The Sand Bar

I suppose the North Pole can be excluded from the sour global economy because Santa operates through magic, not through the laws of supply and demand and economics. But with the recession here in the U.S. causing Black-Friday injuries and stampede-deaths, all eyes are on consumer spending through this 2008 holiday season. The contributing writers at the New York Times are already indicating lower sales numbers, suggesting the magnitude of the financial crisis that seems not even Mr. Claus is immune to. But I have faith in the American people.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as that old popular mantra goes, and in today’s sad state of the economy, it seems the tough are going to dscount scores like Wal-Mart to grab their stocking-stuffers. After all, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Coincidentally, I just so happened to finish my holiday shopping a few minutes ago, and although I won’t report on exactly how much I spent or where I shopped at, I will say that the thought of the recession and all its woesome fears affected me not in the slightest as I decided on which color sweater would look best on Dad. But I supposed I’m in the minority on this one.

Independent surveys have shown Americans plan to increase their average holiday spending this year by a slim 1.6%, despite consumer buying-power up 5% since 2007. Call it mentality; Americans are simply afraid to spend in this gloomy market. But spending is exactly what we need to jumpstart our economy and right its wheels again. History has also showed that when the going gets tough, the tough get cheap. In the recession of 1991, research companies reported 51% of people planned to spend less than they had the prior year, which lays claims to this year’s estimated low numbers. In addition, the reported fourth quarter retail sales during the holiday season in 1991 was a dismal +0.08% increase. Clearly, we retailers should be doing all they can to prepare themselves for what just might be a Scrooge fourth-quarter. Not even the Grinch would want to steal this sort of Christmas.

Gary Langer provides a great analysis of past, present, and projected consumer spending with regards to the holiday seasons on the ABC news website, here.

It’s always easier to blame another for your own mistakes than it is to blame yourself. The tension between Russia and the United States is a result of this back-and-forth blaming game that needs to end before any sort of diplomacy can take place. Cathy Young attributes the tensions to “anti-american sentiment”, a “perceived threat to Russian security”, and Russia’s “post-cold war humiliation”. Although these are certainly contributions to the tension, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are the primary cause.

Young seems to imply that if Russians would just one day stop hating America, that the state of our fragile relationship would be fixed. In the short term, this may be true, but after many years, we would find ourselves once again bickering over who’s to blame.

The cause of our tension is more fundamental. The West has never really taken the time to understand Eastern culture, and likewise for the East. I’ve never personally been to Russia, but I have been to China and Ukraine. In both of those countries, life is much different than over here in the States. The consumer mindset of buy, buy, buy does not exist in China and Ukraine to the same extent that it exists in the US. In the Ukrainian households that I stayed at while I visited the country, their clothes, furniture, and overall decor were fascinatingly simple, clean, and gave me a sense of purity. The families all seemed to take so much pride in their belongings, giving me a sense that they were deeply appreciative of everything they had. In America, I feel like that sense of pride and appreciation is somewhat lost. Bombared by television ads and water-cooler chats about the latest gadgets and electronics, we have become an unsatiable monster, constantly desiring the latest and greatest to come out of the factories.

It’s easy to see how Easterners would think of us as greedy. What they fail to understand, though, is that our consumerist mindset is derived from our capitalist economy and democratic government, and is thus interwoven into our American culture. They fail to realize that our economy is built on the masses buying goods and services. Even though we are perhaps the most consumerist society in the world, we are also at the same time the greatest, most powerful driving force of any economy. In what other country does money exchange hands at the magnitude and the rate that it does here in America? Wealth, therefore, is not accumulated in the hands of a few, but is created, and circulated amongst the hands of many. Because of this, we as a country are able to have higher standards of living than many other countries.

