Someone put U2’s “Better than the real thing” on the jukebox. She wore a low-cut vest and a denim miniskirt; a most welcome encounter to end an otherwise dreadful workweek. As she operated the tap to pour my second pint of Magic Hat, she said that she loved classical music. She was no common tavern wench of the college-town variety.
Ach, mein wunderfrau! Mi bailllerina bella!
I was about to go into my spiel about Bach, when this unemployed punk-ass next to me started whining about federal drug prohibition policy and the need to legalize marijuana and privatize all functions of government under an Anarcho-Capitalist pogrom, so that he could find a job.
Bitch-ass punk, I came in here to ESCAPE the world of rationality and Faustian abstraction, not dive into it. Take your brain turd and dump it on the Internet, where people care about flame-bait. Dick Cheney is paying dudes $80,000 to drive a truck in Iraq! And why would an Anarcho-Capitalist need a job? I thought you were all globe-trotting entrepreneurs with private jets and Tag Heuer Chronographs.
But my brain box was ignited and a disparate phantasmagoria of think-tank papers assembled itself in my consciousness to unleash an analytical fugue:
My problem with capitalism is that the market has no mechanism to mitigate the demographic externalities that lead up to cascading failures at the macro-economic level.
“WHAT THE FOOK?!?!?!,” you ask?
For example, you could say that there are PLENTY of jobs in America, even in this economy, BUT to land a job, young unskilled worker, you must be willing to be paid equal or less that the $8.00/hour going rate for the services an undocumented Mexican day-laborer. And you must line up and down 18th Avenue at the crack of dawn every day for a chance to get on the van to God-knows-where. For the college-educated American, that prospect is met with: FUCK THAT SHIT! Well, bub, that’s the MARKET RATE of unskilled labor determined by market forces. Any lower and the Mexican won’t get into the van. Any higher and the extra expense gets transferred into the project’s final cost, which means the developer is going to hire another construction company.
Such is the way of labor arbitrage on this side of the border. The externalities are:
1. Decreased tax revenue from workers, whether they file income tax returns or not.
2. Over-development of an unsustainable housing market because of an artificially low cost of labor.
3. The underdevelopment of a viable middle-class that would in turn support the higher-skill economy of professional services and boutique-niche industries.
4. The inter-generational sense of community is replaced by a constant stream of transients and alien cultures. (Is it any wonder that gated communites and home owners associations are skyrocketing across this country?)
Well who can we vote for to turn around that trend?
By voting for Republicans, its corporatist-wing continues to have access to cheap labor, while its Evangelical-wing dispenses with any real-world solutions because Jesus is going to solve everything in 2012.
By voting for Democrats, its ethno-relativist-wing continues to soak the middle-class with newly arrived useless eaters, while its hipster-wing sublimates any outrage at the cultural dilution of our neighborhoods.
The Paleo-Con Pat Buchanan has made a social defense of industrial protectionism, that the communities that thrived around our manufacturing hubs are the backbone of traditional blue-collar American culture. Global finance and manufacturers are not exposed to the external costs of labor arbitrage when the factories are moved overseas: Deteriorating neighborhoods, drug addiction, violent crime, collapsing tax base, white flight, etc. Low-wage workers, undocumented or not, still use the same public services as everyone else, but without paying for it except through sales taxes. The tax burden then falls on those who do play by the book and file their tax returns. The tax burden becomes so great that moving to another state becomes a viable option. And one wonders why a steady flow of New Yorkers, Bostonians and Los Angelenos have been moving to Florida, Texas and Arizona recently.
As the middle class dwindles, cities fall apart. The “native” English and Germans could’ve made the same argument against the Irish in 1850 (and with the Protestant vs. Catholic spin too) but the public services and welfare system was nowhere near as extensive in the 19th century as it is now: Public schools, Medicare, Social Security, fire, police, garbage collection, etc. That is the ultimate “externality.” The economic eschatology of Marx predicted that capitalists will arbitrage the world into the ground in a race to the bottom to undercut each other. Henry Ford once doubled the pay of his autoworkers because he conceded that he wanted them to be able to afford the cars they built. The multi-national has no such concerns.
