How would you feel if this Chinese guy delayed your flight by 7 hours? Everyone else obeyed the TSA rules except for this one guy
Posted by Neuro421
January 09, 2010, 9:46AM
I know this guy personally. He’s my labmate’s roommate. Not that I’m defending his actions or anything, but he was probably just over-excited to see his fiancee coming in from overseas for the first time and was just using the wrong “head” to think with.
The man is from China, where most of the citizens (even educated ones) still have an ingrained disregard/disrespect for rule of law. For example, in the US no one sane would dare argue with a security officer for something like this since they have no patience for BS and will arrest you on the spot. US residents have learned over the decades that the law is to be respected, or else...
Over in China, arguments with police officers and security guards is and commonplace, and people usually think they will just get a slap on the wrist or can bribe their way out of trouble. Unless its a serious offense that is stereotyped in the chinese mindset (murder, drunk driving, smuggling heroin, etc) chinese people don’t care much about committing ‘minor infractions’ such as crossing a restricted zone in an airport.
There is much more paranoia over terrorism here in the US. We have a heterogeneous population of all races that makes it hard to spot suspicious people without racial profiling. In China, because of the racial homogeneity, there is much less paranoia over these things because there is a belief that trouble makers come in the foreign variety that make them easy to spot. Therefore, airport security issues are perceived of as less of a threat.
Haisong did something stupid, but its really because of a cultural misunderstanding more than anything else. He just had to learn the hard way that in US, things are done differently than back home.
...to think I used to warn him and his roommates about this very sort of thing, and he still manages to pull this kind of crap and get arrested. Somebody’s gonna get a lot of ball-busting when they get out of jail.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2010/01/haisong_jiang_newark_airport_s/2080/comments-2.html