Choose Strong
For Tim.
Posts on how and why the Indians have dominated the IT firms and thus
"defeated" the Chinese in the Valley have recently raged on WXC.
Scathing criticisms underscored the urgency of the matter. Incisive
analysis from experts yielded a myriad of contributing factors ranging
from language to culture, historical to psychological, etc., etc. The
sheer number of possible causes of the calamity befalling us felt paralyzing.
In the middle of all this, I wonder "What do the overseas Chinese themselves,
programmers or not, want here in America?" Will their ultimate success mean a
hierachy after their ancient dynastic model so that all groups including themselves
kowtou to a few? Too bad. This is America. It might embrace some outlaws
of the marsh but it rejects the idea of man-above-man just as vehemently
as it spurns the caste system and guru-worshipping.
Years ago, a lone Chinese programmer in the Valley spent a few months at
local martial art gyms and concluded that to better the commonwealth of
the overseas Chinese (if there is such a thing), everyone only needed
to ape Bruce Lee. Why? For one thing, he has been the most famous
Chinese outside China. It only made sense that the more the merrier, the
guy figured. From what he saw, the Americans had already been at it.
"You don't have to have his deadly martial arts or his super-human
stunts." he observed, "You just try to shape your body to copy his lean
and mean image. To look like the dragon is all you need." After that,
according to him, magic would ensue. You gain confidence, know how to
treat people as equals, and feel quite OK with your own broken English.
You can go to work, visit the mall, sweat in the gym, pick up your kids,
saunter in the park, and receive instant respect and sometimes even
admiration from almost everyone around you.
You will incur envy and deep down you know you are a mere imposter.
These hardly matter, however. The more you fake, the better you are at
it. Over time, your delusions become such that you stop yearning for
respect, recognition, or even love from anyone--you have successfully
molded yourself, body and soul, into trusting and loving your own being.
To me, Bruce's physique (2 to 3 percent body fat, e.g.) is almost
unattainable and the idea of my fellow programmer sounds too simple,
naive, and even crazy. Anyone can fake something, but the level of
self-deception required to pull that off must be monumental.
But Bruce was real. He didn't come to America to hide in a Chinatown,
brick-and-mortar or cyber-space, whining over the gloom and doom in the
imminent future of his fellow Chinese Americans while masturbating at the
dream of his motherland's great revival. He was in the ring fighting both
the Chinese and Americans. He fought literally to teach Westerners Wing
Chun. His response to the stereotype Chinaman of Hollywood where he
tried to land a job: "The hell with circumstances; I create opportunities."
In the end, as just another Chinese programmer, supposedly one of the
defeated, inevitably coming up short, but not depressed enough to jump
off a building (as one recently did) yet, I simply don't have the extra cycles
to study how and why the Indians beat the Chinese in the grand scale. I do
need to steel myself everyday with something American, however, like a
morning cup of coffee. Today it happens to be this:
It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again;
who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement;
and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly;
so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.
-- Teddy Roosevelt
I learnt "steel" from Murakami.
to ape Bruce Lee
to steel myself
lean and mean
gloom and doom
I like the Roosevelt's quote too.