I'll miss "Outsourced"

Very few people were surprised when NBC declined to make a second season of "Outsourced." For the uninitiated, it was a sitcom that centered around a naive and overly enthusiastic mid-westerner (Todd) who is sent to India to manage a call center. The series included two stock characters which should be recognizable to any western expat: Charlie, a fellow American call center manager who has done his best to pretend he is still in the US (and is implied to be an alcoholic), and Tonya, a sexually aggressive western woman who isn't afraid to pounce on a man from a similar cultural background as hers. The five remaining characters in the ensemble are all Indian and embody sitcom and cultural stereotypes ranging from an unsuccessful horndog to a hard-ass manager.

When I first saw the commercials for the show I couldn't understand what NBC was thinking. It was entirely possible that it would be entertaining but I couldn't see what the target market was. There was a lot of comedy for people with an expat background and there were lots of situations that could appeal to Indian-Americans but there wouldn't be an emotional connection for the average person (as opposed to shows about working in an office (The Office) or having friends (Friends.) (See what I did there? ;) )

I can't criticize anyone for thinking it wasn't funny or didn't engage them- that's a matter of personal taste. What I was disappointed in was the amount of people who found it offensive because of perceived racism. To date I have yet to find (in real life or on the internet) someone of Indian origin that was offended by it; in fact, I'm pretty sure the parties that took umbrage at the show are largely white, have not lived outside of their own culture for long periods of time, and view "being offended" as their god-given duty to the rest of mankind. If you grew up in Boulder, CO as I did, you probably know the sorts I'm talking about.

The two American characters are largely portrayed as clueless about or uninterested in Indian culture. They make all sorts of cultural faux pas and their ignorance is normally played for laughs. In one exchange, which received an incredible amount of complaints, the main character is surprised to learn that Indians celebrate Valentine's day. This reminded me of an actual exchange from my first few months in East Asia when I learned about Taiwanese Valentine's day.

Nick: Wow, you all have Valentine's day in August?
Taiwanese girl: Yes, but we also have your Valentine's Day, in February.
Taiwanese boy: Yes, it is terrible to be a boyfriend in this country.

The Indian characters, on the other hand, tend to be most familiar with the negative stereotypes of Americans. The perceived promiscuity of Americans is brought up frequently by the Indian characters, as is (more positively) the less hierarchical structure of American society.

We Americans tend to self-flagellate for being nationalistic but our sense of humor is fairly self-deprecating. The Simpsons has become one of the most successful shows of all time, primarily because it is constantly making fun of American culture. That Indians, who are an increasingly visible part of American society, have the same capacity for self-mockery should leave us saying "We're not so different, after all," rather than feeling guilty about taking advantage of another culture. This is especially pronounced given that a majority of "Outsourced" writers were of Indian heritage and many of the East meets West situations came from their personal experiences.

The show had a small natural market (expats and Indian Americans) and the capacity to offend the vocal minority of Americans who calculate their IQ's by tabulating how many times they are offended per week. With those liabilities I was surprised that a full season of the show was made at all. Even if it had been spectacularly funny rather than just "fun," it was a big risk for NBC. Given that, I think the proper response to the show is gratitude for having aired at all rather than disappointment over not being renewed.


Please, please, NBC, find a way to bring Parvesh Cheena into another show!

The Red Menace

I was too young to remember Red Dawn's premiere in 1984 but have seen it several times since. It's a stirring and patriotic film about a group of high schoolers turn guerrillas who resist a Soviet invasion of the US. I was excited to notice that remake has been in the works for a couple years; this time with the Chinese as the villains. China is sort of the obvious choice given the tenor of the moment. Despite the improbability of a Soviet invasion we still watched the original Red Dawn. A Chinese invasion would be similarly impossible but it could still make for good, mindless fun.

I was surprised when I realized that all of the actors portraying Chinese characters were actually Korean- I wasn't sure if this was a result of Chinese actors not wanting to portray China as the bad guy or if it is more of a commentary on the average non-Asians inability to tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese. Either way it was also prescient.

The film has now been retooled (via digital editing) so that the North Koreans have somehow invaded the American homeland. (If I thought China couldn't do it, guess my opinion on the likelihood of a country with a GDP of $19 crossing the Pacific.) This obviously bodes terribly for the film... was it really so unintelligently made that through a few digital edits the villains can be changed from one of our largest trading partners to a country we have all but no contact with?

