A Tale of Two Cultures

Before I went to Philadelphia, I have already been prepared to answer a lot of questions about China and myself. To my surprise, different people ask very different questions.

In Chinatown, the first question people tend to ask me is always like this:
How can you stay here after you finish your program?

My response is always:
I will leave.

They feel confused and try to encourage me to stay in the United States, saying like:
“Don’t worry, you will find a job here.”

A woman working at a non-profit organization for refugees even offered an interpreter job and working visa.

I said: No thanks. I want to go back to China.

“Really? Why?” the woman asked.

“Because my 100,000 readers are waiting for me,” I said, “they miss me and I miss them too.”

She paused for a second and said:

”You must love your job very much.”

Yes I do love my job. Though China’s journalism environment is not fully developed, it is a land of opportunity for journalists not only from China but also across the world. There are so many interesting stories to report, so many exciting and important moments to witness and so many people out there reading your stories. Different from what I have seen here, almost every newspaper in China is recruiting reporters. With a decent job and happy family and promising future waiting for me, why should I break my words, even illegally?

As a reporter, most stories I wrote are problems China is facing. By talking to people in Chinatown who came to the States to escape the suffering life in their homeland, I realize how lucky I am living today’s China, a rising, peaceful land with many problems but more hopes.

It seems that Chinese outside Chinatown have more interest in China itself. Most of them are from mainland China and came to the States only about five years ago.

Their question always begins with:
How is China now? How do they treat Haigui(Meaning Sea Turtle in Chinese, Common green turtle in Chinese, tubbed for returned Chinese with abroad education background)? How much do you earn in China? (If this guy is more Americanized, he will not ask the question directly) Will you be promoted after you finish the program?

I will introduce them the website of the magazine I work for. As for my own future, my answer is:
I don’t know whether or not I will be promoted. It is not up to me. But I am sure that I am pretty unique for the fact that I have worked for both the Chinese media and American newspaper in the United States.

To my surprise, Americans don’t ask me about China. They tell me:

“China will be the next global leader.”

I am shocked.

I have never thought of China becoming the leader of the world, economically, politically or militarily. On the contrary, when I was in China, we always talked about the barriers in front of China’s future development.

For example, we are afraid that China cannot continue its world factory strategy in the next 20 years since it maybe difficult to provide a lot of cheap and sustainable resources like labor, land and electricity.

If true, what’s the alternative option? With problems on intellectual property protection and inadequate higher education, Can China change its focus to intellectual intensive industry?

But here it seems Americans are so fascinated and at the same time scared by China’s development.

Personally I believe one’s own effort is much more important than the outside
environment. However, confronted with so many different questions, I begin to understand how important a peaceful, thoughtful and objective attitude could help each other, whether for people or for their nations.

Lou Yi's story about ChinatownGate :
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20070514_Big_plans_to_awaken_Phila_s_faded_dragon.html