This is a new century with new technologies that require a learning curve gets steeper with each passing year (lending credence to Singularity Theory, IMHO). Contrary to the CATO Institute's optimism, Puritan Middle America cannot be retrained to turn Norman Rockwellesque small towns into ultra-tech Silicon Valleys or hyper-literate DUMBOs or Seattle-Vancouver-plexes. The Creative Class is the future and will cluster together, abandoning places like Pittsburgh and Detroit. The cities are increasingly unable to sustain the market for the services of the suburban/exurban professionals. The Dust Bowl displaced countless Okies into California. Hurricane Katrina displaced half of New Orleans into Arkansas and Texas. How will the Great Unraveling displace Americans? The best and brightest into the Singapore-style Digital City-State Fortresses and the rest into the welcoming arms of the Soldiers of God?
Let's be honest. A crackdown on illegals and a moratorium on legal immigration is a means to this end: Artificially buoying the hourly wage of the American worker. And it is a very legitimate end because I am a cultural determinist. Immigration, unless tempered by assimilation programs, will and is already leading to the Balkinization of this great country. The US federal government slashed and burned its way through Dixie in 1861-65 because white workers had the political will to deny new states the comparative advantage of slave labor. The same political will led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The same political will bans non-Shanghainese from entering Shanghai without a work permit (Yes, China has INTERNAL immigration restrictions) Perhaps in the Great Collapse, an economic nationalist wing will emerge from each of the major parties and synthesize a new protectionist party. (I won't even go into the pros and cons of unionization here).
But protectionism too, leads to macro-economic implications: Let's say a Buchananist party wins the Presidency and Congress and restricts immigration and imports. Capital is electronic and can flow freely. Multi-nationals will simply divest and move overseas completely. There is ALWAYS another market. The factories that moved to Mexico post-NAFTA went to China's coastal cities. Now inflation has made coastal industry less profitable, and so Chinese firms are moving inland to the backwoods. Some are even moving to Vietnam and Nigeria. Every place that the arbitragers touch may seize on a global trend of protectionism. Such a scenario would spell the end of the globalist project. The end of Wal-Mart. The return of 70s-era crappy cars.
An aging population will drive away younger workers who don't want to bust their asses to pay taxes to support Social Security. And so Germans will have to hire Turks. And the French will have to hire Moroccans. And the English will have to hire Pakistanis. And Italians will have to hire Albanians. And Japanese will have to hire Filipinos. And Americans will have to hire Mexicans.
Back to this young, aspiring Ragnar Danneskjold sitting next to me in the bar. Legalize drugs? Sure. I can understand the Libertarian arguments. But there are implications for such a society that the legalizers fail or refuse to appreciate because they are too psyched-up after reading Reason magazine or Ayn Rand or something, an elated feeling that someone, somewhere has an easy dogmatic answer to contemporary human dilemmas.
Legalization of drugs has the same social costs that we already bear for legalized alcohol: Motor vehicle fatalities, domestic violence, a subculture of addiction, a generation of college grads lost to binge drinking. My problem is not with those who drink or smoke responsibly. My problem is with the cost of foster care and battered women’s shelters. And the cost of city morgues that will fill up with crackheads shot by card-carrying NRA members like myself. Such a society had better have a mechanism to handle the damage that legalization will inflict upon the taxpayer.
Such a society concedes that a large segment of its population is beyond redemption and cannot be trusted to function in society, much less respect another's rights or civic culture; a permanent prison/institutional population. We are way past the point where a voluntary sterilization project could have prevented their births in the first place, a la Margaret Sanger's proto-eugenics ideas. Are proponents of drug legalization prepared for streets littered with homeless addicts? We can't even deal with the homeless alcoholics we have now (my shout out to the pieces of shit buzzing the Bay Ridge Ave and 95th Street R train stations).