Either way the reasoning behind this seems to be a desire to get the movie into the (theoretically) lucrative Chinese market. This is unlikely regardless of the geopolitics of the film because the Chinese government only allows in a select few foreign films per year. American films can be bought on pirated DVD (with no money going to the production company) but they are rarely shown in theaters. This trend is unlikely to change as the Chinese government has been increasing its enforcement of anti-free speech laws as of late.

This also highlights another pressing issue for business in China: if the Chinese can build it themselves they won't buy it from us. Many companies have learned the hard way that the Chinese government only gives them preferential treatment in exchange for technology transfers. Once those transfers are made the foreign companies find themselves being treated with much less deference and much less favorable business terms. Hollywood has not picked up on this yet and is keeping its fingers crossed that the Chinese government will spontaneously stop acting the way it has for decades (and declares that it will continue to act). Of course, this means we are unlikely to see a Falun Gong or Tiannanmen Square movie, despite how interesting they would be.

Ensconced in anonymity (returning to America)

It's been about a month since I left Taiwan- most of that time has been in Arizona but there was a week long stopover in Tokyo too.

Since then business school has (obviously) absorbed a lot of my free time. That being said I've spared a good amount of thought for thinking about Taiwan and me, the future of this blog, and whether or not I want to go back to Taiwan or the Chinese world in general*- and of course I have yet to come up with any definitive ideas.

There are a few things that I miss dearly- the food, some people, speaking Chinese every day, my scooter, but what I miss most was the ease of travel and the number of places to go. In Taiwan amazing scenery and hikes were only a couple hours away and the public transportation system was great.

Here in Glendale we are in the middle of a desert valley where the strip malls outnumber the clouds. The most interesting place in the city might actually be the Thunderbird Campus. There's not a lot to do within walking or biking distance. It's difficult to not feel stranded in my own temporary home. At least there's a pool.

I did underestimate the number of things I'd become frustrated with in Taiwan. After a week back in the United States I realized that I'd developed a very thick shell in how I dealt with some parts of my daily life. It isn't always pleasant being obviously different in a culture which discourages differences. Many of my friends in Taiwan (local or otherwise) focus on the all the benefits that western looking people receive in East Asia- and there are many benefits, but there were days when I would have traded those benefits for anonymity, for everyone to treat me like I wasn't special. I suppose I could've just moved to Taipei.

That's what I've got here. Anonymity; the state of being in which I could walk into any store or restaurant and have nobody make a fuss over me or argue about who should try to talk to the foreigner. Having spent so much of my life entertaining people (theoretically) I'm surprised at how much I was lusting after just being a face in the crowd.

I'm still unraveling everything I think about the last few years but the experience of being a very visible minority in a somewhat homogeneous population was invaluable and I think we'd be a better country if everyone could have that experience. You don't gain a lot of insights on how to treat "the other" when you've always been in the majority.

As for the blog- I'm not in the ROC anymore so it's raison d'être seems kind of spent. It's still my home on the web though and I'll try to keep updating my six to ten faithful readers about politics in East Asia and anything else that I truly think is blog worthy.



*I'm predicting that I'll have to return to somewhere in the Sinosphere within five years despite being down on it at the moment.

Why would you go to 二水?

I've visited 二水(Ershui) four times since moving to Taiwan. That probably makes it my #2 tourist destination after Taipei. 二水 is mostly known for being the junction between the main Taiwanese rail line and a smaller rail line that was originally used for transporting lumber from the interior. A few of the stops on the small rail line are tourist traps or are cradled by amazing scenery so they get the bulk of the attention; this leaves poor 二水 under appreciated as a number of tourists don't even leave the train station before heading on to the more well known towns further down the line.

Immediately after exiting the train station you can see 二水's bike path which leads you past temples and rice paddies and eventually to a Formosan Macaque protected habitat. After nearly an hour on a rented bike I hiked around the habitat looking for some friendly monkeys but to no avail. The monkeys like mornings and I don't so we missed each other again. There were a lot of work crews throughout the habitat as well- they seemed amused at the solitary foreigner sweating through his shirt looking for monkeys at the wrong time of day. One of them pretended to console me and said that at least I'd brought the jungle mosquitoes a snack. I'm inconsistent with when I reveal that I can understand Chinese but this time I did and after some initial shock we they advised me to wear a brighter colored shirt next time- so the monkeys would be more entertained by my appearance.

