The Interface: Andrew Forsthoefel ’11 interacts with characters outside the student bubble

This column is written as a reminder that our community transcends the physical boundaries of the campus and encompasses a beautifully diverse group of people; it’s written under the conviction that the ‘Middlebury bubble’ exists only if we let it exist. In each column, I relay the stories of people we often forget about or don’t see in daily life as students in hopes that readers will get out and meet such people themselves. Before I start up again, I’d like to share some thoughts I had while studying abroad in Kunming, China last spring. They’re thoughts on the Chinese, our perceptions of the Chinese, and truth.

“The search and striving for truth and knowledge is one of the highest of man’s qualities.” Einstein’s words inscribed in marble at the center of Yunnan University’s campus in Kunming, China herald our invariable desire to seek the truth. Yet truth in China is nebulous given the taboo of public displays of criticism and pervasive censorship. The irony of Einstein’s quotation amid a land of closely monitored truth is ironic at best and haunting at worst.

The truth about China, however, is often just as unclear in the States as the truth about Tibet is in China. To so many Americans, China simply signifies an enigmatic juggernaut intent on upsetting American hegemony. This fear is unsurprising given our stark cultural differences and the potent subtext of threat inherent in so many American news articles on China.

I don’t claim to fully understand the laobaixing (Chinese common people) and a brief sketch based on my own experiences studying and traveling abroad certainly can’t capture their myriad complexities. However, perhaps my thoughts can broaden our understandings of these people.

Generosity is a capstone of Chinese character. Take this anecdote, for instance: While on a long distance bus in Jiangxi province, one young businessman struck up a conversation with me. He talked with me for over four hours (somehow unperturbed by my god-awful Chinese) and upon arrival, helped me purchase a train ticket, treated me to dinner with a colleague, and let me shower and check my email in his hotel room until my train left at 2:00 in the morning. This frank hospitality is a beautiful constant in this country and a rare phenomenon in the States. I bet there are very few New York City businesspeople that would give a random Chinese backpacker with toddler-level English the treatment I was given.
The openness of the Chinese to interconnection is not limited to foreigners. Strangers actually talk to one another on the buses, trains, and streets, a trend largely absent in the States I’ve found (even eye contact among strangers here is uncommon). They sing unabashedly in public parks. They are quite unconcerned with personal space and the youth are publicly affectionate; jostle your way down the streets and you’ll see cuddling couples, men with arms slung over the shoulders of other men, and women holding hands. It’s refreshing and overwhelming.

Despite this social openness, most Chinese balk at publicly criticizing authority in order to preserve societal stability. One Chinese friend confessed he believes that individual happiness is more important than family unity, an extraordinarily countercultural opinion. Later, he asked that I keep his views a secret from our peers so as to preserve the cultural status quo. These people are incredibly complex, anything but the unthinking, product-producing masses intent on world domination they are often assumed to be in the States.

So what do the laobaixing want, if not world domination? In a word – stability. I was told by a teacher that this means living without hunger, free of violence, and in passable material comfort. But to many Chinese, this simple and universal dream is mutually exclusive with investigating human rights violations, interfering in other countries’ affairs, and protesting unjust domestic policies.

Many Chinese do acknowledge that this stability must come at the sacrifice of others, such as the Tibetans. In the words of one of my teachers, “I can’t change it. I want to live a happy life. If I want to change something, I must lose my happy life.”
There is concern among many laobaixing that without censorship, the massive population would fall into chaos. One student told me that China’s contribution to the world was the fact that it’s not embroiled in violent mayhem; if China goes down, he implied, the world goes down. For the sake of their stability, most Chinese submit indifferently to censorship if they even know it exists. Many are unaware of their government’s Big Brother policies, however. And why would Chinese who can’t speak English (and thus can’t read uncensored foreign news) suspect their government is censoring them? They have access to (monitored) search engines, blogs (the ones that don’t propagate ‘lies’), and even (controlled) video sharing sites (e.g. youku.com). In many ways, China is an alternate information universe.

I couldn’t help but start considering existing parallels in the States. Fear politics and willful indifference manipulate truth here just as censorship changes truth in China. The likes of Glen Beck and Andrew Breitbart have created an alternate information universe right here in the United States whose inhabitants include but are not limited to ‘birthers’ and ‘deathers.’ As we judge China, we must also consider the woeful biases and failures of our own media, the human and environmental tragedies propagated by our own government, and the backwards perspectives of much of our own citizenry.
Fortunately, millions of Americans make it their life’s work to fight indifference or ignorance concerning these issues, many of whom live right here in Middlebury. This activism is one of America’s greatest virtues and one of the reasons I’m ecstatic to be back.