Young postulates that the result of the economic downturn in Russia after the cold war resulted in an inferiority complex toward the West. She sites a few poll numbers that paint the picture that Russians collectively desire an American way of life. I disagree. Young didn’t cite the exact poll questions, so they could have been worded in a way to favor an American perspective. I think what the polls really meant were that Russians would prefer a safer, more economically stable Russia, not a Russia-that-pretends-to-be-America. Like I said before, the Ukrainians I met were immensely proud in their belongings. Likewise, they were also immensely proud of their heritage. In the rural sunflower town of Yalta, it was hard to find anybody that wanted to uproot and move to America. Ukraine was their home, and they were proud of it, even if they didn’t have fifty-inch plasma TV’s hanging off their walls.

It’s so easy for Americans to assume that everybody wants to be like us. But instead of pushing our own political agendas on the world, trying to convert every country we encounter into a poorly-emulated version of ourselves (Iraq comes to mind), we should be more understanding of foreign culture and help them help themselves. Like Obama once said during his past campaign, “We should lead by the power of our example, not by the example of our power.”

The other day I was walking past the Sundial with my friend Beaker where draped in in front of the fountain hung a bunch of international flags all in a line. I wanted to try a little social experiment, so I pointed ambiguously to the line of flags and said to him, “Hey, there’s my flag.” He looked at me and said, “Oh, you mean the Chinese one?” And I said to him, “No, I mean the American one.”

Whenever people talk about ‘racial tension’, it’s always in regard to blacks. It seems like the country has just simply forgotten about the struggles of the other two major minorities that live here, hispanics and asians. Asians have been around since the beginning, migrating from China, Japan, and Korea to seek a better life and opportunity, just like all the other immigrants that came here. Why is it, then, that even after all these years, we still find it hard to become accepted into American society? The best example I can think of is the Irish. America experienced a mass migration of Irish in the mid 1800’s. The Irish population was at first ill-treated, bearing the brunt of the Industrial Revolution, working in factories for ridiculously low wages and terrible environments. Americans commonly treated the Irish as criminals and scum of the streets. There was once a saying, “Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place.”

But the Irish remained fiercely loyal to America; they pulled together, organized Irish towns, even fought in the Civil War. Soon after, they were able to assimilate into American mainstream society. They even got their own holiday: St. Patrick’s Day.

The Jews, Slavs, and Italians all had their respective turns at being the low-rung on the American hierarchy of respect, but over time have steadily risen to find their place in American culture. I feel that the Chinese, on the other hand, have not found their place. My friend Beaker, when he thought I meant the Chinese flag, meant no offense of course, but still I felt offended anyway. I felt like he was labeling me as something of an outsider, like I wasn’t really an American, but a Chinese man living in America.

It’s in part, I think, our own fault that we have failed to climb the social ladder. Our eastern culture prescribes that we lower our heads to our superiors, we keep our opinions to ourselves, and we never boast or brag or claim credit for anything. We are taught from the very beginning to hold everybody higher than ourselves. This is all good and fine; humility is a virtuous quality, after all. But when we are so subservient that we don’t even cry out against the wrongs that have been committed to us? That is a crime. The other day, I was waiting in line at the Diner for lunch. Just as I had gotten what I’d order and was walking over toward the tables to find a place to eat, I heard the the two guys that were standing behind me say, “Look at all these damn Asians.” I was greatly injured. Not a single white American will ever feel how I felt at that moment, because he will never be in a position where he is treated as a lower person just because of his race. I didn’t do anything about what those dudes said because I didn’t want to make a big scene out of everything.

The story of racism toward Asians is a quiet, low-keyed one that nobody really seems to talk much about. But until this story is told to the world loudly and proudly, nothing will ever change. When people automatically stereotyped me for an Asian, like they’d say I was good at math and spent my Friday nights playing video games and chess and ping pong, I’d just ignore them and say nothing, sometimes even lie by agreeing just for the sake of avoiding argument. But I have since vowed that from now on, I will speak up and defend myself. Because although I love China and all she has to offer, I am also an American.