Before that, a little prefacing.

First, I actually know you personally from back in the high school days. The connection there was that my family was one of those who took in Bolivian students, and Javier Salinas and I are still close friends. Also, my sister Margaret was on the lacrosse team, and I was a semi-frequent spectator at the games. That we would both end up in China is one of those surprising, but not altogether unhappy, coincidences. It’s good to know that I’m not the only member of the B-X community who’s found their way over here.

Secondly, I’m now working for City Weekend in Beijing, so thanks for reading! My current boss is actually B-X class of 2000 (I find it easier just to tell people here that we went to the same high school than to go through the whole runaround of explaining what exactly B-X is, so I usually just tell people we went to the same high school). So yeah, happy coincidences all around.

Anyway, enough prefacing. About your entries. I think the proper way to frame what I’m going to say next is to let you know that my first reaction upon reading your Responsible Tourism post was “Who the hell does she think she is?” That was about a month ago, when you first posted it, so I’m over it now. However, the fact that that was my initial reaction is important, for reasons I’ll explain below.

Essentially, after thinking about this entry for a month, and turning over in my head all the different ways to look at it, I can only conclude that you’re 100% right in correcting all the transgressions you listed in your Responsible Tourism post. The behaviors exhibited by any number of people here are not suitable for an industrialized environment where people are stacked one on top of the other and share spaces that must be kept clean to be enjoyed by all. Such behaviors often reek (sometimes literally) of a lack of consideration towards other people’s well-being and sense of decency, and deserve nothing other than the appropriate reprimand. That you’ve taken it upon yourself to do so is courageous and praise-worthy.

However, to the statement “you’re right”, I can’t help but affix the inevitable “but”. I say this because your message, which is both eminently fair and badly needed, is wrapped up in a presentation that is at times so insolent as to be infuriating. Basically, while the message is all right, the tone is all wrong. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve our last face-to-face interaction, and I don’t have any idea how you actually look or sound when you’re correcting the fellow spitting on the street, or throwing his popsicle wrapper on the ground, or cutting his toenails on the train, or peeing by the side of the road, or smoking in a confined space, or taking way too long at the ATM, or pushing in line, or cutting pedestrians off with their bike or car, or any one of the dozens of other behaviors that you’ve documented in detail, and which drive most westerners here nuts. All I have to go on is what you’ve written on the blog, and as you’ve presented yourself and your methods here, it doesn’t sound like you’re approaching your educational project from a position of humility, but rather from a mindset of superiority.

I know that statement might seem paradoxical at first glance. What is education at its core, after all, but the transmission of knowledge from one with a superior quantity of it to one whose knowledge is lacking? To that I can only offer that I’ve always had my best educational experiences with teachers who’ve made learning feel like a collaborative process of discovery, and some of my most frustrating with those who’ve cast themselves as unassailable authorities on their subject matter. Perhaps this is why the parents on the boat mocked you instead of taking to heart what you had said. Your only weapon in the fight against such behavior is shame, and in provoking their anger, you awoke the enemy of shame everywhere.

As an aside, I find it ironic that I would say something like “tone and presentation of a message are just as important as its content”, because it’s something I all too often fail to exhibit in my own life (maybe I’m even making the same mistake in how I’ve addressed you in this comment. The fact that I’m often largely tonedeaf as to how my words are perceived is one of my biggest failings). I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just me feeling these things about these entries, though, so I showed them a couple friends and family, and their initial reactions largely mirrored my own.

One of the people I showed it to was my girlfriend, who was born and raised in Beijing. I wanted to get her reaction on it, and I think she had something to say that’s important for how you write future entries. When you say “the Chinese do . . .” and then proceed to list a series of repulsive behaviors, you lump the Chinese folks who are guilty of such acts together with all those who wouldn’t dream of doing such things, and who are just as put off by them as you are. My girlfriend wasn’t but one paragraph into your Responsible Tourism entry when she said “I don’t do this! My mom doesn’t do this, and she doesn’t let anyone in my family do this!” Making sure to point out that these kinds of things aren’t universal could go a long way towards softening the tone of your entries, and lessening the ire directed your way.

As one final Responsible Tourism-related note, the lady mentioned in the City Weekend article that we both evidently read with such interest didn’t scold people verbally, but gave them cards instead. Maybe something worth considering.

One other observation, and then I’ll give it a rest. There’s been a steady negative drift in your blog entries over the past couple months. Compared with what you wrote when you first fired up the blog, the tone and content of a number of recent entries have been strongly negative. I have no idea what’s been going on in your life outside the Interweb, but if I were to judge solely from what you’ve written here, I would guess that China fatigue is beginning to set in. Are there aspects of life in China unrelated to how some Chinese people do things that annoy you that you feel are worth relating? I’d love to hear about them on your blog.