"From Coffee to Human Rights"

Cultural experience in China isn’t unidirectional – there’s learning China’s views on China, learning China’s views on America, getting asked about America’s views on China, and getting asked about America’s views on America. Only two weeks in, there have been a lot of entertaining, scary, or strange examples of Chinese impressions of America, so I think these might be a theme of some future posts. But for now, an example from our textbook lessons.

Today’s lesson was about how much Americans like lawsuits. It starts with the often-ridiculed example of the McDonald’s too-hot coffee lawsuit. Americans, says the dialogue, will sue over everything “from coffee to human rights.” Despite the ridiculousness of the dialogue on face, it actually offers a pretty good explanation: we like a society with the rule of law as opposed to one-man rule, and that we think a country with the rule of law has to have lawsuits. So, it continues, business as a lawyer is good – you have to have a lawyer to write a will, to get a divorce, to buy or sell a house, to sue a driver if you get in a car accident, etc. Especially because of all the intellectual property rights issues in modern society, so says the lesson, lawyers are getting lots of business.

This, from what I’ve encountered so far, is a somewhat standard (if benign) format for a Chinese interpretation of American society. There are some valid points that Americans could probably take to heart (we are lawsuit happy, although we probably already knew that), some oversimplifications (does every car accident involve a lawsuit?) and some ironies (“…especially with all those intellectual property cases…”). At the end, as often happens, there’s a reference to the reform policies in China in the late 1970s followed by a statement about China’s modernization – in this case, China’s modernization is leading to more Chinese people using lawsuits as a means of conflict resolution. This format is also popular for some of the passages we’ve read on China’s domestic issues: traditional China - > strange America - > China is modernizing, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Admittedly, though, most of the “domestic issues” we’ve covered at school have to do with dating and relationships, going to school, and finding a job – all in all, somewhat safe territory. Since getting to China, in conversations with a couple people I’ve ventured off into less safe territory, but that deserves at least a full post to itself…stay tuned.