How Others See Us

A sad story of a young Chinese woman killed by a drunk driver in New York raises some unsettling questions about American culture.  Here is an excerpt from a translated blog post over at Roland's (original Chinese blog post here):

On February 7, the Shanghai girl Feng Huang who had just graduated from New York University was killed in a car accident.  The driver was a local police officer named Martin Abreu.  He was intoxicated at the time.  The police is charging with vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.

...

But even as people were feeling sad over Feng Huang, the mother of Martin Abreu has come out to defend his son.  She said that Feng Huang and her boyfriend were violating traffic rules when they crossed West Street.  "It was their fault."

The local police declined to say whether the two victims were violating traffic rules.

Abreu's mother declared, "My son Martin is a good boy.  He should not be treated this way (that is, being arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated)."  She even said that there was nothing wrong with her son driving while intoxicated.  She said, "My son went out to have some drinks.  He is entitled to have a good time."

I have read many news reports on Abreu's mother.  I regret to say that she did not show any hint of an apology concerning her son killing the Chinese girl Feng Huang while intoxicated.

But I thought this was consistent with the typical mode of action in America.  When Americans run into something, they always seek to protect themselves first.  This is how Americans think.

Americans have been educated repeatedly by lawyers about how to get away with crimes.  Abreu's mother is offering a typical excuse -- it does not matter if Feng Huang is dead, it does not matter how much responsibility her son bears in this accident and it does not matter how much the victim deserves sorrow and pity, she will blame the victim immediately.  I believe that this will be Abreu's initial reaction as well.  In their vocabulary, there are no words to express an apology to the victim.  That would be left to the law.  Even though Martin Abreu was driving while intoxicated, his mother thinks that "her son was not wrong" and "her son went out to have a few drinks and he is entitled to have a good time."  Even though she could not deny that her son was intoxicated, she made light of it...

When I first read this, I was a bit angry - how could someone make such apparently incorrect generalizations about American society - and a bit bemused: the writer seemed not to understand the English language, in which there are many, many ways to express apology to victims. I resist these kinds of generalizations when talking about Chinese culture and society, and I would also reject any effort to make this "heartless mom" into a symbol of American culture in general.

But then I thought a bit more and asked myself how Mencius might respond to such a statement.  He, after all, tells us to look inside of ourselves when we are confronted with our shortcomings.  And that would lead to another kind of question: how is it that this image of heartless, resistant-to-apology Americans might appear accurate to Chinese people?  What is it about us that might encourage this sort of image?

The litigiousness of American society has been much commented upon, and could certainly create legal incentives for avoiding responsibility for mistakes and crimes.  I suspect that  incidents that gain a high level of media attention, especially those involving entertainment or political celebrities, go a long way in producing the image of the irresponsible American (or the American who evades responsibility and blames others for his or her troubles).  How often do we see the responsible party lie and deny involvement when called out for bad behavior?  Alex Rodriguez looked right into the camera in 2007 and lied about his steroid use; he only admitted what he had done when the evidence against him was just too great.  George W. Bush was famous for never admitting mistakes and never apologizing.

It would seem, then, that there are grounds for the the kind uncomfortable generalization put forth on the Chinese blog.  There are all too many instances of famous Americans refusing to accept responsibility for their mistakes and evading apology.

Of course, that is not all there is to American society and culture.  The New York Daily News, in reporting the tragedy of Feng Huang's death, refers to the mother as "heartless" and "shameless."  She is obviously odious to Americans as well as to Chinese.   WPIX calls her "misguided" and reports the response from the Jersey City Police Department:

"The charges surrounding this incident are most serious and this type of activity will not be tolerated by the JCPD..." Jersey City Police Chief Tom Comey said in a statement. "While Mr. Abreu was in no way representing our department when this incident occurred, our primary thoughts are with the injured and the woman who perished. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families."

That sounds right.  The most important thing here is that Feng Huang was killed.  She needs to be remembered and her family offered condolences.  The drunken cop should face the full force of the law.  That is how many, many Americans would understand this sad, sad event.

