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Gathering Place
 Yunjie Cheng |
Crossing borders forces
a stranger to look at life
through others’ eyesBack home in China, I thought every American celebrated Christmas. So as the holiday approached, I began wishing my news friends in Hawaii a merry Christmas.
I never expected the greeting to cause anyone to squirm. At least not until recently when a friend blurted out, "Christmas is a Christian holiday. We Jews simply don't celebrate it."
It was another one of the many cultural lessons I have learned in a foreign land.
Travel opens people's eyes and minds. For me, a journalist from China who is here for a nine-month training course at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii has been full of surprises.
Soon after I arrived in August, I became enamored with the island state's unique lifestyle and the "aloha spirit." Men prefer the crisp aloha shirts over the usual shirt-and-tie uniform, while many women take great fancy in wearing gold Hawaiian bracelets. Even professors tend to start their classes with a shout of "a-lo-ha."
Bumper stickers with local expressions, flowers worn behind the ears and polished shell necklaces complementing graceful muumuu can be seen almost everywhere.
Along with the beautiful scenery and colorful "people-scape" for the eye, I have encountered many exercises for the mind as well.
Having never gone abroad before, I find myself constantly cycling through puzzlement and then enlightenment in this foreign land. The puzzlement may be trivial, but it's big enough to indicate how easily people are confined to their own frame of mind while confronting a different culture.
For instance, I used to be puzzled by the figure of King Kamehameha I on the state seal because in China, no indication of old regimes has ever been found in symbols representing the current ruling power.
Having studied English for years, I am able to ask the questions and find the right answers. But sometimes, language itself can be a problem given that different cultures nurture different mentalities.
Once I called a friend to confide my troubles, and he said, "I don't worry about you." I was so depressed because I assumed he was saying, "I don't care about you." The truth is, he fully trusts that I can take care of myself. Gee, I was in a stew over a real compliment!
"Be careful" is a phrase frequently used in China to express one's concern for friends, family, colleagues and even strangers. But in the United States, this phrase can be irritating as everybody is supposed to take care of himself and no one likes to be babied.
Similarly, I learned that an offer to help someone may be an unwelcome intrusion, while unsolicited help is the expectation back in China. Gradually, I realized that jumping in to help someone without being asked may be interpreted as an insult and hurt the person's pride.
Bearing this in mind, I learned to use restraint in offering food, too. Chinese style -- as practiced faithfully by Mom -- is to constantly spoon food onto the recipients' plates whether they want it or not. I just ask my Hawaii friends to help themselves, although I truly wish they would take more.
Other lessons came out of weightier issues and showed me that throwing away preconceived ideas is the hard part in learning a new culture.
A case in point was a discussion about globalization in my American Studies class. Almost all local students stood against globalization and denounced it as detrimental to democracy because cheaper production costs in developing countries have taken away their jobs and slashed their purchasing power. In contrast, the students from China (six of us altogether) view globalization as a blessing because it reduces poverty and helps China's economy.
Such contradictory perceptions indicate the gaps between our experience, knowledge and current circumstances. The two groups were speaking from their own perspectives, but trapped by deeply rooted assumptions and stereotypes, people can only get half-truths. I am learning to see the world from others' points of view, although I don't always agree with them in the end.
Yunjie Cheng has a master's degree in journalism and works for Xinhua News Agency.