Farewell to Shanghai: Retail, entertainment and mixed feelings

(Part III of my Notes written from China. I had taken a trip there Oct. 9-22 and couldn’t access my blog for whatever reason. This was originally posted to my Facebook profile on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 at 11:06 am)

It’s mid-morning in Shanghai right now.

I’m sitting in my favorite café across the street from Fudan University. The waitress has brought me a beautiful cold café mocha with a small bowl of sugary syrup. Japanese music blasts over their speakers, followed by Avril Lavigne, followed by Chinese pop.

Outside, college students loaded with backpacks are walking and bicycling to class. Countless cabs, buses and scooters are zooming back and forth. Workers from outside Shanghai (waidiren) are on bicycles, dragging behind them carts loaded with goods.

I have mixed feelings about leaving Shanghai.

There are things I’m definitely not going to miss: the filthy public restrooms that are basically holes in the ground (no toilets); the constant barrage of noise from construction, traffic and loud people; the sad reminders of the huge gap between the rich and the poor that you see every day.

On the other hand, the energy of the place is amazing.

Two days into this trip, I noticed that I felt more a part of the world when in Shanghai than anywhere in the U.S. That feeling has been confirmed over and over these two weeks. A few nights ago, I watched an Indian man in a red turban dance in a restaurant where a game of cricket was on TV and the chef bore a surprising resemblance to Barack Obama.

Somehow, Shanghai has become more cosmopolitan than New York, and regular Chinese people now are exposed to more international news and products, even in mid-sized cities like Changchun.

On TV, what’s shown here is news and shows from all over the world. The second night I was here, I watched a Mexican cartoon on one channel and a news segment on another about Sarah Palin. The anchor said in Chinese, “Sarah Palin has become more of a liability than an advantage” to the Republican ticket. Curiosity about the outside world isn’t limited to what’s relevant to Chinese interests either. There was also a feature that night on Damascus, a segment on a 60-year-old man in India who had founded a museum and a story about fish and barbecue in Japan.

Chatting with my 25-year-old cousin this week, I also found that we could talk easily about TV shows and movies. There are shows here from the U.S., Japan, Korea, Taiwan and occasionally from India. She thinks Lost is boring. Her favorite Desperate Housewife is Susan, and she thinks Wentworth Miller is the hottest thing EVAH!

Now, how many American 25-year-olds can name TV shows from other countries, save for what’s managed to penetrate the U.S. market from the U.K.?

Besides what’s on TV, Chinese consumers also have access to Asian and European brands (Eblin, Prich, Giordano) I’ve never encountered in the States, in addition to American favorites (Ikea) and tried-and-true local brands (Gujin in Shanghai) that are still thriving among the international competitors. (Correction: Actually, let me change those examples to Eblin, Prich, Giordano, Gucci and Ikea for the Asian and European brands, and Sephora and Converse for the American companies) 

I don’t mean to say the variety available in the retail and entertainment industries equals a more sophisticated or open society. But as I’m getting ready for the trip back home, I see ads from Barnes & Noble and Banana Republic in my email and am reminded of just how much of the U.S. is dominated by national companies, how little exposure most Americans have to the outside world and how disappointing and stale that feels.

Well, maybe eventually, China will reach that tipping point where it won’t have to continue to look outward for inspiration, when it will be so ahead of the curve and self-sufficient that eventually, it will become what the U.S. is right now: self-absorbed.

Why is it that CNN fills up its 24-hour news time with political commentary that adds no substance at all to the public discourse when it could be doing a bigger public service by running news and images from around the world? Why should what’s abroad only be broadcast on PBS, National Geographic and the Travel channel?

I guess you can access any number of foreign publications online and read all the world news you want. But television is so much more immediate.

I miss the comforts of home. It’s going to be great to be able to drive everywhere again, not to have to fear for my life when I cross the street and not have to bargain or question the quality of what I buy. But still, I can’t help but feel that I’m returning to a much more insular world when I fly back later today.

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

Oh, how I wish I could take my favorite parts of Shanghai and Durham and put them together.

Haves and have-nots in China: Thank the gods I live in the States

(Part II of my Notes written from China. I had taken a trip there Oct. 9-22 and couldn’t access my blog for whatever reason. This was originally posted as a Note to my Facebook profile on Friday, Oct. 17, 2008 at 7:40am)

One of my most vivid memories of Shanghai from three years ago was of a family living on the street.

