How much can Americans know of China

Foreigners who have never set foot on the Chinese soil might have only a blurred impression on China, a distant land lying beyond and far away from their own home. They can hardly form a realistic mind picture of China's politics, economy and culture.

Yin Weizhi, a lecturer of School of Journalism and Transmission at China University of Political Science and Law, went to the U.S during the 29th Beijing Olympics working as a visiting scholar in the University of North Carolina . She later published an article depicting her experiences accumulated from her two-month stay in the U.S, during which she reached out to communicate with the local people and, as a scholar on journalism, she also closely observed the strange land and viewed from the perspective of a foreigner anything that is going on there.

First impression

The Beijing Olympics spurred curiosity among the ordinary Americans toward China, and those who have been to China proved more friendly to the Chinese.

I set out to the U.S on the eighth day following the Olympic opening ceremony, and the Beijing Olympics were of course the top issue on my mind then. Before departure, I glued my eyes onto TV screen as long as time permitted, and intoxicated by the exciting competitions like all my other fellow Chinese.

But to my dismay, the campus of the UNC was so quietly sitting in a dense wood, and in a violent contrast with the sea of cheers and applauses set up in any sporting scene back at home. I kept busy settling down, trying to get accustomed to my new life as soon as possible and waiting patiently for the start of the new term.

Also to my great pleasure, when the new term finally set in, almost all the professors at UNC asked me with intense interest about the Beijing Olympics once they knew I came from the host city. Some of them highly touted the splendor of the Olympic opening ceremony, and there were many others expressing their curiosity and recognition at the mention of Beijing and China.

I got lost on my first day wondering in the labyrinth of buildings and trying to find my classroom, when a young man approached to me. I asked him for directions, but unluckily he had no idea himself, so he went to others for help and showed me to the classroom. Before I blurted out 'thank you', he took off his shirt showing before my eyes a T-Shirt with 'Fudan University' printed in Chinese characters. I always feel the warmth in my mind whenever I think of the anecdote.

He also told me he just came back from Shanghai and two years before he had been to Hangzhou, Xiamen and Hong Kong, and he got to learn about China and the Chinese culture through travel. Many of his friends, he said, take strong interest in China, and want to learn more about the country and its people.
In actuality, Journalism School of UNC keeps on good terms with China. It sent 32 interns to Beijing during the Olympics to help polish English articles for some Chinese websites and interviewed athletes in the venues. I heard two of them had planned a permanent stay in Beijing. For the duration of lecture hours, I could see some pretty American girls clad in the T-shirt on which the Chinese characters 'I have reached the Great Wall' are printed in colors and sitting proudly in the classroom, which made me feel so good at the moment.

Second impression

Some of the local media were still producing biased and even mistaken reports on China, but only one third of the interviewees could utter at most three Chinese public figures in a random survey.

When the Beijing Olympics drew near to the conclusion, I noticed a good few of American newspapers and magazines combined the Olympic success with the striking problems in existence in present China when reporting on the sports event, and issues such as environmental protection, energy and food safety were often mentioned in their coverage of Beijing Olympics. A professor teaching us Professional Ethics of Journalism used to inform me that much of the negative reporting in the U.S on China is attributed to the fact that the Westerners, especially those who have never been to China, still keep in mind some well-rooted prejudice against China, and the Beijing Olympics would possibly smash some of these hard line biases, but cannot remove them completely off people's mind. Some of the prejudices, once formed, could die hard.

I was new to the U.S, so I could hardly feel the acute pain suffered by a Chinese from the slanting reports on China by some Western media. Many of the overseas Chinese students just told me that they seldom watched the TV programs covering China in the years when they remained in the U.S. 'Too much bias, even sheer lies, makes me feel bad,' remarked a Chinese couple studying in the U.S.

I quickly found the answer myself by watching a TV program, in which the reporter made a random survey on the famous Wall Street to show how much the ordinary Americans know of China and the Chinese people, although the Wall Street seems to be no ideal place for such a survey, as people working there, mostly well-educated, can by no means represent ordinary Americans.

The results, however, really shocked me a lot. Nearly 1/3 of the interviewees faltered and shook their heads, and another 1/3 reluctantly murmured out 'Mao Zedong', and only 1/3 of the interviewees could speak out the names of three Chinese public figures when asked to name at least three Chinese public figures either in modern or in ancient times.

When asked to identify China's location in the map, also only 1/3 of them could give a correct answer. Some of them even mistook in the map the location of Japan, Mid-east, and even Siberia or even Africa as where China lies.

Third impression

The ordinary Americans are actually open-minded to 'a true China,' and therefore the communication with the West need multi-channels and take various forms of expression.

A UNC librarian named Barbara once asked me for help in her Chinese translation of an uncommon profession—cyber reporter, perhaps out of curiosity, she suddenly asked me, 'by the way, do you have cyber reporters in China?' I said 'yes' and added 'more of them in China than in the U.S.' She opened her eyes wide with the look which is conspicuously interpreted as 'unbelievable.' I told her she could find it herself if she had chance to visit China one day.

I could not help but conclude from my own experiences that trying to bridge the communicative gap with the other cultural realm, people need to abandon conditioning and bias, put their feet in others' shoes, and more important, think from the perspective of others. Only when the obstacles in perception are removed can communication go smooth as expected.

By People's Daily Online