#101 “Insider” and “outsider” perspectives

Preparation

• Read:
  • John Pomfret, “In Search of the Real China: Outsiders Still See What They Want to See,” in Foreign Affairs (November/December 2013), 148-54.

Personal reflection

Create a Google Drive folder for this class entitled “SS412” followed by your family name. For example, if Joe Wong was enrolled in this course, the folder would be called “SS412 Wong.” Once the folder is created, share it with Mr. Hall (jhall@hotchkiss.org). Create a document within that folder called “Journal” to respond to the following two prompts:

• Think of a situation or a time in your life when you were the “outsider.” If you have had the experience of visiting or living in another country, that would be the ideal instance to reflect upon. However, you might also reflect on a point in which you found yourself in a context surrounded by people of a different race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or other category that led you to feel like an outsider. In your reflection:
  • Very briefly describe the context (when it was, who were the “insiders” you encountered, what it was that made you feel there was a gap between you as an “outsider” and the “insiders,” where you were, why you were there, and how you got there).
  • Explain what you might have understood that the “insiders” might not have been able to perceive about the group.
  • Explain what your “outsider” status might have prevented you from understanding about the group that the “insiders” might have understood.

• Think of a situation or time in your life in which you were the “insider.” If you have had the experience of spending a fairly long period of time around someone from another country visiting your home, that would be the ideal instance to reflect upon. However, you might also reflect on a point in which you found yourself in a context in which one person -- or a small number of people -- of a different race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or other “outsider” category spent a fairly long period of time with you and your group. In your reflection:
  • Very briefly describe the context (when it was, who were the “outsider” you encountered, what it was that made you feel there was a gap between you and those “outsiders,” where you were, why were the “outsiders” there, and how did they get there).
  • Explain what you might have understood that the “outsiders” might not have been able to perceive about the group.
  • Explain what your “insider” status might have prevented you from understanding about the group that might have been accessible to the “outsiders.”

Pomfret discussion

This text is an example of an excellent long-form book review, known sometimes as a review essay. John Pomfret is an American-born writer who has spent extensive time in China and published, most recently, a history of Sino-U.S. relations, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. (Henry Holt and Co., 2016).

We’ll use it as a jumping off point to consider the following questions:

• What is the “real” or “authentic” China? What might, say, tourists seek out in trying to discover the “real” China -- why would they scoff at stopping by a Starbucks or an Apple Store in Beijing? How might their goals be different than ours?
• What is a “China watcher”? Why might they be particularly prone to “disillusion and nostalgia,” as Pomfret suggests?
• In light of our discussion about “insiders” and “outsiders,” what is significant about some of the conclusions reached by Western scholars of China. Pomfret lists several of these, including:
  • that China was hardly “unchanging” or “passive” before its encounter with the West,
  • that China was in fact an expansionist power in Central Asia (and elsewhere?) at various points in its history,
  • that life might not have been entirely awful before the success of the Communist revolution in 1949, and
  • that Westerners sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded in leaving a lasting impact on China.
• What might it mean to suggest that China is…
  • Feminine: “strangely alluring” with “haughty detachment” and “mesmerizing impenetrability and unpossessability.”
  • “An exclusive club . . . unsullied by Westernization.”
• How do our metrics change the way we see China?
  • Why does it matter if we compare it to India or the United States?
  • Why is it important if our starting point is 1978 or 2017?
• What do you think is an appropriate stance for Americans to take toward China?
  • A “missionary spirit,” i.e. altruism?
  • Self-interest?
  • Some other approach?

Homework: #102