It was a father, a mother, and a rosy-cheeked baby. They were living on the side of a street leading up to my old elementary school, leaned up against a dirty concrete wall on a straw mat, breathing in dirt dusted up by the footsteps of people walking back and forth just inches away.

This was in my middle-class neighborhood.

Although… “middle class”… I have to be careful with the terminology here.

I mentioned in my previous note that a salary of 2,000-3,000 RMB a month might be considered comfortable, but compared to 21.5 million of the rural population in China living below the poverty line of $90 a year, someone on that salary is living like a king. And according to the CIA World Factbook, an additional 35.5 million of the rural population live above $90/year but below $125/year.

Poverty in China is not like poverty in the States, and what looks middle-class in Shanghai is actually extremely good fortune. Seriously, there are people in Shanghai who think nothing of blowing 1000 RMB on dinner with friends.

“The middle class is practically nonexistent. People either don’t have cars or they have, like, a BMW,” a North Carolina native living in Shanghai said to me earlier this week.

Three years ago, when I came to China and visited Beijing, I stayed with family friends in the “suburban” outskirts, where construction of new high-rise apartment buildings was gathering steam and the well-to-do were moving to in droves. Between this suburb and central Beijing was a dust bowl where all manners of construction were happening, for roads, for an elevated train, for other apartment buildings and commercial districts.

The scene reminded me of The Great Gatsby. China to me was like 1920s America, with wild and reckless growth and enormous gaps between the rich and poor. There I was, comfortable in an air-conditioned car when there were people outside in the summer heat, pushing carts loaded with garbage and selling produce, jewelry and knick-knacks laid out on the street.

When I came to China this time, I thought the country might have improved. It had responded to a devastating earthquake this spring with great speed, strength and compassion, with thousands of volunteers flocking to help in the worst-hit areas. It had put up a hell of an opening ceremony for the Olympics and managed the rest of the games well. And personally, I saw that average people were dressing better and more cars and motorcycles were parked in my old neighborhood. To my relief, I haven’t seen any families living on the street.

But the huge gap between the rich and poor is still there, and I’m not sure if it’s getting any better.

I was hanging out with the daughter of a family friend in Changchun this week. She’s 25, had grown up mostly in northeast China and then gone to college in Canada. I asked for her thoughts on China, and whew boy, did she have a lot to say.

She told me about doctors who earn about 2,000 RMB a month but actually make five times that through “hong bao.” Hong bao are little red packets of money that parents give their children on New Year’s. The terminology apparently applies nowadays to bribes — actually, not really bribery but an almost expected handout these days.

You want your brother out of prison in five years instead of ten? Give a hong bao to the judge. You want to ensure your pregnant wife is treated well in the hospital? Give a hong bao to the doctor. You want your son to go to the top school instead of the one he actually tested into? Give a hong bao to the principal. The concepts of justice and merit are paid lip service, but they are a huge joke.

Everything in China seems to be done through connections and money, like it’s a massive mafia network. That’s not to say that money and connections don’t matter in the States. But the degree to which they matter in China makes it a difference not just in degree, but in kind.

Consider that this friend also mentioned there are college girls in China who prostitute themselves out for spending money. On any weekend night, she said, you could drive past the local university and see the luxury cars parked outside the gate, where rich men await their mistresses who are the age of their daughters. The girls are paid a couple thousand a month, enough to afford them the Japanese and Korean clothes they covet.

Now, I had my share of Ramen-eating days at UNC, but I never considered for a second the possibility of cruising the Pit for business. Even in New York, where the income gap between the Wall Street hotshot and the publishing intern is pretty big, I don’t think any of the latter would actually resort to prostitution to get ahead. And yet here, by some sick twist of social norms and the Three Gorges dam-sized chasm between the haves and have-nots, that actually happens. … I can only hope that my new friend was exaggerating that story to shock and entertain me.

Connections and money have always mattered more in China than in the U.S. For instance, there are cities being developed in China right now that are given favorable treatment by the central government because they are run by the sons of the highest officials. (See: Dalian, China). But my theory is that the cause of this problem, as with every other problem that China faces, boils down to population.