Another three hours of biking brought me through a few small villages and past an unusually tall pagoda. My first time through the area we didn't rent bikes at all and instead hiked up a mountain to a village whose sole economic activities seemed to be selling tea and inviting visitors into an expansive temple complex- I'd thought about trying to repeat the hike but decided to save it for next time and with 二水 just an hour away by train there will probably be one more next time before I head home.

I stopped in 彰化 (Zhanghua) on the way home for shrimp, fried rice, and beer with a couple friends. I was exhausted and my face was caked with sweat and dust but 彰化 foreigners are the rural type and don't much care about hygiene.

Catching the last train home allowed me to talk with an obviously inebriated Taiwanese gentleman who complained that too many foreign English teachers were lying about being American. He jokingly commented that because Americans could be white, black, brown, or any other color of skin Taiwanese couldn't always tell if someone was a real American or a 假的 American. It was the first time I'd heard a complaint about America being a racially diverse country that I couldn't dismiss as racism- he was just pointing out that the age old way of figuring out what someone was didn't work anymore and with crooked smile he blamed my people for it.* He hopped off the train at the stop before mine and I spent the rest of the ride reading Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler (review forthcoming).

I'll probably be buying a camera this week so some of my future travel blogs will have some images.

I hope your Sunday were as good as mine!

*For extra commentary on this issue please check out previous blog entry "Who you are and what you do."

Who you are and what you do...

Did your elementary/middle school teachers wax philosophic about American culture demeaning the individual by focusing on occupation? More than one of mine did. Again and again, in school or in Church I would hear people talk about how we should find other ways to describe ourselves outside of our occupations. I won't argue that Americans tend to define themselves by their jobs but it is worth pointing out that other cultures fixate on aspects of a person that are at least as constraining.

In Taiwan it's very common for "get to know you conversations" to include detailed questions about your hometown/homeland and your family background. This stems from the understandable belief that who your parents are greatly influence who you are. This is different from the American emphasis on occupation. In the American perspective the choices you've made with your life are viewed as the most vital information about a person- while in the Taiwanese/Chinese paradigm the most important parts of you (where you grew up/what your parents are like) are outside of your control.

The Taiwanese/Chinese fixation on race as an indicator of who you are stems from this cultural preference. Until a couple hundred years ago (which only seems like a long time to Westerners) where you grew up and what your parents were like was easily guessed based upon your skin tone and hair/eye color. Where do brown skinned people come from? India. What do they eat? Curry. Therefore the brown skinned person in front of me is probably from India and probably likes curry- therefore I should assume she speaks Hindi and needs my help getting to the nearest curry house and I should probably not insult her by offering her Chinese food. You can apply this formula to lots of situations.

A lot of visitors/foreign residents in East Asia get frustrated at this paradigm because it impinges upon our sense of individuality. Sure I'm white, American, and of English descent but if you direct me to the nearest McDonald's (which more than one Taiwanese person has done without me asking for it) I will not respond graciously.

Of course you could find this focus upon family background and hometown in many pre-industrial societies- which is exactly what Taiwan was last century and what much of China still us. What puzzles foreigners is how modern Taiwan can seem on one hand- High Speed Rail, internet everywhere, 2nd tallest building on Earth, etc etc etc, and yet how concerned a person on the street can be about where my grandparents were born. Whether Eastern culture will change to focus on the individual as a result of the surplus options that are being shoveled at them thanks to globalization is anyone's guess.

One of the most rewarding parts of international travel is discovering my own culture. Had I lived in Colorado all my life I may never have seriously considered that large groups of people define themselves in the way many East Asians do. Beyond merely understanding this specific part of my culture I also increasingly appreciate it- I am an American, through and through. When I am getting to know you I will respectfully ask about your hometown- but what I really want to know is what you've chosen to do with your life.

White Men I Love, White Men I Hate by Chuck Snowden

Chuck Snowden (formerly of Casey Middle School and Fairview High School) is one man I will never forget. He was my PE teacher for all three years of Middle School. At the time he was known as the hard gym teacher (there was an alternative who taught PE at the same time) and anyone that wanted to switch into or out of his class was welcome to. I always chose to be in his class because he was one of the only teachers I've ever met who clearly loved his students. He loved his students so much that I was always exhausted from his class and he loved us enough to force us to write weekly reports to him about what was going on in our lives. He would read those reports in class and make comments, appreciative and instructive, right after we handed them to him.

