I traveled to the other side of the world to find McDonald's, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart. Seeing young men wearing baseball hats, middle aged men wearing business suits, young women wearing cowboy boots, and older women wearing their "Sunday best" is so common that it's the norm. About four million of the 17 in Beijing are foreigners.
If I ignore the streams of black hair and eyes that flood the streets, buses, subways, restaurants, and...every other bit of space, it seems that, without trying too hard, I could easily feel as if I never left American soil.
So why is it continuously claimed that America has no culture? When I was traveling last summer, this was a claim of Europeans. Growing up in the outskirts of New Orleans, a place so seething with culture that people know it around the world for the music, food, and mixed ethnicities, it obviously was somewhat hurtful to hear nationals of older countries being somehow unable to understand the culture of my home sake.
But, without further proving the cultural significance of America, how can a country with culture from before people cared to write about it being so willing to adopt the customs and traditions (aside from dinner manners) of such a young, foreign, and distant cousin?
It's like an elderly grandmother (who is still very cognitive and active) deciding that wearing pacifier clips and footie pajamas is more stylish than brooches and heels. In an effort to "keep up", China has managed to disregard it's own way of living in favor of a slick street style that many claim is void of meaning.
Since I've been in Beijing I've often referred to my time in Dongyang as when I was the only foreigner. To an extent that's not true. It was me, KFC, and a billboard of Ludacris. A small town by China's standards, a million people could recognize fried chicken from Kentucky, a rapper from Illinois (I had to look that up), and an English teacher from Louisiana.
Two men I work with, Mick and Dave, are Irish. Mick grew up in Cork (in southern Ireland) while Dave grew up in Boston. One evening they were chatting about Irish customs, and Mick said something remarkable.
"Sometimes, it seems to me that Irish-Americans are more Irish than we are."
I've been to several Chinatowns in the States and abroad, and I think those Chinese people are probably more Chinese than many of the Chinese I've met in China.
So maybe the culture in America is imported, but it's there. Maybe a country of immigrants had to maintain roots by overdoing culture from the motherland. Maybe cultural significance in the US is hard to pin down because it's all cultures.
But that's a lot more than what I've seen in China. Even Chinese people double take when they see someone in traditional Chinese dress.
Everything in China is fake, from the Great Wall to the Nikes. And almost every museum or site I've been to has some blurb about reproductions or rebuilding after the Cultural Revolution. It's so ubiquitous that I often wonder if someone just overlooked that detail if it's not there. The Cultural Revolution, in its effort to unite the people and make art and literature for everyone, effectively destroyed centuries of art, temples, literature, and thought. In a few years, it managed to remove the Chinese aspect of being Chinese and replace it with the desire to be modern. Weirdly enough, the idea was to enhance the culture of China, to take away the pretentious aspects of art and make it available to everyone. Of course, Mao said it best, "Any army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy."
My question is: Having destroyed all religion and much art and antiques, what exactly do you think culture is, Mr. Mao?
The only people that seem to be clinging to what survived the Cultural Revolution are shop keepers at antique markets. Even there, foreigners are constantly warned against fakes. And the shop keeps will easily part with their treasured culture given the right price.
I don't have a conclusion to this diatribe of America's greatness. I still want to see other places. I still want to experience other cultures. I will still be surprised by what I see. But I'm falling more in love with what I left in the process.
Until I return, China still has jiaozi, and that is one delicious bit of culture that America needs to adopt.