I’ve been re-reading Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat” on this trip and one of his sources made the observation that when you’re one in a million in China, you’re still just one of 1,300.

With so many people in competition with you, how could you stand out from the pack? Talent, brains, hard work and even a certain amount of luck can only take you so far. You have to use everything in your arsenal, and sometimes that means using family connections and bribes.

And by extension, that means you have to base more of your life decisions on ways to amplify those things, making it much more difficult here as a young person to make mistakes, grow as an independent person and live an authentic life.

If my parents had not moved to the States, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I love, which is journalism. I’d probably be in a more lucrative field doing work that I find completely unfulfilling. I’d probably be pressured into relationships that are more financially beneficial. Worst-case scenario, if one of my parents became seriously ill when I was in college, could I have been tempted to supplement my income in certain ways?

I mean, there are obviously well-adjusted and happy people here, though honestly, I haven’t seen any. And what I imagine to be my unlived life in China probably bears no resemblance at all to what actually would have happened.

But with the world population growing and projected to be nearly 9 billion by 2050, could life everywhere be as cutthroat and stifling as in China someday?

That’s a scary thought.

Shanghai, the City on the Sea: First impressions

(Part I of my Notes written from China. I had taken a trip there Oct. 9-22 and couldn’t access my blog. This was originally posted to my Facebook profile on Monday, Oct. 12, 2008 at 9:45 a.m. CST)

Globalization, it’s a surreal thing.

On Saturday morning, after flying more than 10,000 miles from Durham, N.C., literally halfway around the world, I found myself standing in front of a Wal-Mart.

Here’s how it happened.

I’m staying with my 85-year-old grandmother in Shanghai, and we needed some fresh towels. So I asked her, since I haven’t lived there in 16 years: Nai nai, where should we go? She said, Oh, there’s this place down the street that has everything. And she took me Saturday morning to a place called “Ao-Er-Ma.” We walked past the fruit stands, Tibetan street vendors selling jewelry and another vendor selling live crabs – all normal stuff to my eyes – to the gleaming new three-story Wal-Mart in my old neighborhood.

 

My jaw dropped and I just had to laugh. “Ao-Er-Ma” = Wal-Mart. I guess the store is impossible to avoid on a global scale.

This Shanghai Wal-Mart, the name of which is translated in Pingyin as “Ao Er Ma Gou Wu Guang Chang,” is very big, very similar to the ones in the States but also very different.

It had food samples. It had a very pleasant female voice over the PA system announcing discounts. It had Chinese greeters who looked like they were teens or people in their 20s.

These young people were just as bored-sounding as their older American counterparts – living proof that through sheer corporate will, you really could take two very different nations and turn their people into the exact same thing.

It also had very American brands. Without even trying, I encountered Nivea, L’Oreal, Olay, and Starbucks coffee.

What was different about this Wal-Mart though was the layout, the mood and the pricing.

It was three stories. Each floor was about the size of a third to half of a regular Wal-Mart in the States, which makes sense given how pricey land is in a city that the company would build up instead of out. There were electric ramps between floors so you could take your cart with you. First floor was food. Second floor, sundries and appliances. Third floor, clothes, makeup and jewelry.

The mood was a lot more excited than the dreary Wal-Marts in the U.S., a lot more hustle-and-bustle. People were eagerly grabbing at fruits and vegetables, tasting the sample meats and trying out the massage chairs. I don’t know if that energy was generated by that particular Wal-Mart, or because Wal-Marts are still kind of a novelty or because Shanghai just has that shop-til-you-drop kind of vibe.

As for the pricing, that was the most surprising and interesting part. Wal-Mart is always billing itself as having the lowest of the low prices. In this case, that was partly true. For instance, there were packs of Colgate toothbrushes, four in a pack, for 8.60 RMB. With the exchange rate at 6.83 as of Friday, that works out to a little more than a dollar for the pack. The dollar has slipped in value in the three years since the last time I was in China, but those toothbrushes are still a bargain for American shoppers. And very importantly, 8.60 RMB is affordable to middle-class Chinese shoppers earning 2,000-3,000 RMB a month.