Comments

[bert]

Absolutely! I read those comments by that Chinese blogger and couldn't reply to him because I had no account for his site.

Only an idiot would paint any nation with such wide brush strokes. This guy is just a frog at the bottom of a well. Comparing the CCTV fire 'apology' to this mothers lack of sympathy to the victims is just stupid. Nationalistic nonsense. Like there aren't too many instances of famous Chinese refusing to accept responsibility for their mistakes and evading apology!

[Karen]

"Only an idiot would paint any nation with such wide brush strokes"

Americans do the same thing to China and the Chinese all the time. We are angry and indignant when we read this Chinese blogger generalize Americans. But we do the same thing without even realizing it. Now we know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

In this day and age, it's idiotic to generalize people or nations. But at the same time, humans (from everywhere) have a tendency to generalize. I can only hope that most Chinese people will resort to their better senses and realize that the words of one American mom do not represent the view of all Americans.

Similarly, I wish Americans would stop stereotype people of Chinese descent too: not all Chinese eat exotic animals, not all Chinese are brainwashed nationalists, not all Chinese have small slanty eyes, not all Chinese companies produce tainted products...

[Durian]

This irritating thing about that Chinese fellow's comments were its passive-aggressive "We the Chinese are virtuous victims, so far removed from those barbarians" tone. Like a teenager blaming their parents for failing at school. While he seems to reflect the international face of china, I hope he doesn't reflect that of real people.

Anyway, enough.

You can actually comment on the page without having an account. There is a provision for anonymous posting which you can locate by translating the page via translate.google.com . Knock yourself out!

[Mike]

The original article was bad, the comments were heinous. Many of the commenters called the girl a whore for being with an American, another said that Chinese people should start treating all foreigners like Americans treated Feng Huang, and the original author Mr. Sima never amended or responded to any of the nonsense, adding support to their insane vitriol. If you create a forum for that kind of stuff you should a least be responsible enough to temper the stupidity. Mr. Sima failed at that and went from a sad attempt at philosiphizing on American vs. Chinese morality to supporting ideas such as Feng Huang deserved to die bcause she was with a foreigner.

[Anon]

"Americans do the same thing to China and the Chinese all the time."

Do we really do so to such an extent? REALLY? Because even your simple self-critical statement is more than you will see from most foreigner-bashing sessions on the Chinese internet.

"This irritating thing about that Chinese fellow's comments were its passive-aggressive "We the Chinese are virtuous victims, so far removed from those barbarians" tone. Like a teenager blaming their parents for failing at school. While he seems to reflect the international face of china, I hope he doesn't reflect that of real people."

I'm sorry to report that if internet comments mean anything at all, I'm afraid that it does to a considerable extent. Obviously there's more than one opinion among Chinese people, but this is typically a strongly represented one- if not the mainstream.

"The original article was bad, the comments were heinous."

They usually are. Personally, I blame Chinese internet comments for turning me into basically a nasty, bitter China-basher. I mean, anything on the internet has to be taken with a grain of salt, but you see the same garbage again and again and again and it just wears you down. Thank god for the humorous, self-critical and varied people at KDS, or I would probably be a full-blown racist by now.

[Richard]

The interesting thing to me is that the characteristics the blogger says are typically American - the defensiveness, the refusal to apologise, litigiousness, above all having a preference for the "strong man" over the underdog - are precisely those which a lot of outsiders who are neither American or Chinese see your two great nations as sharing. During the Tibet crisis last year there was a Xinhua commentary which alleged that one reason the West misrepresented the issues involved was their Judaeo-Christian sentimentality about the underdog - something Chinese did not share. I'm not sure that's actually true - generalisations should be avoided if possible - but certainly the most dangerous thing about blogs like this, and the Chinese nationalists love/hate relationship with America, is that they hold up and often misrepresent America's worst points to people who have never visited the country and don't speak English and say this is what China must imitate if it, too, is to be a great nation. Scary.