Americans Act American, Even in China
If only American newspapers knew about me. Not for a job or anything like that. But every so often there is a story in one of these papers about an American who finds a way to keep in touch the homeland. Whether it’s eating at China’s first Applebee’s (already conquered) or listening to live blues music or blowing 75RMB on a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, there are certain things that American expats do on a regular basis that allow them to forget for a while that they live in Communist China. And while these things are necessary to the American expat’s psychological well-being, I’m not sure if these things would qualify as news.
As you might know, the baseball playoffs have begun. In Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, there is a feature story about two Cubs fans who flocked to Big Bamboo on Shanghai’s Nanyang Lu early in the morning to watch the Cubs lose and try to regain some of the normalcy of watching the Cubs lose back in Chicago. These news stories always get horribly sappy and mimic those heartwarming stories of refugees finding some semblance of normalcy in their place of refuge.
The point is, who cares about Americans in Shanghai or anywhere else in China going to watch a baseball game? It’s 2007. The world is flat. What self-respecting baseball fan in Shanghai wouldn’t go watch their team’s playoff games? We have sports bars and satellite dishes, albeit illegal ones, and internet streaming. This isn’t 1945, where in a world without internet and satellite video, maybe seeing a Cubs game in China really would be remarkable. I understand it’s kind of neat for a Chicago newspaper to find two Cubs fans sitting in an old Shanghai hooker bar at 10am and report on how the misery felt by Cubs fans spans the globe, but this isn’t anything new or remarkable. For a while now I’ve been sitting in these same bars early in the morning watching my teams play live along with every other American sports fan living in Shanghai who gives a shit.
The Tribune presumes that we Americans are Chinese loyalists living in some small village on the bank of the Yangtze. If that were the case, then a news story might be in order. But this is not the case. We are just Americans in one the world’s most modern cities. Many of us work for American companies. We have internet connections and illegal satellite dishes with CNN and ESPN and the Tyra Banks Show. Just because we don’t live in America, doesn’t mean we renounce everything we loved back home. And some of the time, distance makes the heart grow fonder for the things we enjoyed back home. I still like Cherry Garcia, Muddy Waters and a good deep-fried appetizer sampler. But most of all, when it’s October, whether in Shanghai or America, it’s about baseball.
•Chicago Tribune: In China, Cubs Fans Smoke, Drink and Fume
Did you happen to catch the Yankee’s playoff games? How do the bugs at the Jake compare to those in China?
Oh hell yeah!! I don’t give a rat’s ass about those two miserable Cubs fans, Sox fans or even you self-appointed marteryrs posing as Michigan fans (sorry Flumesy). If you live in ANY other country as an expat and require some sense of “normalcy” through sports or whatever, ask yourself why the hell you are there in the first place. It’s not just a paycheck. Anyone who moves continents for their career (and even takes their family with them) is a special breed. And while this breed is often happy to pay $10 US for a fresh Haagen-Dasz pint, many of us have families and gave up any activity in a bar after 1:00 many, many years ago.