The towels, on the other hand, ran the gamut from 13 RMB to 49.99 RMB. The former was somewhat thin and the latter was thicker, but still not as thick or big as what American shoppers are accustomed to. Now, 49.99 RMB is still less than $10, but what Chinese shopper on a comfortable 2,000RMB/month income would shell out that kind of money for a towel?

And that raises the interesting question of: Why is the toothbrush priced for Chinese shoppers and the towel not? Or, why is a toothbrush of the same quality as what’s sold in America so much cheaper in China? And why is a towel of lesser quality as what’s sold in America so expensive? I’m assuming that both were made in China, btw.

I asked my relatives if Wal-Mart is considered an inexpensive place to shop, as it is in the States. They said Yes, for the most part. I then asked them what things are really expensive in China, and their answer was interesting. They replied: Make up.

Make up. Cosmetics products like lipsticks, mascaras, blushes and lotions.

I hadn’t checked out the L’Oreal or the Oil of Olay booth at the Wal-Mart, but I guess now I know why they were on the third floor near the jewelry section for a reason.

But, back to the topic at hand: globalization. There have been many things I’ve seen in the first day and a half I’ve been in China that have got me thinking; in a few more decades (or even just one), could there be more similarities between the U.S. and China than there are differences?

Here’s what I saw:

1. When I stepped off the plane at Pudong Airport, what I first smelled was the humid, slightly marshy smell of Shanghai. Ahh, home sweet home, I thought.

Then, as I walked through the ramp into the airport, I saw the UK bank HSBC’s logo and caught a whiff of something else, something oily that along with the familiar logo gave me flashbacks to all those trips to the Newark airport.

Whoa.

2. On the bus from the airport to Wu Jiao Chang, my old neighborhood, a van bearing the sign for a Montessori school zipped by. Montessori school in Shanghai? I didn’t think that Chinese parents would abandon rote memorization and testing in favor of a Montessori education so soon.

3. While watching TV Saturday night, I saw three commercials for American products in a row. They were Herbal Essences, Pizza Hut and Pantene. The Herbal Essences commercial was identical to the one they run in the States. The Pizza Hut commercial was for soft-shelled crab pizza.

So, at least that’s still different, because I can’t picture American consumers warming up to soft-shelled crab pizza anytime soon.

4. The street fashion. While walking around today, I noticed that Chinese college students dress a lot like they shop at Urban Outfitters. There were lots of layers and stripes. One girl wore black leather boots up to her knees, a striped shirt and a gray skirt in wool that looked exactly like one I tried on a year ago in New York.

Whoa again.

So thank you, globalization. I’ve flown halfway around the world, but so far, I’ve encountered Wal-Mart, American brand after American brand and been reminded of New Jersey and New York.

And thank you, globalization. I’ve flown halfway around the world, and I can still buy toothbrushes and other necessities that are exactly the same as what I’m used to back home. And on top of that, I don’t have to settle for regular cheese pizza. I can buy the kind with soft-shelled crabs!

Just as I predicted… (commence the eye-rolling…now)

In my post yesterday about the Opening Ceremony, I worried that the Western media might view the thousands of people dancing and drum-beating in unison as reminders of Chinese “conformity” and military might. 

And what do you know, they didn’t let me down.

In fact, John Krich with Salon must’ve read my post, because he wrote:

Mass events like this veer to the kitschy or the fascist, and, in his need to remain artistically pure, Zhang favored the latter. To Chinese eyes, the loud drumbeats and precise martial formations betokened unity and solidarity, but I’d imagine that for people in Iowa with no familiarity of China, the predominantly male and militarist feel ( a single Janet Jackson moment would have gone a long way) surely reinforced old suspicions and fears of a “yellow peril.” Some moments, with goose-stepping flag bearers, were downright frightening.

HIs colleague, King Kaufman, doesn’t go that far. But in a piece that otherwise calls to issue NBC’s delayed broadcast, he was unimpressed with the “glorified drill teams.” He has the right to his own opinions, but the term seemed to me a ridiculous put-down of the meticulous and complex numbers of the opening ceremony.

I generally find the so-called artistic portion of these things laughable at best, stultifying at worst, and Beijing’s cavalcade of precision skewed to the latter.

One guy banging on a drum or doing tai chi: not that interesting. Two thousand eight of them doing it in unison? Just me, I know, but: same.