So punk-ass, even if we legalized drugs and went to a totally free-economy out of a Robert Heinlen novel, who would want to hire a dope-sucking anarchist who bitches about shit all day? How about some Darwinian reality? How about those who abstain from drugs have undiminished mental capacity are fit for economic survival and those to don't prove themselves unfit for survival? If Libertarians fully understand and accept that consequence, well shit, point me the fuck to the sign-up table! But those Libertarians that have the balls to think that won't dare say it, fearing public outrage that would further condemn them to Third Party status.
By the time this neer-do-well finished his rambling, I turned to see her on the far side of the bar, stacking glasses. The conversation on high Western culture, now a faded echo….
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Stranger in a strange land
I dated a Guangdong woman, a recent-arrival, who kept talking about how she missed Guangzhou. She was here because her parents dragged her here. If she was so unhappy and if America was such a culture shock, then GO HOME! Chinese parents who bring their kids to America in their teenage years ARE GOING TO FUCK THEM UP! They are going to feel alienated and retreat into Chinese pop culture (Andy Lau, blast that handsome devil!) The neural pathways of language will have been cemented and the kid will not speak or listen fluently. Permanent accent. These parents think English is just a simple language that anyone can learn but there are layers of nuance and syntax and dynamic vernacular and cultural cues that cannot be picked up unless one speaks and is spoken to constantly throughout the day, complete immersion.
It’s worse for young Chinese males who arrive. Those with H1-Bs can at least be exploited by IT firms who don’t want to pay Medicare or Social Security taxes. But those who arrive around adolescence face an upward fight.
What happens when a Chinese kid cannot comprehend life in the American city because the TV set and radio sounds like gibberish? What happens when he feels he can’t communicate with teachers, the police, government agencies, employers and other people who are necessary for life in the big city? What happens when he feels he has no control over his destiny and that the only protection is to join other alienated males aged 16-35? You get packs of unemployable unskilled males preying on the population of productive citizens, A PARASITIC SURPLUS OF MALTHUSIAN PROPORTIONS!!!!
And I wonder why she stopped seeing me…
It’s worse for young Chinese males who arrive. Those with H1-Bs can at least be exploited by IT firms who don’t want to pay Medicare or Social Security taxes. But those who arrive around adolescence face an upward fight.
What happens when a Chinese kid cannot comprehend life in the American city because the TV set and radio sounds like gibberish? What happens when he feels he can’t communicate with teachers, the police, government agencies, employers and other people who are necessary for life in the big city? What happens when he feels he has no control over his destiny and that the only protection is to join other alienated males aged 16-35? You get packs of unemployable unskilled males preying on the population of productive citizens, A PARASITIC SURPLUS OF MALTHUSIAN PROPORTIONS!!!!
And I wonder why she stopped seeing me…
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Biblio-politik
PRC nationalists often tout the Middle Kingdom’s birth five thousand years ago as proof of her cultural longevity and superiority. I beg to differ.
The creative output of the PRC today comes nowhere near the West. I’ll just take the print industry for example. My favorite Barnes & Nobles in New York City’s Union Square has four stories of row after row of fiction, history, art, classical literature, political science and investigative journalism, and every manner of magazine and journal, completely uncensored, unregulated, unfiltered. Such openness is testament to strength of Western culture. It is censorship and the suppression of ideas that is the mark of a weak regime, afraid of transparency and accountability, afraid that open debate will allow the totality of all the legitimate grievances of the people to bubble to the surface, and all the fingerpointing at secretive Western agents and saboteurs will no longer fly.
When the Darfur tragedy entered the public mind thanks to an alignment of the evangelical movement and Hollywood’s Genocide Olympics campaign, the PRC nationalists on the free Internet offered only counter-accusations that the Americans exterminated the Native Americans during our westward expansion and therefore, we have no right to condemn China. Ahhhh, but the People’s Republic and the United States are not on the same moral plane.
