.
Xi'an has many other interesting sights, such as an ancient city wall, the Wild Goose Pagoda, the Bell and Drum Towers, and the Hot Springs where Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped prior to the temporary unification of the Communists and Nationalists to fight the Japanese. We are actually going with a retired couple from Denmark who are also here at DMU. So the 4 foreigners are going to brave a Chinese city alone - stay tuned, this could get interesting!
We originally wanted to take the train to Xi'an. It would have been 7 hours overnight to Beijing, and then a day in Beijing followed by a 12 hour journey overnight to Xi'an. We were going to book the best possible class (known as Soft Sleepers) which has 4 bunks in an enclosed compartment. Alas (or perhaps for the best) because the holiday is so significantly travelled, all the train tickets were sold out and we were forced to look into airfare. The only web site in English you can book through is Elong. Usually the airfare in China is very cheap but being a peak travel time it wasn't as nice.
After consulting with our Danish friends, I went ahead and booked the flights as I would on any other web site (minus the Credit card...they call you to get that information, or so I thought). A few minutes later I got a call from a nice gentleman from Elong who spoke English. He confirmed the reservation but he also informed me that to use a credit card they charged a 2% fee and they couldn't issue the tickets and thus book the prices unless I mailed them a signed authorization. Given that the prices were going up daily, we couldn't afford that option. So I said we could pay cash. He indicated they could deliver the plane tickets that afternoon. I tried to give him the address but he didn't believe me so I had to have him call a Chinese friend who gave him directions to the Administration building of our university.
Now picture this - the total for all 4 roundtrip plane tickets was 7600 Yuan. The largest denomination of currency in China is the 100 Yuan note. 76 notes to carry around! I felt like Al Capone...Of course when we went to meet the driver I accidentally dropped all the money...haha
(Try to ignore my latest face experiment)
Dalian has been a real success story for us in terms of a place to live. The air IS actually clean. It is a modern, accessible city and there's Western food when we think we can't take another bowl of rice. As expected, however, it completely lacks in the culture department. There's a few museums here and there but nothing that speaks to China's long history. The only place remotely close that qualifies is the city to the south of Dalian known as Lushun. There's a former Japanese prison where many Chinese were killed and they turned it into a museum on the occupation. Of course Lushun is also home to the Chinese Navy so parts of the city are forbidden to foreigners. Until we find someone who knows Lushun well we will probably avoid it so we don't have an uncomfortable meeting with a Chinese policeman.
So, Xi'an -- what's there? Well, Xi'an was the first capital of China and the home of the first emperor. A brutal but intelligent dictator named Qin Shi Huang united the warring clans of China into a single Chinese empire spanning much of modern China. As seems par for the course for ancient dictators, Mr Qin (Chinese surnames come first) decided he wanted to live forever, so he commissioned hundreds of sailors to go searching for the islands of eternal youth. Not surprisingly, they didn't come back - his response to their lack of results would not have been favorable. Failing to obtain eternal life through the usual means, Qin realized he must build a tremendous army to protect him in the afterlife. Thus he commanded the construction of the Terra Cotta soldiers, a massive group of life-size soldiers and generals surrounding his tomb. Qin likely shortened his lifespan by consuming mercury pills, which were thought to provide immortality. He spent so many resources of his empire on building the Terra Cotta soldiers that his reign was increasing brutal to keep control. Reportedly he kept body doubles and slept in a different place every night to ward off the assassination attempts.
Xi'an has many other interesting sights, such as an ancient city wall, the Wild Goose Pagoda, the Bell and Drum Towers, and the Hot Springs where Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped prior to the temporary unification of the Communists and Nationalists to fight the Japanese. We are actually going with a retired couple from Denmark who are also here at DMU. So the 4 foreigners are going to brave a Chinese city alone - stay tuned, this could get interesting!
We originally wanted to take the train to Xi'an. It would have been 7 hours overnight to Beijing, and then a day in Beijing followed by a 12 hour journey overnight to Xi'an. We were going to book the best possible class (known as Soft Sleepers) which has 4 bunks in an enclosed compartment. Alas (or perhaps for the best) because the holiday is so significantly travelled, all the train tickets were sold out and we were forced to look into airfare. The only web site in English you can book through is Elong. Usually the airfare in China is very cheap but being a peak travel time it wasn't as nice.
After consulting with our Danish friends, I went ahead and booked the flights as I would on any other web site (minus the Credit card...they call you to get that information, or so I thought). A few minutes later I got a call from a nice gentleman from Elong who spoke English. He confirmed the reservation but he also informed me that to use a credit card they charged a 2% fee and they couldn't issue the tickets and thus book the prices unless I mailed them a signed authorization. Given that the prices were going up daily, we couldn't afford that option. So I said we could pay cash. He indicated they could deliver the plane tickets that afternoon. I tried to give him the address but he didn't believe me so I had to have him call a Chinese friend who gave him directions to the Administration building of our university.
Now picture this - the total for all 4 roundtrip plane tickets was 7600 Yuan. The largest denomination of currency in China is the 100 Yuan note. 76 notes to carry around! I felt like Al Capone...Of course when we went to meet the driver I accidentally dropped all the money...haha
(Try to ignore my latest face experiment)
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