The looks on the faces of the athletes as they enter the stadium in the Parade of Nations, the joy and playfulness and awe and giddy relief, are far more moving, speak far more eloquently to the human condition, not to mention the sporting one, than all the glorified drill teams in China and all their magical LED screens combined.

So here’s my theory on why some Americans have reacted the way they have to the opening ceremony: Many people in this country (if not most) have difficulties reconciling competence and mastery of details in huge numbers with individuality. To them, the two are mutually exclusive. (And this is probably why generations of Americans students have been slipping in science and math. They almost think, for whatever cultural reasons, that memorization of the periodic table = death.)

Anyway, that’s just a theory, but I think it goes far in explaining the Salon writers’ reactions. They almost think that if a huge number of people can work together as the dancers in the opening ceremony did without error, then that simply must mean that their individuality has been hammered out of them.

But could it be that when it came to the Olympics, Chinese people acted together because they desired to do so — because they were only proud to be able to showcase their modern country for the very first time?

NBC’s Olympics: Is this the Super Bowl?

What’s up with the irritating commentary? And the incessant commercials?

You know, maybe I’d prefer to watch the Olympics in a continuous sitting as I would if I were in the stadium — i.e., without NBC trying to put everything “in context” for me.  

Because I don’t need them to tell me that I missed watching Iceland’s procession because they just had to show me a McDonald’s commercial. I don’t need continual cuts to Bush. He and Laura are just sitting there fanning themselves. And well, I really don’t need them to tell me that “Georgia is considered a relatively progressive nation.” The Opening Ceremony isn’t World Facts 101 and the Olympics aren’t the Super Bowl. Football’s stop-and-go rhythm lends easily to interruptions of Budweiser commercials and endless discussions of the players and strategy. The Olympics Opening Ceremony, not so much.

So NBC, kindly STFU! 

And maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather kick back and admire the glittering outfits and showmanship. I’d rather wonder about how they get those dancers on wires and how they coordinate those moving boxes doing the wave. I’d rather ponder why the U.S. chose to have their athletes wear those white hats with navy jackets and white pants. They looked so oddly British that way, or like, they were all going to go sailing afterwards, as if they all worked on a yacht. And I’d rather listen to those beautiful voices announcing the countries in French, English and Chinese. I love the French announcer. L’Afrique du Sud! Cote d’Ivoire! I’d like to have that job, announcing countries in a sexy voice. She was particularly loud when it came to France. Frahnce! Rrrrowl!

Well, guess this is why I work in print media. Watching the Olympics on NBC, I felt like I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. And when I did, I couldn’t sustain it longer than a few seconds.

Oh television, you kill my brain even when I watch something that’s supposed to be spiritually uplifting.

Let the games begin!

Because of scheduling at work and because my father is so Internet-savvy, I was able to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics this morning, live, on Windows Media Player on his computer, hooked up to a 48-inch plasma television set.

And let me tell you, it was awesome!

Zhang Yimou really outdid himself as the director of the opening ceremony. The dancers, the music, the great special effects (how did they keep those dancers on wires in that gigantic stadium? I don’t know. It’s magic.), the star performers like that insanely adorable little girl who sang right before the Chinese national anthem started playing… Squeeee! Everything was pitch perfect!

As a Chinese immigrant to the U.S., I watched the event with equal measures of excitement and anxiety, and I imagine many others felt the same way. As much as my home country has received positive press by torpedoing itself into modernity in the last 30 years, it’s still been the butt of jokes and grossly insensitive characterizations. “Chinese people like food more than sex,” anyone? (And even in quaint, liberal-minded Chapel Hill, I was stunned the other night at a local bar called Linda’s when a trivia team named itself something like “If sex was an Olympic sport, we would still kick the Chinese’ ass.” Seriously, people? Drunken trivia humor is drunken trivia humor, but would anyone be remotely okay with saying, “If learning was an Olympic sport, black people will never win a medal?”) (Edited to add: It was even worse than I remembered. Ross the trivia master informed me today that the team name was actually: “If fucking was an Olympic sport, we’d still make fun of the Chinese.”)

Now, that’s not to say that I don’t agree with information being publicized on China’s human rights violations, the poverty of its peasants, the rampant political corruption and the weakness of its justice system. But things like what I mentioned above? Yeah, totally hitting below the belt.

