This year I resolve not to start a war in contempt of international law by using fabricated evidence, especially with my complete ignorance of how to manage the outcome. And then thumb my nose at everyone. And then award rebuilding contracts to all my buddies. On second thought, that's too hard. I resolve to go jogging more often.
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You know, I have gotten a few patronizing comments and emails scolding me for spoiling an otherwise good blog with talk of politics. Yeah, I know it is a little annoying. You just want a good light read about a romantic expat life and wham! you get a face full of politics. Yeah, that can be annoying. Sort of like when you are going to school or work and suddenly this big U.S. bomb comes and separates your limbs from your torso. Boy, is that annoying! Or when you sign up for active duty and you’re pretty sure that no one would send you to a dangerous place without a good reason and then you find out that all your friends are dead because some guy in a suit lied about what you were fighting for. Now that’s annoying, too.
Being here makes me, for better or worse, a representative of the U.S. More often than not, people respond well to the fact that I am an American. But often people ask me about my stance regarding my government. They ask me with a furrowed brow things like: “what is going on there?” “How can you have Bush as your president when more people voted for the other guy?” “How do people feel about Bush? Do many people like him?” and the kicker for me “Why do you want to take over Iraq?” What I am supposed to say to these questions? All I can do is tell the truth about how I feel and about how the people I know feel. This usually leaves them with the sense that something is drastically wrong with politics in the United States, and I simply have neither the munitions nor authority to disarm them of that thought.
I try to be consciously aware of the “Americanness” of my thinking as well. Last night, my Japanese friend Keita and I were talking about the cultural differences involved in dating a Taiwanese woman. I asserted that there is indeed a cultural difference between how American girls and Taiwanese girls grow up that informs their later relationships, as well as socializing norms that contribute to the pressures that American women and Taiwanese women feel regarding love and marriage and which serve to reinforce cultural norms. BUT the ability to transcend any difference is dependent upon the individual. Certain Americans, for example, are completely provincial and lack any sort of cosmopolitan attitude, while others are pretty attuned to other cultures and in fact, find comfort in consuming or performing those cultures in some way. (Not that that in itself an authoritative “understanding”, see below). The same must apply in other countries. That seems pretty straightforward to me, but then again, I come from a society that culturally supports and assumes the idea that every American is NOT the same in thought. You simply can’t conceive of an America that is singular. Other countries sometimes tend toward standardization. Here, for example, I have been recently questioning a few people about the use and meaning of “traditional Chinese woman.” While the responses vary, it is the question itself that forces the analysis. I mean, could you even begin to say she’s a “traditional American woman”? What the hell does that mean? But you CAN say in words “traditional Chinese woman” and at least it has some meaning to be debated, some definitions to expand upon. So when I am talking about the individual being the determinate for transcending cultural differences, I am of course relying on my American narrative of the individual’s ability to do so.
About the consumption or performance of identity here in Taiwan. While in the U.S., it is common to see a tattoo of a Chinese character (sometimes correct, sometimes not), it is not akin to the use of English here. English is sometimes used as a form of communication, like on a brochure or something like that. Often, though, it is merely decorative, implying a cosmopolitan outlook, a certain sophistication. That’s why you see a lot of English here that is misspelled or just plain completely screwed up. The words are just adorning whatever it is that they decorate. Some t-shirts, for example, appear to employ an almost random use of roman letters as decoration. Something like “ksohg chsiaipt slqehociw” might appear, repeated all over a t-shirt. Just adornment. I even stumbled across a t-shirt that had a transcribed passage from a history book on the 18th century slave trade! Of course, like every other piece of clothing, it was too small for a foreigner. (If someone would send me a box full of size 12 Converse Chuck Taylors—high top, low top, blue, black, red, whatever—I would shed tears of joy and make you my demigod. Taiwan only imports up to size 11 here, and Converse doesn’t ship internationally.)
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