I can go into any bookstore in the West and find books on the Indian Wars of the 19th century. I can freely access Internet sources on the Trail of Tears, Scorching Iroquoia, Wounded Knee, the Red River war, etc. Were I in the PRC, I would not find any books on the crisis in Tibet, Xinjiang or the Sudan, simply because they would not be available. Authors would not bother to research PRC’s past policies because they know that no mainland publisher would risk prison. Publishers who want to stay in business will not consider manuscripts that may offend the eye of a state censor. Is the regime so weak that the paper and ink of the Free World can defeat the steel of the State's armored vehicles?
Therefore, my academic and cultural experience in the West is vastly richer and superior to that of anyone from the other side of the Great Firewall. The “moderates” within the regime will offer a fifty-year program of slow, steady, gradual development of democracy. Very convenient. Plenty of time for the tyrants and their patrons of industry to maintain their grip on the people. The CCP claims to be the protectors of the People, but it is that very gang that has sent millions of Han to their deaths in pogroms and wars with every neighbor since its founding 60 years ago.
Censorship is no stranger to Chinese culture. 5,000 years of authoritarian "hydraulic" society has homogenized the Han. Even the folk Buddhism of ancestor worship requires that "Hell Money" be burnt at funerals, so that the dearly departed has enough cash to bribe the guard in the Underworld to permit access to the afterlife. The Emperor even rules in the afterlife! Is it any wonder that Sun Tzu's Art of War, written in a time of wars and warlords, is the most popular Chinese cultural artifact in the West, and not the Analects of Confucius or the I-Ching?
And why are PRC industries so good at imitating and copying products but must hire Western consultants to develop new, original products? Perhaps the Emperor's doors are still closed and will not let the peasants have their own ideas. Once in a while, a movie with an original plot comes out of Hong Kong and a wave of copies shall soon follow; Infernal Affairs, Young & Dangerous, Shaolin Soccer, but in fairness that can be said of the film industry around the world.
There is a huge market for independent films in the West. The number of Western films OFFICIALLY ALLOWED to enter the PRC each year can be counted on the fingers of two hands. (Not counting the massive deluge of pirated DVDs floating around public squares, no doubt with the pre-paid sanction of the local authorities).
And so I rise everyday in celebration of my ability to consume and express whatever I please. And I lament my countrymen who wish to do the same but have the boot of fascists on their necks. And I look down my nose at those patriots of the proletarian revolution who revel in their dark caverns of the mind, and point the finger at everyone else except themselves.
"Buddhism is a religion for the closing, over-wearied stages of civilization. Christianity appears before civilization has so much as begun—under certain circumstances it lays the very foundations thereof. Buddhism is a hundred times more austere, more honest, more objective. It no longer has to justify its pains, its susceptibility to suffering, by interpreting these things in terms of sin—it simply says, as it simply thinks, “I suffer.” To the barbarian, however, suffering in itself is scarcely understandable: what he needs, first of all, is an explanation as to why he suffers. (His mere instinct prompts him to deny his suffering altogether, or to endure it in silence.) Here the word “devil” was a blessing: man had to have an omnipotent and terrible enemy—there was no need to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—"
Nietzsche
The creative output of the PRC today comes nowhere near the West. I’ll just take the print industry for example. My favorite Barnes & Nobles in New York City’s Union Square has four stories of row after row of fiction, history, art, classical literature, political science and investigative journalism, and every manner of magazine and journal, completely uncensored, unregulated, unfiltered. Such openness is testament to strength of Western culture. It is censorship and the suppression of ideas that is the mark of a weak regime, afraid of transparency and accountability, afraid that open debate will allow the totality of all the legitimate grievances of the people to bubble to the surface, and all the fingerpointing at secretive Western agents and saboteurs will no longer fly.
When the Darfur tragedy entered the public mind thanks to an alignment of the evangelical movement and Hollywood’s Genocide Olympics campaign, the PRC nationalists on the free Internet offered only counter-accusations that the Americans exterminated the Native Americans during our westward expansion and therefore, we have no right to condemn China. Ahhhh, but the People’s Republic and the United States are not on the same moral plane.