Anyway, the opening ceremony was amazing from start to finish and I was completely impressed. This China is very different from the one I left in 1991, and even better than the one in the late ’90s. Almost 20 years after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the country has really pulled itself together and become more sophisticated and more comfortable in its own skin. And in the opening ceremony at least, I saw how the country is beginning to blend its roots with a more cosmopolitan self-awareness.

For instance, I loved that as hokey as it might seem to people in the U.S., the ceremony began at 8:08 p.m. on the 8th day of the 8th month of the year 2008. The number eight rhymes with the word “to prosper” in Chinese, and most Chinese people – including the well-educated, cosmopolitan ones – regard it as a lucky number. Kind of like how Americans would probably never open the Olympics on a Friday the 13th, Chinese people couldn’t help but jump on a chance to string so many “8″s together.

And kudos to Zhang Yimou, having that one little girl sing a Chinese song was a cool move. (I would post the video here, except I think NBC and its lawyers have already gotten it taken off YouTube.) The entire opening ceremony up until that point had largely been one of grandeur in scale involving thousands of dancers and performers. I believe one segment had exactly 2008 dancers in all, which was very cool. But you know, as sad as I am to admit this, seeing all those dancers reminded me a little of the clips Western media like to run of Chinese/Russian/N. Korean military might: thousands of people in uniforms marching in unison. Would the Western media see the same in the opening Olympics? In the Western (American?) mind, China still stands for a sea of conformity, for collectivism, and for a lack of basic individual freedoms in service of a national political will. Well, that little girl was kind of the reply to it all, wearing red, standing in for Chinese youth, beauty, hope and dare I say, individuality?  

More on what I loved: that representatives of different minority ethnic groups came out holding the Chinese flag together; that all the different countries during the procession were treated courteously, with the Chinese announcers on the state media largely leaving poiltics out of it; that the cheerleaders standing on the sideline were bouncing up and down and clapping the entire time! That’s some amazing endurance for an hour, hour-and-half procession. They should have their own marathon event!

All in all, the opening ceremony was perfect in its focus on Chinese art, culture and history and reminding people around the world that the Olympics should be a celebration of human spirit. 

Does that mean that politics won’t interrupt the games at some point? Of course not, because the Olympics are probably the greatest platform possible for anyone to spread their views. Shout your protest of Chinese foreign policies from the rooftops? That’s nice. Shout it from an Olympic stadium? Now that’s something.

Whether that will transpire, or whether Chinese security will allow something like it to happen remains to be seen. But this opening ceremony, ahh… what a night.

(And let me also take this moment to say: In your face, NBC! People in the U.S. should have the option to watch the Olympics live if they wanted to. The whole waiting until prime time to acknowledge that the opening ceremonies have already taken place? Lame.. so lame.)

The American Code

Oh my GOD, I think a vein popped in my head after reading this on Huffington Post tonight.

The post is by one Tom Doctoroff, an advertising guru who has spent in China who, unfortunately like many foreigners there, feel that he can distill the vastness and complexities of that country down to A, B and C.  

For the HuffPost, Doctoroff wrote a 12-point guide for Americans to understand that bewildering world that is China, ranking behavioral characteristics from “ultra-rigid to ultra progressive,” with the most rigid being “Ritualistic Observation” and “Joyful Celebration” being, um, the most progressive. And based on those two titles alone, you’re probably imagining a whole country of robotic Communists and/or complacent Buddhists for whom progressivism means throwing ribbons in the air and exploding firecrackers.

Oh, but it gets worse from there. The writing itself was peppered with so many… well, let’s just say that one of Doctoroff’s worst quotes in this post that purports to educate you to the behavioral and psychological makeup of one billion people was: “Chinese prefer eating to making love.”

No, I kid you not.

So in answering Doctoroff’s post that he probably thinks is the height of sophistication and worldliness, I’ve revised his 12-point guide from being on the Chinese to being about Americans to show how ridiculous this broad brush sweep of an entire people is – and how offensive.

“The American Code: From Robotic Alienation to Epic Ambition“

When the millions of foreign visitors arrive in JFK Airport every year in New York, they roam about a land that both frustrates and inspires. Their emotions will likely swing from admiration and awe to rage to feeling like they want to shake the first American they see on the street for voting Bush into office twice.

