Notes on the US from a Chinese mother-in-law
Equal parts brutal takes, and Sino-American bridge-building
There is a robust and growing literature of Bay Area folks traveling to China, and then reporting back on their findings1.
I’ve got a reverse uno card for you here. My Chinese mother-in-law is blogging about trips she’s taken to the US over the past decade.
Her blog series is called 说说我心中的美国, which translates to something like “America from my perspective”. Here are of my favorite excerpts from her observations2.
“America’s declining industrial heartland”
Hilariously blunt observations throughout.
New York is “a tired city, with dirty streets, dark subways… and different psychopaths you encounter every time you go outside”.
She thinks her daughter’s roommates are “academically stressed and physically ill” and “probably a little autistic.”
But her harshest words are for 2014 Berkshire County Massachusetts.
In the evenings, we stayed in Berkshire, a dozen kilometers away from our school, to experience America’s declining industrial heartland. The county seat should have a lot of residents, with hotels, restaurants and supermarkets, but the whole city doesn’t have much energy, and it looks very dead. At some of the former factories, the walls were filled with beautiful graffiti, but the interior was empty. My daughter told me that this was the city’s effort to save the old town with art. She appreciated it, but now it seemed that these measures would not be able to revive an old American town.
When a Berkshire county official offered to help her find parking, she took this as a sign that the county was in desperate need of tourists.
Nice Americans and cold courtesy
Her overall impression of Americans is quite positive.
That was my sister’s first trip to the United States. Throughout the trip, she was repeatedly amazed by the courtesy and warmth of the Americans… I had also been treated so kindly: at the New York airport, the girl who took me directly to my destination after I asked for directions; at the airport, the ground staff who greeted me in Chinese and pointed me to my gate; at the hotel, the staff member who repeatedly helped me with my itinerary for the next day; the B&B owner who drove me to explore the countryside...
…We went to America with preconceived notions, thinking it was an arrogant country…
America is nothing special; the people of that country are no different from the Chinese—most are friendly and trustworthy. We really can’t label a country or a people based on a single quality.
Heartwarming. Pretty standard observation when visiting a new country. “Maybe we aren’t so different, you and I.”
More to my surprise, was that she specifically praised the “efficiency and flexibility of the Americans”.
She describes my family as “comfortable, stress-free, and having slightly cold courtesy”. Basically, “midwest nice through a language barrier.”
“No need to worry about a collision”
She was quite impressed with the orderliness of US roads.
Although we can clearly see the vehicles coming across the road, the barrier in front of the middle is open and there is no need to worry about a collision.
In a similar vein:
I spent three days in Williams. What impressed me most during those three days was that whenever we stood at one end of a zebra crossing, the cars on the road would stop and wait for us to cross before they continued.
Now, on my travels to China, I have never observed the roads to be particularly disorderly. But my mother-in-law’s baseline was probably set in the much-more-chaotic early 2000s when she learned to drive.
“Chinese culture is creeping into New Yorkers’ lives”
Her first observation of New York is a classic one:
It’s the worst city because it can destroy you instantly to nothing, and the best city because there are so many opportunities.
The garbage is not disposed of on time in her NYC hotel. She is alarmed by several interactions with strangers. And she is impressed out how quickly her daughter knows to walk away when a commotion breaks out on the street.
Heavy blows come for the New York Subway, which is sensible if you’ve ever ridden the clean and well-ordered subways of Suzhou.
The New York subway, in particular, which doesn’t have a bathroom at all, is a terrible experience3.
I love my home, Suzhou, a city where you can close your eyes on the subway.
And she is struck by the Chinese influence in New York.
The Chinese language that can be seen everywhere in New York, the popular Chinese restaurants, the Chinese songs that can be heard on the subway, and the roads that can be asked in Chinese anytime, anywhere, is the true cultural invasion! Chinese culture is creeping into New Yorkers’ lives.
Overall: “Life in New York was tense.”
Same.
Conclusion
It’s fun to see your home and culture reflected through the eyes of others.
These posts have also helped me build my perspective on the value of travel.
It’s easy to make fun of people who take a trip to another country, and then think they understand it at a deep level4.
But traveling definitely teaches you something. I wouldn’t trust my mother-in-law to predict future geopolitics on the basis of her visits, but I do think she has a pretty good feel for what American culture is like, and the ways in which Americans are different from and similar to Chinese.
After reading these blog posts, I’m marginally more bullish on how well you can understand a country by taking a trip or two as a tourist.
Travel more!
I’ve made a paltry contribution of my own to this genre: Interesting things, amusing things, architecture in Beijing
A bit of background on my mother-in-law:
Worked her whole life as a government official
By necessity, she is a card-carrying CCP member
5-feet tall, with energy and gumption disproportionate to her size
At the time of her first trip to the US 10 years ago, she had never been outside Asia
Those so inclined can see the full series on WeChat here.
In contrast to New York, in on the DC subway “At least the people inside are normal.”
Noah Smith has a good post on this.