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Americans are paranoid--with good reason
Shanghai Star ^ | 06/15/02 | Elyse Singleton

Posted on 06/15/2002 7:36:33 AM PDT by Enemy Of The State

Americans are paranoid--with good reason

By Elyse Singleton, Shanghai Star. 2002-06-13

I am on holiday in California. It is my first trip to the USA since I moved to China nine months ago. It is all a little odd.

I have been struck by the paranoia. It seems each person is suspicious of the next one.

One afternoon at a children's pool, while minding the clothes and towels of my friends as they swam with their young son, I was eyed with suspicion by the other parents.

Last night, my friend would not allow his wife and a female friend to go down to their outside garage on their own. My friend, who is a reasonable man, calls the police on what seems a regular basis to complain of fighting in the streets. People are afraid of each other.

Fear of litigation means that signs prevail. Streets are blocked off with "do not enter" or warnings that unusual activities will be reported to the police. Signs on private property warning people not to rattle the gate when closing or that soliciting is unwelcome give off a scent of hostility. Everyone has burglar alarms.

In the workplace, people do not joke for fear of giving offence. America has lost its sense of humour.

Race relations, or the lack thereof, do not help. Black and white pass each other in the street as if they were not there at all. Although official segregation was outlawed in the last century, in many respects it still exists in an unwritten, unspoken form.

It is unsettling to drive past a weapons store and realize that it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun. My friends tell me that in their area, there is a shooting nearly every week. They share tales of neighbours burgled at gunpoint. Turn on the television and you are assailed with tales of abducted children and murder.

Since September 11, this paranoia has increased. Before boarding a flight to America, hand luggage is x-rayed and searched. The president is setting up a department to oversee all intelligence and security bureaux. A new form of xenophobia has arisen.

Ask any person in the street how they are and the reply will be a cheery assurance that all is fine. The weather is sunny, and middle-class America has the ability and the money to live well. However, give me a country where I can cycle home at night without fear.

else_7@hotmail.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
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To: TiaS
It is interesting to hear how America is viewed from another perspective.

In this case it is a perspective from someone prosecuting America, not through the eyes of G_d Ok!

21 posted on 06/15/2002 8:25:29 AM PDT by lavaroise
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To: RedWhiteBlue
On the airport security thing and a couple of other points, I don't see eye to eye with the writer (such as on Second Ammendment). But I can see and understand some others she made in her quick piece.

The reprehensible treatment in US stateside airline security of those who CLEARLY our outside the profile of our enemy, Radical Islamists, is something I have never seen nor endured in Asia when traveling. The country has become too uptight about some things and is not zeroing in on the real targets to our safety and paranoia is fogging our thinking and Machiavellian strategy, IMHO. It is all bound up in bullshit liberal-infected US Political Correctness if you ask me.

22 posted on 06/15/2002 8:25:55 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: Enemy Of The State
It is unsettling to drive past a weapons store and realize that it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun

Such is the mindset of asians, asian immigrants, and the children of asian immigrants. The more that we let into this country, the more that will be voting against gun ownership. If you want to know why Kalifornia has the restrictions on personal freedoms that it does, just look at how many asian and hispanic voter there are there now.

23 posted on 06/15/2002 8:26:14 AM PDT by waterstraat
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To: Enemy Of The State
It is unsettling to drive past a weapons store and realize that it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun.

Then the author should get her ass back to China.

24 posted on 06/15/2002 8:26:20 AM PDT by MileHi
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To: DreamWeaver
I hope she doesn't plan on having a family, she better check with the govt on just HOW MANY she will be allowed.

Yeah, they don't have a gun to stop those forcepts indeed! They might as well let snakes crawl up their bellies.

25 posted on 06/15/2002 8:26:35 AM PDT by lavaroise
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To: Enemy Of The State
She has gone 'native' and has apparently lost the ability to speak English. She writes like her mother tongue is Chinese, which, evidently, it is.

--Boris

26 posted on 06/15/2002 8:28:07 AM PDT by boris
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To: goodieD
You are honest about problems that infect the US and create paranoia and disgust. This has all creeped up in the last 20 years or so. You are honest and dont just blindly wave a flag yelling USA USA USA, but see where the liberal-inspired problems that are ruining American come from. Sometimes, one sees this more clearly when leaving the US for a year or two and coming back to see the further decay wrought by PC liberals in govt and in the media who lord it over the lives of the mass who don't want this nonsense and garbage.
27 posted on 06/15/2002 8:29:31 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: All
Go Girl, just GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
28 posted on 06/15/2002 8:30:50 AM PDT by cousair
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To: Enemy Of The State
When's the next flight back to China? Let's make sure this guy doesn't miss it.
29 posted on 06/15/2002 8:33:53 AM PDT by MissAmericanPie
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To: waterstraat
Japanese I know LOVE shooting guns when they go to California or Hawaii. That's sometimes the first thing they want to do after getting of JAL and ANA at the airport. I saw Asians all over the place having fun with AK-47s and M-16s at an automatic weapons shooting range in Nevada a few years back.

I am not sure that Asians and Hispanics, after a few years (and particularly if in high crime areas) don't go out and buy themselves a little 'piece of the action' once they have settled in to the US for awhile. I don't think they will necessarily vote anti-gun rights.

30 posted on 06/15/2002 8:36:11 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: Enemy Of The State
My e-mail to the author:

Please stay in China with the "Leader" and "people" that "come" as they repeatedly watch the WTC videos.

Peddle as fast as you can, but if "push comes to shove", you can't out bicycle a US ICBM, SLBM, etc.

Even with Klinton's help, China is still a "target rich environment"!