Well, have no fear. A basic appreciation for the average American’s fundamentally different world view can help make sense of it all. How do we explain the co-existence of the pioneering spirit that produced magnificent architectural gems of the 20th century and vibrant art and cultural scenes with inept bureaucracies, failure to implement universal health care and a crumbling economy?

The dichotomy, in fact, makes sense.

Americans are not one-dimensional. They are merely conflicted — to Easterners, seemingly bi-polar – Christians. They want to both protect themselves within a regimented social structure but, at the same time, move forward to achieve greatness. What follows are are twelve distinctly American behavioral characteristics that run the gamut from ultra-rigid to ultra progressive. They are, in brief:

1. Ritualistic Observation: We often believe Americans are superstitious, their rituals irrational. Why do such smart people do things like pray and talk so much about God and Jesus? But, to the American/Anglo-Saxon, all this is perfectly logical. Every so-called religion preserves or extends Western civilization. Americans are instinctively obedient to rituals like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. They have to paint eggs, bake turkeys en masse and kill trees, or else their entire year is ruined. And even if liberated by an American Express corporate card, every American is ceremonially correct during important life junctures – new job, marriage, birth and death. I mean, do you know how much those people spend on flowers alone for weddings?

2. Robotic Alienation: Why do Americans overexpose themselves sexually (ahem, Paris and Britney), shout obscenities in public and spray graffiti on the walls of lovely buildings? Why are their McMansions such architectural monstrosities that look like they were designed by 8-year-olds? Why are passengers herded onto airplanes and then forced to wait hours on end before air traffic control authorizes take off? Why do Americans never act as if their public areas can be used for purposes other than that for which they are designated? You know, roads can also be used by bikes, soccer fields can also be used by yoga classes. Why are they so lacking in imagination and blindly follow signs and orders? It’s because they are robots, who are alienated.

3. Hierarchical Regimentation: Although Americans pride themselves on being a democracy where “every man is created equal,” their society is actually built on adherence to religious and secular hierarchy. Hierarchy is everywhere: within the family, father always knows best; in art and public life, Caucasians are still often more respected than minorities and given more leeway and opportunities for success. Even Christianity has been “corrupted” to conform to America’s regimentation instinct. There are more deacons and Sunday school teachers than lady bugs in winter, each with his own rank and power.

4. Anxious Self-protection: Hierarchical societies are, in some ways, safe. They ensure order and lessen the guesswork required to maintain smooth interaction. Given a dangerous world, Americans protect themselves, vigilant to threats beyond the horizon or behind one’s back. No one takes physical safety for granted (which is why the nation will rally to defeat HIV, cancer and tomatoes with salmonella), everyone is suspicious of unfamiliar people (especially illegal immigrants and brown people wearing non-yuppy clothes) and, while the new generation is optimistic, it’s actually quite cynical at the same time (especially since there are no social safety nets in America. I mean, does anyone under 40 honestly believe that Social Security will provide for them in old age?)

5. Trust Facilitation: America lacks certain institutions that protect individual interests. It is a dog-eat-dog society where many resent the government providing any support to the individual. In an age when corporations are laying off workers en masse, there is still dissent on whether or not to provide universal healthcare. In such a society, trust facilitation, therefore, is a key element of social intercourse. Gifts, cards and fruit baskets are trust enablers. American men also love alcohol, which lubricate trust by easing the sharing of “real feelings” while watching football, that is, not soccer. Titanic was a huge hit in America largely because Leonardo DiCaprio’s smooth features conveyed his true passion for Kate Winslet. The American detect microscopic trustworthiness clues; when an American feels safe, he will begin to forge his life path.

6. Pragmatic Elasticity: Once the coast is clear, denizens of the World Police are spectacularly pragmatic. Their elasticity can be both awe-inspiring and disconcerting. In an “ambitiously regimented” society, clever resourcefulness is the most prized personality attribute. Everyone charges ahead while managing to abide by social convention. Barriers are everywhere – life is a game of dodge ball — but the successful evade them. Culturally, foreign influences are tolerated – even embraced – if they serve American interests. In 2001 and 2002, Americans hated “freedom fries.” Five years later, they’re embracing a movie rat who’s the best cook in France. Go figure.

