Wall Street Journal and Election '08

I try to keep up with the news in the US by reading what sources I can online. One of the articles I read today about the elections regarding race bothered me... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044560487392853.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. I mean, I know that its just a commentary, but I think that the stance that the writer takes is a bit extreme. I think people are sensitive about race for a good reason, and the writer simply writes it off.

I don't think there is anything wrong with what Hillary said, and I agree that people are making a big deal out of nothing, but when the author states that

"To be able to hold in one's mind the notion that Mrs. Clinton would attack King suggests a bone-deep hypersensitivity that overrides sequential reasoning. "We have to be very, very careful how we speak about that era," Rep. Clyburn explains.
But why so very, very careful? What effect does it have on anyone's life if that era is occasionally discussed in less than perfectly genuflective phraseology?... There is a willful frailty, a lack of self-confidence, in this kind of thinking. It suggests someone almost searching for things to claim injury about, donning the mantle of the noble victim in order to assuage a bruised ego."

I agree with McWhorter that the reaction is a reflection of insecurity, but contrary to his suggestions, I believe that these insecurities are not unreasonable. or unfounded Racism is a sensitive topic because of the history behind it, and because people continue to experience racism and other forms of discrimination on a daily basis. It is because of racist and discriminatory experiences that minorities encounter in nearly every aspect of life that they develop a sensitivity to this issue. I don't think people "don the mantle of noble victim" if they haven't been discriminated against in their personal lives. People only become sensitive to such issues (and in some cases, hypersenstive) only when they have been impacted by discrimination, and such a reaction shouldn't be so easily written off. It is unrealistic to believe that racism is a resolved issue when the civil rights movement only occurred less than 50 years ago, and such a reaction is only an indicator that much more progress is to be made in this arena.

Girls' Locker Room

I went to work out a couple of weeks ago, and I've been wanting to write about it ever since. I went to Bally Fitness (not very Chinese, I know), but the rest of the experience was! Since the gym was members only, I waited for the tour guide to come out to give me a tour of the gym. The membership fee is 5000 RMB / year, which is about 700 dollars, which is more than an average american would pay at a normal gym in the US. The gym is 3 floors: the first floor is the pool, the second floor is the locker room, offices, and juice bar, and the third floor is the workout area.

But what I really wanted to write about was the girls locker room. You have to go through the locker room to get to the rest of the gym, and my first walk through the locker room was a shock. I have never seen so many naked people in one place in my life. I guess the American culture is very conscious of nakedness, more so that other countries. Countries in Europe or Japan for example, are much more comfortable with the birthday suit, or at least that is my impression. But I never would have thought I would see so much nudity in a conservative culture like China. It makes sense though, there are public baths, and the genders are generally split up. The girls in the locker room were completely comfortable. I mean, drying their hair naked, putting on lotion naked, and simply just prancing around without any clothes. It didn't matter the body shape - tall, skinny, short, fata, everyone was just comfortable. I think in America, there are more self image issues - we are afraid of what others will think of our bodies, and no one ever thinks that their body is perfect, and it was strange yet nice to be in an atmosphere where everyone was comfortable whith who they were. I'm just not sure I can do the same as them...

New Years

In Chinese, we say "Xin nian kuai le, wan shi ru yi", which means Happy New Year, and may 10,000 things go well. So, happy new year everyone, and I hope that you were able to spend it with the people you love, and may all your wishes and resolutions come true!

It was my second New Year in Shanghai; I was there on vacation for 2007, but I wouldn't have guessed that I'd be in the same place at the same time in 2008. I missed and thought about my family and close friends that are halfway across the globe, but I was grateful for my Shanghainese family and some new and old friends that I have met here in China.