e:\doc\web\99\08\chinpass.txt From: "Mar, Alexander" Subject: The Passive Chinese? Date sent: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:51:59 -0700 I have encountered this concept of "Chinese are passive; and American are aggressive" many times but found this generalization faulty. After I grew up at Stockton, California, I traveled to many part of the USA and then visited many part of China, Kong Kong, and Taiwan. I took time to study Asian-American history in college and time to study Chinese history on my own. I have a different conclusion from the above generalization which many people seem to accept without question. I find that many Chinese and Chinese-American can be very aggressive, in comparison to the general American entity, but fortunately less violent than their counter-parts. They were and are strong fighters. I am of Taishanese origin, a small region in the Guangdong Province of South China. Until the relaxation of Chinese immigration law in 1965, majority of Chinese-American are of Taishanese stock. A century ago, Chinese-American pioneers faced enormous odds in this country. Despite the improbably hostile environment, they survived. They survived even under the horrific Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I will avoid telling you in detail how many Chinese-American confronted and worked around the obstacles of this infamous law. By the 1950s and nearly three generations after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the number of Chinese-American in the USA dwindled to slightly under a million and less than one-percent of the American people. However, please remember that three generations have passed and still the Chinese-American were still here. I can only tell you that unless these Chinese-American are aggressive enough, they would have succumbed to the improbable odds long time ago. I think that the perception of "Chinese is not aggressive" is much more the result of several other factors. Here is one major factor: many early Chinese-American had little opportunity to decent education to learn English. The deficiency of the common communication skill can produce two results. A Chinese will be hesitant to speak out; and others will interpret the hesitancy as being non-aggressive. Another factor, I think, is that typical Chinese maybe too smart for common goods. They are too smart to risk themselves for common good. If they are not willing to make themselves visible to others, it is easy for others to draw the conclusion that the Chinese are not aggressive. I am fortunate to be in touch with two early Chinese-American pioneers, the last one an uncle of mine who passed away last week at the age of 93. A granduncle of mine was a gold miner in the tough Yukon country of Alaska. This granduncle, who was blind when I shared my grandparents' house with him in Mexico, told me tales of his time up in the forbiddingly cold interior of Alaska and, after gold exhausted, his long ox-wagon journey through Canada, USA, to his homestead site in Mexico. Without airplane, automobile, or train in those days, this granduncle of mine took months to traverse the four thousand miles on his own ox-wagon! I am afraid that a non-aggressive fellow would have perished fairly quickly. My granduncle passed away, in his 90s, thirty years ago in Mexico. I had an uncle whom I finally laid to rest only last Sunday and who came to the USA as an illegal immigrant from Mexico. My uncle survived, as an illegal Chinese immigrant, through even the Great Depression of the United States! He made a living the best he could with only a grade-school education in China. However, his children got college education. Yet no one who knew him reasonably well could claim that this uncle of mine was passive. No, I am afraid that I will not accept the notion that "Chinese are passive". The Evergreen State College Attention: Alexander S. Mar Computing and Communication L2408 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW Olympia, WA 98505 Phone: 360,866,6000 x6409; FAX: 360,866,6660 E-Mail: mara@evergreen.edu Web Site: http://192.211.16.13/individuals/mara/home.htm > ---------- > From: Oliver Hsu[SMTP:oihsu@yahoo.com] > Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 9:21 AM > you in the Chinese Air Force? > > Hi, All, > > I am going to say something not all of you would like to hear! We need > to take half of the blame for the situation we got into. We, at least > majority of us, are the silent group --- No matter what we were treated > we would dismiss it as the way life should be. > > The differences between Oriental and Western cultures are numerous. We > are very passive and Westerners, on the other hand, very aggressive. We > try to conform to the group. And they stride to have individual > thinking and identity. In order to survive in this great nation (the > land we now adopt to be our home), we need to be more aggressive to > protect our rights (and to be included as the main stream Americans). > > If we do not do anything to correct the problems, our next generation(s) > will be lost and they would consider Chinese/Asian heritage as a burden > instead an asset. Let's do something to educate America. The following > are a few I propose to do it consciously: > > 1. write to the newspaper; (in this case write to Washington Post) > 2. demonstrate and picket in front of any organization that > discriminates any of us; 3. work with other minorities as join effort to > work in a homogenous society; 4. if any of us can do a TV program, > create a sitcom with majority of the cast Asian Americans; 5. if your > friends (Asian American or not) work at TV station, ask them to gather > more news and perform special projects on Asian Americans; > > If we do not do anything and wait for better things to happen by > themselves, we > are in for a big surprise in the future (something similar to what > Japanese > Americans encountered during World War II Internment camp). In other > words, this Great nation will not be ours to enjoy. Please accept my > apology for insulating you with this, I sense an urgency to speak out. > > May God bless America! Bless all of us! (Even though I am not a > Christian, > but I am not atheism.) > > Have a Nice Day! > >