7. Incremental Progression: Once trust has been established and the landscape has been surveyed for pitfalls and opportunity, Americans are ready to start moving. Forward progression is meticulously charted and always incremental, not “breakthrough.” Even though Americans thinks theirs is a country of innovators who are always pushing the envelope, many if not most “breakthroughs” were in fact meticulously polled and researched to death to make sure it won’t go too far over the line. Today, entrepreneurialism has complicated matters, but men still progress with precision through key life markers. Political transitions are similarly choreographed.

8. Released Repression: Incremental progression, while productive, happens within regimented social and political hierarchies. The youth are drawn to activities that channel stifled anger and pent-up energy: Grand Theft Auto is a popular game and movies such as “War of Worlds” flood large cities and small towns. Aggressive discharges, while occasionally hostile, are rarely truly rebellious and never challenge the system. Innocuous, calming oases of relief for pent-up anger are ubiquitous: massage, spas and country clubs are everywhere, as are old-style sofas with huge cushions and furry carpets.

9. Confidence Projection: Once an American starts to move forward, however incrementally, he must display progress to both himself and society. In a culture where “Keepin up with the Joneses” still reigns, self-esteem is inextricably linked to external acknowledgement. Success is not “real” until other people recognize gains, so every American flaunts triumph. Those with less experience – i.e., new players desperate to move ahead – do it gaudily, blazing bat signals in the sky by buying ridiculous gas-guzzlers like Hummers. Guys do not walk. They swagger, with one arm weighed down by a trophy wife whose own arm is weighed down by a Louis Vuitton bag. 

10. Epic Ambition: Once the launching pad has been cleared of debris, the Americans prepare for take off. An explosion of new opportunity plus age-old pioneering drive has created the most aggressive nation in history. The Americans will stop at nothing to get ahead. Parents lavish princely sums on the little prodigies and geniuses educated in Montessori schools who is half toddler, half parental self-esteem. Baby Einstein, anyone? Mozart for the fetus? By adolescence, the “Win!” ethic is internalized. Job hopping is endemic by 25. A reality show appearance is common by 30. And especially since the Dot-com boom, if you’re not a millionaire by the time you get your first wrinkle, you’re a failure.

11. Scaled Mobilization: Scaled mobilization – individual ambition aggregated on a national level — is perhaps America’s greatest competitive advantage. Throughout history – from the building of the skyscrapers and the Panama Canal to today’s Herculean project of the surge in Iraq- the country knows how to amass great resources for the collective good. With the fear of terrorism always looming in the background, they are willing to embrace a strong central government and stifle dissent — showing that Americans don’t value their own freedoms after all. For them, the choice is stark: a strong, ordered, authoritarian America, managed by a legion of Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys, or they will be attacked.

12. Joyful Celebration: When safety is assured and progress is real, America lets the good times roll with gusto. The flipside of an insecurity-based world view is appreciation of minutae. Small-scale twinkles are as glorious as fireworks. Parks are full of happiness. Old men bond with their chess-playing buddies, laughter spreading over nothing in particular. Boyfriends and girlfriends embrace, unconcerned by the gazes of passers-by. The bionic click-clack of people showing off their new Macs, muted by the buzz of the latest Hollywood thrill, is a cacophonous delight. Appearing on reality shows can beat sex. Americans are exhibitionists and egomaniacs who prefer showing off their sexuality to making love. (Exhibit A: Paris Hilton. Exhibit B: Girls Gone Wild. Exhibit C: Britney Spears. Exhibit D: Jezebel’s Slut Machine blogger. Exhibit E… well, you get the idea.)

So there are two Americas, Rising America and Falling America. The latter is scarred by blank faces, saber-rattling arrogance and horrifying governmental bureaucracy where the concept of “the citizen” simply does not exist. The former is wonderfully alive, expressive, fun, funny and filled with spunk. It’s “modern” America. It’s the U.S.A. of advertising agencies, entrepreneurialism, intellectually aggressive think tanks, high-tech resourcefulness and ambitious climbing up value chains and, yes, forward thinking politicians and organizations.

The whole world will be watching the U.S. this fall for the presidential election. Let’ s hope we finally open our eyes and begin to make sense of it.