Anyhow, I'm mentioning this story because I just finished his book White Men I Love, White Men I Hate. The prologue has an impassioned warning that the book is about LOVE, LOVE, LOVE and he means it. Despite the title most of the book is about white men, both his friends and historical figures, that he loves and only occasionally will he focus on the ones he hates. Of course every other third story (at least!) involves his wife, May, whom is obviously the primary desire of his over-sized heart.

He delves into history (his field of study) in a sort of uneven manner. It's vital to him to understand America's past and his determination to love people results in some unexpected people of affection. There's not a hint of resentment towards Thomas Jefferson, for instance. Coach Snowden is convinced that the Jefferson loved the slave he fathered a child with and even goes so far to suggest that a great man like Jefferson should be thanked for spreading his genes around. Snowden also heaps praise upon Winston Churchill (for the obvious reason) but doesn't mention any criticism at all of Churchill's questionable post WWII decisions. In Coach Snowden's eyes a man who was great enough to stop Hitler can be forgiven for his other sins. The author calls this kind of judgment the work of a "Wise Barbarian" and I am not about to argue with him.

His writing style is so straightforward I could hear his voice and his message so inclusive that you'd have to be an angry and sullen person to take offense at his observations about white people, black people, and America. He states again and again that he's an unabashed Christian, a lifelong Democrat, and a patriot so unless you're angry atheist Republican who hates America (I know you're out there) there's something in the book for you. I can't recommend it enough.

Despite how horrible Middle School was I can always rely on memories of him and how much he cared to make it seem a little brighter. One of the primary reasons I always opted for his class was because it was the only place in Boulder where my twelve year old self could walk into a gym and have a giant African American bellow out "Hello, Mr. Ford! How are you today?" I was an awkward, Star Trek loving, mid-pubescent*, drama nerd, whose home life was imploding- having a guy like Coach Snowden interested in me nearly every day could be the difference between self-worth and self-pity. That's a debt I can only pay forward.

*Even if little else has changed at least I am done with puberty.

We made the front page of CNN.com!

Recently President Ma of Taiwan made some surprisingly frank statements regarding Taiwan's relationship with the US (article here). He stated that Taiwan would never ask the Americans to fight China for Taiwan. This of course was met with a hail of criticism from pro-Independence Taiwanese groups. Some said this indicated his attention to reunify with China and others simply accused him of damaging relations with the US. I think he did neither- but first a little background.

Taiwan has a celebrated and storied "ambiguous relationship" with the United States. For most of the 20th century America never expressly stated whether it would come to the aid of Taiwan if the Chinese attempted an invasion. George W. Bush was the first American President to say what we would actually do (article here). No points for guessing whether he promised to turn tail and run or stand and fight for our tiny democratic ally. Anyhow, that was just one statement and measured over sixty years of ambiguity it don't amount to much. Plus, when Pres. Bush said that it was before we were in Afghanistan + Iraq x unsustainable debt.

So- as for President Ma... when he mentioned that he was not going to ask the Americans to fight the Chinese he also mentioned that Taiwan was capable of defending itself BUT it required American weapons to do so. The chances of America starting World War III with the Chinese over Taiwan (when a negotiated settlement would be much easier, cheaper, and less bloody) are minute; the chances of the Americans continuing to sell weapons to a tiny island ally whose very existence prevents the Chinese navy from wondering to far into the West Pacific is very high. President Ma was probably just reassuring the leadership in Beijing that he was not out to start World War III and to reassure the Obama administration that the weapon sales are appreciated AND they are worthwhile. A Taiwan that can defend itself well against a Chinese incursion is less likely to need American assistance in the end anyway.

Anyhow- a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would take months to pull off. First the Chinese would have to win an air war. Then they would have to invade Jinmen, Matsu, and Penghu. Then they would have to isolate Taiwan proper. It would take weeks before the troop transports were even loaded (assuming China had enough troop transports for the 70,000 soldiers it would minimally need... and it doesn't have those troop transports because most of its spare steel goes to apartment buildings for its rapidly urbanizing population.)

During those weeks America might decide to get involved regardless of what Pres. Ma says, the Japanese might decide to get involved, but bare minimum China's trade with the outside world would plummet and the possibility of a domestic revolution would dramatically increase. All this to assert political control over an island whose political and economic freedom have actually benefited the mainland via trade with the outside world?

The Chinese government is very savvy, they aren't going to plunge the world or their country into a war they don't need.