I can go into any bookstore in the West and find books on the Indian Wars of the 19th century. I can freely access Internet sources on the Trail of Tears, Scorching Iroquoia, Wounded Knee, the Red River war, etc. Were I in the PRC, I would not find any books on the crisis in Tibet, Xinjiang or the Sudan, simply because they would not be available. Authors would not bother to research PRC’s past policies because they know that no mainland publisher would risk prison. Publishers who want to stay in business will not consider manuscripts that may offend the eye of a state censor. Is the regime so weak that the paper and ink of the Free World can defeat the steel of the State's armored vehicles?
Therefore, my academic and cultural experience in the West is vastly richer and superior to that of anyone from the other side of the Great Firewall. The “moderates” within the regime will offer a fifty-year program of slow, steady, gradual development of democracy. Very convenient. Plenty of time for the tyrants and their patrons of industry to maintain their grip on the people. The CCP claims to be the protectors of the People, but it is that very gang that has sent millions of Han to their deaths in pogroms and wars with every neighbor since its founding 60 years ago.
Censorship is no stranger to Chinese culture. 5,000 years of authoritarian "hydraulic" society has homogenized the Han. Even the folk Buddhism of ancestor worship requires that "Hell Money" be burnt at funerals, so that the dearly departed has enough cash to bribe the guard in the Underworld to permit access to the afterlife. The Emperor even rules in the afterlife! Is it any wonder that Sun Tzu's Art of War, written in a time of wars and warlords, is the most popular Chinese cultural artifact in the West, and not the Analects of Confucius or the I-Ching?
And why are PRC industries so good at imitating and copying products but must hire Western consultants to develop new, original products? Perhaps the Emperor's doors are still closed and will not let the peasants have their own ideas. Once in a while, a movie with an original plot comes out of Hong Kong and a wave of copies shall soon follow; Infernal Affairs, Young & Dangerous, Shaolin Soccer, but in fairness that can be said of the film industry around the world.
There is a huge market for independent films in the West. The number of Western films OFFICIALLY ALLOWED to enter the PRC each year can be counted on the fingers of two hands. (Not counting the massive deluge of pirated DVDs floating around public squares, no doubt with the pre-paid sanction of the local authorities).
And so I rise everyday in celebration of my ability to consume and express whatever I please. And I lament my countrymen who wish to do the same but have the boot of fascists on their necks. And I look down my nose at those patriots of the proletarian revolution who revel in their dark caverns of the mind, and point the finger at everyone else except themselves.
"Buddhism is a religion for the closing, over-wearied stages of civilization. Christianity appears before civilization has so much as begun—under certain circumstances it lays the very foundations thereof. Buddhism is a hundred times more austere, more honest, more objective. It no longer has to justify its pains, its susceptibility to suffering, by interpreting these things in terms of sin—it simply says, as it simply thinks, “I suffer.” To the barbarian, however, suffering in itself is scarcely understandable: what he needs, first of all, is an explanation as to why he suffers. (His mere instinct prompts him to deny his suffering altogether, or to endure it in silence.) Here the word “devil” was a blessing: man had to have an omnipotent and terrible enemy—there was no need to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—"
Nietzsche
Saturday, September 5, 2009
F.O.B. Rapid Transit
To commute to work each day on the MTA subway system is to witness the diversity of New York City, warts and all. I intended this blog to have a cultural/political arc but my most common observations of my fellow Han must come first.
1. Spitting.
Male and female FOBs (Fresh-Off-Boats) often lean their heads over the edge of the subway platform, let out a hacking hiss to prime their payload and eject a gob of spittle and mucus into the tracks, inflicting this unpleasantness upon every commuter and tourist in his or her vicinity. Us ABCs (American-born Chinese) lose much face. I don't know whether they spit because they can't stand still and must punctuate every moment with something, or they suffer respiratory complications from smoking the cheap smuggled "Double-Happiness" Shuang Xi-brand cigarettes (with the bright red packaging). If it's from the cigarettes, then the spitting is excusable; a small price to pay to speed up death, which can only mean one less useless eater to collect Social Security.
