March 7, 2013
A second entry in our series of “Head’s Messages from the Past” is this one from July of 2006 – a favorite of mine. It appeared at a time when I suspect few were still reading China Blog, which is what ultimately led to the launch of Head’s Message in August of 2006. More about China Blog and the origins of Head’s Message next week when the final original message wil be posted. This July ’06 entry mentions our newly hired Mandarin teacher, Wang Tian, who went by the anglicized name of Tina when we first met in Shanghai.
July 2, 2006
Fourth of July
“Perhaps you know of the American Fourth of July holiday?” I find myself writing to Tina. “It is our Independence Day, celebrating the day we declared our independence from the British in the year 1776. Our revolutionary war followed.”
I am explaining why something will not be available to me at school until this Wednesday, the 5th. I have no idea whether or not this is something educated Chinese like Wang Tian know as a matter of course. And if they do, how they view this particular period in our relatively short history.
If her sense of early American history is as limited as mine is of early Chinese history, it is quite possible that this holiday is unknown to her. One of the added benefits of having this visitor in our midst will be the opportunity to learn more about how we and our history are viewed and understood from the outside.
“The war of resistance against America and support for Korea,” is what author Peter Hessler tells us is the Chinese name for what we call the Korean War. In his book “Oracle Bones” he writes of visiting the Chinese town of Dandong on the border with North Korea.
At the bookstore in the Shanghai Museum, among the treasures I found for our teachers’ use this coming year was a fascinating book I ultimately decided not to buy. Now I regret it. But I had a good reason at the time.
It was a book of photographs essentially cataloging the dark side of China’s Cultural Revolution. These were very strong black and white images with an underground feel to them, certainly not what the official government-approved accounting of that period would have included. I took it as an encouraging sign that this volume was published and available in such a public institution.
But I worried that interested consumers of this book among, perhaps, some of our older students might see it as an opening to confront our new visitor, armed as they would be with the particular view through the lens of this photographer. I thought about what it means to be a welcoming host and what it means to be alone in a foreign country. I imagined what it might feel like to have my hosts in a foreign land confront me with some of the more difficult truths of my country.
But I underestimate our remarkable students whose capacity for respect and understanding across cultures is quite developed. And I underestimate our MPA teachers’ ability to properly contextualize such a cross cultural discussion. And I suspect I underestimate our visitor and her readiness to experience the freedom of thought and opinion which are founding values of the country whose independence we celebrate on Tuesday.
