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by Burt Prelutsky |
March 23rd, 2006
Based on what I’ve been reading about Chinese behavior, their three-year plan is doomed to failure.
I don’t, as a rule, spend a lot of time feeling sorry for China. But that was before I read about the problems that nation is already having as Beijing gears up to host the 2008 Olympics. I’m not referring to the usual headaches suffered by host cities, such as building all those pricey sports venues that will never be used again, getting the bums out of sight, and schooling their cab drivers in the best way to turn a tourist’s two-mile taxi ride into a cross-country excursion.
No, China’s problem has the charm of at least being unique. It appears that the one thing that most of her 1.2 billion citizens have in common is that they’re rude, crude, and darn proud of it.
Stalin’s Soviet Union was always announcing ambitious five-year plans for industry and agriculture, invariably failing to realize any of them, except in their dreams and their propaganda. Based on what I’ve been reading about Chinese behavior, their three-year plan is likewise doomed to failure.
It seems that the Chinese who, in the past, were famous for their dignified ways, have turned into a nation of boors. Not too surprisingly, they have super role model Mao Tse-tung to blame for it.
According to Edgar Snow, author of Red Star Over China, Mao was known to scratch himself wherever and whenever he felt like it, to remove his clothes and conduct meetings naked when the temperature rose, and to “absent-mindedly” open his fly, searching for lice and fleas. Frankly, if the man was known to attend meetings in his birthday suit, I don’t know why Mr. Snow would assume that Mao was being absent-minded when he went hunting for those pesky mites.
In 1954, we’re told, Mao met former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee while wearing pants that were patched on the butt. When one of his aides had suggested that he might wish to wear a new pair of trousers for the occasion, Mao replied, “Who will look at my behind?” Admittedly, it’s the sort of thing I say to my wife whenever she suggests I change my pants, shirt, shoes or jacket, before we go out, but Mao, being Mao, got away with it. It’s good to be dictator.
Flush with the success of that earlier fashion statement, in 1972, Mao attended the funeral of Marshall Chen Yi in his pajamas. I must confess that while Mao was alive, I always assumed he was an old sober sides, never even suspecting that inside that fat man a skinny man named Groucho Marx was screaming to get out.
Is it any wonder that with Mao setting the standards, today China is full of people who not only spit, but regularly urinate on the sidewalk. Butting in line is also commonplace, as is cooking on the street, which is also the favorite venue for fist fights.
In 1949, when the Communists took power, etiquette wasn’t merely sloughed aside, it was rooted out and sent packing. Refinement was seen as a plot by the former ruling class to keep the lower class in its place.
However, when during a basketball game last July, a Chinese player was fouled by a member of the Puerto Rican team, a small riot ensued, the crowd behaving in a way we have come to associate with English soccer hooligans and Oakland Raider football fans.
That served as a wake-up call for the government, suddenly envisioning more of the same or worse three short years down the road, when all the world’s eyes would be on Beijing.
Of course, it’s not just the Olympics that is motivating China to clean up its image. It’s also a matter of good business. It appears that, in spite of turning out all those cheap goods, Chinese businessmen and their employees are so rude, undependable and unethical, many American and European companies are loath to do business with them.
As a result, China is fostering a nationwide improvement program which includes TV shows, slogans, university courses and even competitions between cities, all intended to replace Mao with Miss Manners.
In Beijing, alone, 100,000 municipal workers are being trained to smile, bathe, and to wear socks to work. I’m guessing that one of the more popular slogans reminds one and all that Rome wasn’t built in a day.
In addition, June Yamada, author of an etiquette bestseller called Tell It Like It Is, June, has opened an academy devoted to improving social conduct. Because she also works outside her academy, on a recent weekend, she was training the sales staff at a high-end jewelry store. During several hours of role-playing, she instructed them to be warm and polite, and to stop doggedly following customers around the store as if they were all well-known jewel thieves.
Well, I, for one, wish China well. Even if they are a bunch of rotten Commies, it can’t hurt to have them at least become polite rotten Commies.
Plus, I was thinking, when her gig over there is finished, maybe we can persuade Ms. Yamada to come here and whip our sales people into shape.
BurtPrelutsky@aol.com
Visit their website at: http://www.burtprelutsky.com/
Responses to "China: Least-favored Nation"
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Burt Prelutsky, you have revealed it all here: "…Well, I, for one, wish China well." Really? Who cares if you realy do since what you really think is " Even if they are a bunch of rotten Commies, it can’t hurt to have them at least become polite rotten Commies…." You perhaps likes it much better in Viet Nam. Then again, being mean-spirited is not true conservatism, even if it is the best one could get in Hollywood. Or, perhaps most of us are Hollywood schooled, that's it.