2. Picking nose.
In China, I'm sure sitting thigh-to-thigh, elbow-to-elbow against strangers is the perfect time to begin excavating nasal particles and obstructions. Once extracted, it is often rubbed about in the hand as if matter was magically destroyed, defying all laws of physics. Is it any wonder less and less straphangers want to touch the railings? Sometimes, they look around after picking their nose to see if anyone was looking at them. Usually, I stare at them. Some of them stop when they notice me staring. Some take second takes to confirm that I'm staring at them. YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU, YOU FUCKIN' FOB! FUCKIN' WAKE UP FROM YOUR DAYDREAM AND REALIZING EVERYONE'S LOOKING AT YOU! IF YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO THINK YOU'RE A DIRTY PIECE OF SHIT, THEN STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE! But the FOBs don't care.
Oh yeah, if they're picking their teeth with a toothpick, they cover their mouths out of politeness. No matter how many public service announcements explaining the unsanitary practices described here, no one gets it.
3. Not getting up for elderly persons or pregnant woman.
When the train pulls into a station in proximity to an ethnic enclave of Han* Chinese, young and old rush on board to grab all available seats. What happens to the old men and women with canes, walkers or heavy bags who can't compete in the Darwinian race? The prevailing attitude among the FOBs is: FUCK 'EM. And if someone does get off for the old lady, another FOB misses that social cue and tries to sit in the seat. WHAT DID YOU THINK I GOT UP FOR YOU, FOB-ASS BITCH? I'M GIVING UP MY SEAT FOR THE OLD LADY, NOT YOU! YOU CAN FUCKIN' STAND! I'M SURE YOUR SELFISHNESS IS COMMON PRACTICE IN YOUR MALTHUSIAN METROPOLIS-OF-ORIGIN, BUT THIS IS NEW YORK FUCKIN' CITY!
So I blocked her with my arm and let the old lady sit down. She was about thirty-years old, semi-cosmopolitan and glaring at me for daring to make physical contact.
I do see those Chinese in their late teens are much more likely to give up their seats, so there is hope. I learned to give up my seat not from my parents, but from the Boy Scouts, one of the last institutions of traditional Anglo-American life for boys, at least in NYC (the Mormons hold the BSA banner now). Lamentably, many immigrant children will never be exposed anything but the coarse, crude value system of peasant cultures. The local Han of Brooklyn have little interest in child development beyond SAT scores and see little value in extracirricular activities much less institutions offered by the local organized houses of worship, but I digress.
Here are some reasons why I don't even stand when I get on the subway:
I won't risk falling asleep and missing my stop.
I can clearly see the name of the station without bobbing and weaving for a gap.
I can quickly move away if an unstable person or disorderly group enters the train.
*(on the N "Sea Beach" line, it's 20th Ave, 18th Ave, New Utrecht, Fort Hamilton Parkway and of course, 8th Ave.)
4. Eating.
In the morning, many Chinese eat their breakfast in the form of a Cha-Shu-Bow pork bun and a cup of tea or coffee. That's fine, but some whip out lunchboxes with home-cooked meals that may seem entirely normal to them but smell absolutely horrible to the uninitiated. Chopsticks a-flyin', sauces splashing, lips slurping. Oh yeah and chewing with their mouths wide open, sharing their digestive process with the rest of us. (Although I'm guilty of the same crime when chomping down on a magarita slice with sun-dried tomatoes and basil leaves from Pizza Royale.)
5. Waiting until the last moment to get off the train.
I will include non-Chinese FOBs as well in this segment. They will watch as the train pulls into the station. They will stare at the name plate but they will not get off. When the two-note tone sounds, signalling the closing of the doors, the FOBs rush out or into the train, often getting themselves or their bags pincered by the doors. Somethings, this causes a mechanical problem with the doors and the whole train has to be discharged and put out of service.
