She placed her chopsticks in the bowl-face up.
He raised his eyebrow, calmly inhaled, propped his chest up, and began to speak.
“You know that what you just did is incredibly offensive to all Asians, right? You actually just embarrassed our entire table.”
She hung her head in shame as he flashed a cocky smile, proud and confident that he had demonstrated his cultural superiority. Not Asian, and not offended himself, but content with leveraging the opportunity to represent the entirety of Asian culture, if it meant it could elevate him to the role of our table’s alpha male.
I have a lot of memories like this. American does a thing. Another American shames them, takes credit.
There is a stereotype that Americans are ignorant when they go to other countries. We’re also relatively narcissistic when it comes to our self-image, so this also means that our reputation for ignorance is coupled with a crippling fear of being perceived as ignorant.
Those of us who don’t want to be that guy on foreign soil tend to be timid when out in public, often being overly permission-seeking in our day to day interactions.
Do you think I can ask the waitress for water? Would that be rude?
Do you think we can walk along the sidewalk here? Are we allowed to walk here?
Do you think I’ll get in trouble for taking a picture of this building?
Can I stop on the sidewalk to take a picture of this lamp?
Maybe we’ve just heard or read the stories, or maybe we’ve experienced them first hand. Maybe we make an unintentional mistake, leaving ourselves open for a heroic acquaintance who has been to Paris to put us in our place.
These glorious acts of spontaneous action don’t always come from a place of benevolence. Everyone wants to be the most cultured one in the group. Whether it’s an opportunity to get upvoted on Reddit by “dropping some knowledge on the OP,” or demonstrating how wise we have become from our extensive time abroad, we love being the fantasy of being the hero.
The problem: these behaviors have led many of us to swing too far in the direction of being overly cautious. Many of us are overly afraid when it comes to behaving in foreign countries because we feel like one unintentional mistake could lead to a lifetime of shame, real or virtual.
The reality: if one is kind, respectful, and has intentions to listen and observe, there is little one can accidentally do to permanently ostracize oneself from a culture.
Yes, there are noteworthy Americans that have propagated our bad reputation by littering on a Twitch stream, filming dead bodies, and skateboarding through crowds, but these are all extreme actions in comparison to the minor cultural obscurities we end up being afraid of. We don’t want to be equated to the people who take those actions of extreme ignorance, so we take no action at all.
Due to all this, I am trying to make an active effort to not act paranoid when I’m out interacting and exploring. I try to focus on having positive intentions and observing, without spending all my effort worrying about whether or not a specific behavior would be perceived as ok. Of course, I do often ask if something I did was impolite, and I try very hard to understand the behaviors of others to identify the nuances of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, sometimes it’s alright to ride your bike on the sidewalk and sometimes it’s not. To figure this out, all I have to do is observe the actions of the hundreds of local people riding their bikes on the sidewalk, or not. I don’t need an ancient book on obscure etiquette to figure that out.
There are also some forms of ignorance that are beneficial. For example, having faith that someone you care about will succeed despite objective evidence to the contrary, or the ability to enjoy the music cinematography of action movies by ignoring the plot design (i.e. Black Panther).
In Taiwan, I am constantly overwhelmed by the beauty I’m surrounded with here, and many Taiwanese find this inspirational. Locals become used to the fact that everything happens to be decorated by flowers, but they enjoy being around people who remind them to appreciate it.
Sometimes I do take it a little too far. I walked out of my school the other day and took a deep breath, smiling and noticing an interesting smell in the air. I found it so beautiful, wondering if it might be incense of something burning as part of a ritual. Turns out it was just a guy smoking a cigarette.
Yes, I did get in trouble in restaurants... twice so far. One time I ate something spicy and accidentally coughed, and got yelled at in Chinese (coughing without medical-grade protection in public is frowned upon, hence the prevalence of surgical masks).
At another restaurant, my legs were too big to fit in the space under the table, so I put them to the side. When walking by, the restaurant worker, pointed at me, then sharply yelled “jiao!”
(^ that confused me because one of the first things you learn in Chinese is Wǒ jiào, so I thought she might be asking my name. However, it turns out she was saying jiǎo, which means leg...)
Unavoidably, I have accidentally been the “ignorant American,” and I have accidentally taken actions that have been impolite. However, in the end, no one really cared long-term, and I was able to learn from the situations and apply that knowledge to future situations. The people that were with me were happy to clarify, and in the end, the situations ended up being more comical than embarrassing. Consistently making the same mistake is disrespectful. Making a mistake, caring, and learning is respectful.
My personal advice and my personal strategy is to just try and be a good person. Be empathetic and care about others. Ask questions, be curious, and follow your heart. Don’t let comments on Reddit scare you. Recognize the temptation of being overly cautious, and take opportunities to be adventurous instead.
Also, last night I had my first dream that featured Chinese language, and it involved trash talking in Street Fighter.