Comment by L.L.M. | March 23, 2006
L.L.M., relax a little, eh? Pointing out that people are rude because of a system that failed to encourage personal development isn't even that mean spirited. It's not their fault the communist system didn't train them to be refined. So touchy……….
Comment by Shane Atwood | March 23, 2006
For what it's worth,
The condo apartment two floors above mine is owned by a chinese man,
he only lived there for about six months and then rented his apartment to
one chinese family, they stayed one year and then another chinese family
moved in, they left after a year and now a young couple has just moved in that apartment a few months ago.
I can tell you that all of them - ALL of them - from the first to the last
have caused us "problems".
They would leave garbage bags in their garage forever until the stench was unbarable, or they would leave their garbage bags on their balcony forever,
or they would open the front door of the main entrance by pushing in the
window with their greasy hands instead of by pushing the handle - sometimes minutes after the cleaning lady had finished washing that window…
No one of them ever wipes their feets; from their garage door all the way
trough the stairway trough their apartment door, you can follow their steps
in mud and dead leaves and what have you that they leave behind…
They talk very loudly in the
corridors, or they shout from the third floor to the basement, they walk in the stairway as if they had hamers instead of shoes; the lady that lives under their apartment is about to loose her mind…They are very noisy at anytime of day
or night…They have no consideration for other people that live arond them.
we have talked to them - politely complained to them - but they just smile a
lot and act as if they don't really understand all we are saying…and anyway every time a new chinese family moves in, we have to do it all over again, we have to
try and " house train them " again …
Some of them were throwing their cigarettes down from the third floor
balcony, we found them on our balcony…
They forgot their windows open while they were away, rain seeped in between
the walls and caused damage in the second floor ceiling…
When the last chinese people moved in a few months ago, I saw them
looking for something in their garbge bags on the curb - I can understand
they had trhown something away by mistake, no problem there - but the
problem is they just emptied the bag right there on the sidewalk, and after
they found what they were looking for they just left everything there !!!
I picked up their mess, put it in a garbage bag, and left the garbage bag untied
right in front of their garage door - it was a coded message - but for some
strange reason they completely ignored it for 3 weeks until I got fed up and brought it back to the curb…strange people those chinese…
They slam doors regularly as if they wanted to rip them of the walls,
two weeks ago I got fed up and told them in a a non polite way to stop slaming the doors.
Once they caused a flood with their clogged toilet, and the person who went
in the chinese people bathroom to help un-clog the toilet told me that the whole apartment was filthy, but especially the bathroom.
And I could go on for a while about all those chinese are doing wrong,
but I think you get the idea…
Oh and by the way, I don't live in a poor
neighbourhood, and those chinese people were not poor at all - judging
from the nice cars they were driving - brand new expensive cars…
One last thing; Here in Montreal, in the list of Restaurants that have been
fined for insalubrity which is published in news papers once a year,
every year
- year in, year out - chinese restaurants are at the top of the list.
Yes it is a well known fact here in Montreal that chinese restaurants
can not really be trusted as far as salubrity is concerned…
chinese people are very crude people indeed.
Comment by Friend of USA | March 23, 2006
You essentially have your own government to blame – they actively recruited the corrupt officials to bring them into Canada years ago, and still now. The Canadian government’s immigration criteria are often money alone. By the way, we do love Chinese food here in the USA and no worse fear for insalubrities than any other foods in a Chinese kitchen of stir-fries. The long and cold winters, high prices on everything, the deserters from the southern boarders, now these… Fascinated by your experience though.Well, don’t be too sensitive.
Comment by L.L.M. | March 27, 2006
Sorry to hear about your problems Friend. We have a Third World immigrant class here in Colorado. Though mostly quiet and clean (except at the border), property crime has gone through the roof in the last decade.
Multiculturalists sure espouse some lofty platitudes about equality and reletivism, but the Third World is called that for a reason.
Comment by The Plumber | March 27, 2006
I forgot Americans do everything right and that we are the ONLY ones that do things the right way. I visited a poor village in China on my study abroad trip and saw how life is for a very substantial majority of the Chinese people. There isn't really a garbage service; what do you expect them to do?
To assume that all Chinese people are rude is not particularly intellectual, nor is it really to say that China is a full-fledged Communist system ('cause it really isn't). I'm sorry for sounding particularly liberal in this post, but this article and everyone's posts are disgustingly ethnocentric.
Comment by Michael | March 27, 2006
I recently had the extreme displeasure of sharing my Sydney apartment complex with a family of obnoxious, overweight, redneck (typical) Americans. Their insipid pop culture blared through all mediums at all hours of the night, their chubby, cheeto-stained fingers left grubby marks on the door, and their females waddled from apartment to SUV and back with a jiggling motion which has rendered me impotent for months.
Yankees go home.
Comment by David | August 24, 2006