Why wait? I suspect the language barrier. Many immigrants cannot read the MTA subway map or the station names, or even the alphabetic designation of the train line. Some were probably shown which station to get off at from a short tour from a fellow countryman, which means a weekend service diversion or detour means hours lost in the system. The FOB would not have understood the broadcast announcement or the postings taped to walls, windows and support beams. Some may simply navigate by the appearance and configuration of the train station and the color and shape of the sign on the train.
6. Holding the door. Often the train enters the station just as a large group is coming down the stairs. One of the group will hold the door open and wait for their friends and family to wobble on down and catch up. I will not restrict this criticisms to FOBs but I see it on a daily basis at the 8th Ave station. The proper procedure would be to randomly post a cop near the trouble spot so the offender could be picked up immediately. The offender should be given the full fingerprint/immigration run down and if it turns out he/she's undocumented, oh well! Nothing like getting deported for holding the subway door to make the front page of the Sing Tao Daily to encourage proper behavior.
Finally.
I can't shake the feeling that those behaviors of my brethren reflects negatively on me. But I don't let it get to me. I give up my seat and exchange smiles with a grateful elderly person. I keep a handkerchef and discretely wipe my nose if necessary. And to anyone who thinks I am in some way betraying my people by airing this dirty laundry, then DON'T SPIT, DON'T PICK YOUR NOSE, GIVE UP YOUR SEAT FOR OLD PEOPLE, DON'T EAT IN PUBLIC, GET OFF THE TRAIN WHEN THE DOORS OPEN AND DON'T HOLD THE DOOR!
Is there wonder why China attempts to train its departing tourists on proper manners?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ05Ad01.html
1. Spitting.
Male and female FOBs (Fresh-Off-Boats) often lean their heads over the edge of the subway platform, let out a hacking hiss to prime their payload and eject a gob of spittle and mucus into the tracks, inflicting this unpleasantness upon every commuter and tourist in his or her vicinity. Us ABCs (American-born Chinese) lose much face. I don't know whether they spit because they can't stand still and must punctuate every moment with something, or they suffer respiratory complications from smoking the cheap smuggled "Double-Happiness" Shuang Xi-brand cigarettes (with the bright red packaging). If it's from the cigarettes, then the spitting is excusable; a small price to pay to speed up death, which can only mean one less useless eater to collect Social Security.
2. Picking nose.
In China, I'm sure sitting thigh-to-thigh, elbow-to-elbow against strangers is the perfect time to begin excavating nasal particles and obstructions. Once extracted, it is often rubbed about in the hand as if matter was magically destroyed, defying all laws of physics. Is it any wonder less and less straphangers want to touch the railings? Sometimes, they look around after picking their nose to see if anyone was looking at them. Usually, I stare at them. Some of them stop when they notice me staring. Some take second takes to confirm that I'm staring at them. YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU, YOU FUCKIN' FOB! FUCKIN' WAKE UP FROM YOUR DAYDREAM AND REALIZING EVERYONE'S LOOKING AT YOU! IF YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO THINK YOU'RE A DIRTY PIECE OF SHIT, THEN STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE! But the FOBs don't care.
Oh yeah, if they're picking their teeth with a toothpick, they cover their mouths out of politeness. No matter how many public service announcements explaining the unsanitary practices described here, no one gets it.
3. Not getting up for elderly persons or pregnant woman.
When the train pulls into a station in proximity to an ethnic enclave of Han* Chinese, young and old rush on board to grab all available seats. What happens to the old men and women with canes, walkers or heavy bags who can't compete in the Darwinian race? The prevailing attitude among the FOBs is: FUCK 'EM. And if someone does get off for the old lady, another FOB misses that social cue and tries to sit in the seat. WHAT DID YOU THINK I GOT UP FOR YOU, FOB-ASS BITCH? I'M GIVING UP MY SEAT FOR THE OLD LADY, NOT YOU! YOU CAN FUCKIN' STAND! I'M SURE YOUR SELFISHNESS IS COMMON PRACTICE IN YOUR MALTHUSIAN METROPOLIS-OF-ORIGIN, BUT THIS IS NEW YORK FUCKIN' CITY!