BTW, we've been to the moon...it sucks. But maybe it's a good repository for unwanted dead baby girls. Your rivers must be getting full.
31 posted on 06/15/2002 8:46:01 AM PDT by CaptSkip
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To: AmericanInTokyo
A few months back there was an editorial in the local paper here about a Japanese foreign exchange student that was taken in by one of the host families here and when asked what are some of the things that he has enjoyed the most during his stay, he replied "learning how to shoot a gun".
32 posted on 06/15/2002 8:49:28 AM PDT by Enemy Of The State
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To: Enemy Of The State
Welllllllllll, yes and no.

I know the feelings shared by the author even though I haven't been back in 15 years.

China felt a LOT safer to me. Of course petty theivery and other things along with rampant corruption were and probably are enormous problems.

However, being lofty guest teachers in an out of the way city . . . everyone in town virtually--that saw foreigners at all--knew who I was or at least where I belonged. I tried to be in the guard-watched gate by 23:00 every night so I wouldn't bother the guard. Besides, I didn't care to incur his wrath nor worry the security bureau that I was up to something they wouldn't like.

But I felt very safe at any hour of the day or night. . . until Tienanmen. . . when friends said they were concerned that some foreigner might be killed as the gov was stirring up anti-American feelings and my friends didn't want some joker trying to get a promotion to do me in.

Even then, a number of incredibly loving and sacrificial people would have died to protect me. I have no doubt of that. Of course, I'd demonstrated over 2 years all the love I could in as many ways as I could. Still, I haven't found Americans THAT loving or sacrificial to someone they'd known such a relatively short time. Many of these people had been through the Cultural Revolution and knew the costs of being on the wrong side of political winds.

I'm glad the U.S. is culturally diverse. But there's a stiff price to pay when that also includes a wide diversity on what is BASICALLY RIGHT AND WRONG. And when BILLDO AND SHRILLERY'S farce for values is acted out by anyone with means and anger enough--there is and will be "hell to pay."

At some point evidently not too distant, all the Billdo's and Shrillery's will pay dearly. The rest of us will to if we haven't already cashed in our personalized chits offered at The Cross.

33 posted on 06/15/2002 8:52:38 AM PDT by Quix
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To: cubreporter
I'm finally at peace about returning to the States to help my step-dad with my Alzheimer's mother.

But if it weren't for the conviction that God has ordered the move and will bless it, I'd be most upset. (A) I love the people in Taipei dearly.

But (B), I feel rather apprehensive about the sanity, not to mention safety of life in the U.S. I realize God is a big God and well able to protect me during Tienanmen riots or whatever, wherever. But IF I were depending on the social fabric and cultural sanity to protect me in the U.S., I think I'd be very uptight about moving back.

The good old U.S. of A. ceased being the GOOD OLD a number of years ago . . . What it will become remains to be seen. The cultural wars have yet to get really nasty. They will.

34 posted on 06/15/2002 8:56:43 AM PDT by Quix
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To: AmericanInTokyo
I agree with your sentiments. I believe America's materialistic, media-driven culture is the cause. It sounds much like the atmosphere of Russia after it's Bolshevik revolution. Except in that instance I believe the materialism was fueled by starvation and dire need, not greed. We are all human beings. Human nature changes very slowly thru the millenia.

We should treat each other with dignity, compassion and respect reflecting the decency we believe we maintain. We should turn our backs upon the influences and forces which would tempt us to turn away from one another. That in itself will go a long way in diminishing the fear of evil.

35 posted on 06/15/2002 9:03:15 AM PDT by Justa
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36 posted on 06/15/2002 9:03:50 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Quix
Having worked and studied at length overseas and visiting nearly 48 countries I can say I take maybe 60% of what the writer wrote. The other % I cannot take seemed to be a whiny, strident liberal Democrat talking. It is odd, though. I come at it from a conservative position, and she would come at it from a liberal perspective. Similiar sentiments in some areas.

But contrary to her, perhaps, I credit the decay and problems precisely to her school of thought, liberalism.

It was interesting to leave the USA "bubble" for some time (a year or two does it), to return with a fresh perspective and you start to see things you did not understand or appreciate about America that were right under your nose.

I think one of my friends expressed it best: you become so much more appreciative of the GOOD things about America that you missed, and you become some much more virulent in disgust about the BAD things about America that you did not have to put up with during your stint overseas and which jump out at you in contrast upon your return. It kind of sharpens your emotions on both ends of the sword I 'spose. You CANNOT get this from a two week or one month trip culturally isolated in a Hilton (nor, never going off base into the local areas if on a military or diplomatic post overseas)!!

I would however have an unfathomable time ever sticking up for the Govt. of Red China on anything, but I can imagine sticking up for the Chinese who are an incredibly great people, whether they are in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China or San Francisco.

37 posted on 06/15/2002 9:04:21 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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To: Republic If You Can Keep It
This explains the constant flow of desperate American immigrants into China.

LOL Incisive! Welcome to Free Republic.

38 posted on 06/15/2002 9:12:12 AM PDT by Smile-n-Win
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To: Enemy Of The State
It is unsettling to drive past a weapons store and realize that it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun.

Without a trace of irony, I assume she feels safe if only the government has guns, even in light of the Tiananamen massacre.

39 posted on 06/15/2002 9:12:18 AM PDT by tdadams
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To: tdadams
"It is reassuring to drive past a weapons store and realize that it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun."

What probably would have gone thru MY mind as I drove past (after a few months in China).....Interest how 'expats' can have a different perspective but shared experiences.

40 posted on 06/15/2002 9:24:16 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
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