Americans Suck

I took this picture on my way to class tonight. As you can see I was in a very fancy mall. I mentioned this in a previous post, but now I understand it a bit better. You can't not go to malls in HK. You have to walk through malls to get where you need to go. They are integrated with the subway system and are basically like normal sidewalks. This is how you cram so much capitalism into such a small place.

Class tonight was really bad. Some of my American exchange student colleagues have a tendency to put ignorance on display. I find myself often embarrassed by a complete lack of sensitivity and courtesy. I experienced this on my trip to China last Spring as well. It seems some American people are incapable of acting like guests.

For example..

During a lecture about the developmental history of China, the prof asked us with a smirk if we had ever heard of Kung Pao chicken. The French guy was lost, but all of us Americans surely had. The prof went on to explain that Kung Pao was a Chinese explorer in the 15th century who traveled around the world on behalf of the emperor. After a trip to Africa, it was decided that his travel was too expensive and that China, as the richest country on earth, basically had no need for the outside world. Thus began a 400 year period of isolationism from which China awoke to find itself no longer an economic superpower compared to Western countries.

As the professor began to talk about the events that shook China from this isolationist state, namely the opium wars with Britain, the American kid from UCLA Anderson raised his had and actually asked:

"Who was General Tso?"