So I blocked her with my arm and let the old lady sit down. She was about thirty-years old, semi-cosmopolitan and glaring at me for daring to make physical contact.
I do see those Chinese in their late teens are much more likely to give up their seats, so there is hope. I learned to give up my seat not from my parents, but from the Boy Scouts, one of the last institutions of traditional Anglo-American life for boys, at least in NYC (the Mormons hold the BSA banner now). Lamentably, many immigrant children will never be exposed anything but the coarse, crude value system of peasant cultures. The local Han of Brooklyn have little interest in child development beyond SAT scores and see little value in extracirricular activities much less institutions offered by the local organized houses of worship, but I digress.
Here are some reasons why I don't even stand when I get on the subway:
I won't risk falling asleep and missing my stop.
I can clearly see the name of the station without bobbing and weaving for a gap.
I can quickly move away if an unstable person or disorderly group enters the train.
*(on the N "Sea Beach" line, it's 20th Ave, 18th Ave, New Utrecht, Fort Hamilton Parkway and of course, 8th Ave.)
4. Eating.
In the morning, many Chinese eat their breakfast in the form of a Cha-Shu-Bow pork bun and a cup of tea or coffee. That's fine, but some whip out lunchboxes with home-cooked meals that may seem entirely normal to them but smell absolutely horrible to the uninitiated. Chopsticks a-flyin', sauces splashing, lips slurping. Oh yeah and chewing with their mouths wide open, sharing their digestive process with the rest of us. (Although I'm guilty of the same crime when chomping down on a magarita slice with sun-dried tomatoes and basil leaves from Pizza Royale.)
5. Waiting until the last moment to get off the train.
I will include non-Chinese FOBs as well in this segment. They will watch as the train pulls into the station. They will stare at the name plate but they will not get off. When the two-note tone sounds, signalling the closing of the doors, the FOBs rush out or into the train, often getting themselves or their bags pincered by the doors. Somethings, this causes a mechanical problem with the doors and the whole train has to be discharged and put out of service.
Why wait? I suspect the language barrier. Many immigrants cannot read the MTA subway map or the station names, or even the alphabetic designation of the train line. Some were probably shown which station to get off at from a short tour from a fellow countryman, which means a weekend service diversion or detour means hours lost in the system. The FOB would not have understood the broadcast announcement or the postings taped to walls, windows and support beams. Some may simply navigate by the appearance and configuration of the train station and the color and shape of the sign on the train.
6. Holding the door. Often the train enters the station just as a large group is coming down the stairs. One of the group will hold the door open and wait for their friends and family to wobble on down and catch up. I will not restrict this criticisms to FOBs but I see it on a daily basis at the 8th Ave station. The proper procedure would be to randomly post a cop near the trouble spot so the offender could be picked up immediately. The offender should be given the full fingerprint/immigration run down and if it turns out he/she's undocumented, oh well! Nothing like getting deported for holding the subway door to make the front page of the Sing Tao Daily to encourage proper behavior.
Finally.
I can't shake the feeling that those behaviors of my brethren reflects negatively on me. But I don't let it get to me. I give up my seat and exchange smiles with a grateful elderly person. I keep a handkerchef and discretely wipe my nose if necessary. And to anyone who thinks I am in some way betraying my people by airing this dirty laundry, then DON'T SPIT, DON'T PICK YOUR NOSE, GIVE UP YOUR SEAT FOR OLD PEOPLE, DON'T EAT IN PUBLIC, GET OFF THE TRAIN WHEN THE DOORS OPEN AND DON'T HOLD THE DOOR!
Is there wonder why China attempts to train its departing tourists on proper manners?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ05Ad01.html
And so it begins...
During a brief nap, the documentary "The Saltmen of Tibet" came on TV, with its thundering drums and dissonant horns reverberating in the vast expanse. In that semi-conscious dream state, I recalled fragments of passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. All the passing thoughts and observations from years past flooded back and thus I awoke to fix them in space and time through this blog.
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