Olympic misunderstandings

Two curious anecdotes from the Olympic games.

The first: after the women’s gymnastics team competition, the New York Times had an article which compared the lives of the Chinese gymnasts to the Americans. The Americans lead relatively normal lives, and keep going to school. The Chinese, on the other hand, are plucked from their families at an early age, and don’t get much of an education. The article went on to make the following comment:

They eat in cafeterias, where they often use one bowl and one plate, washing them after every meal.

The horror!
The extent of the disposable culture still surprises me now and then.

The second: an article in The Guardian sparked an international polemic when it commented the Spanish basketball team, the reigning champions, had posed for a photo holding the sides of their eyes to make them look Asian. This was said, by the players, to be a nod to the then-upcoming Beijing Olympiad. The article interpreted it as a racial faux pass, and reminded how Spain has been involved in racial incidents before. The funny thing is, in my opinion, that seeing this as racist implies seeing Asian eyes as somehow inferior or ugly.
The Guardian had a follow-up article, after the Spanish basketball team beat the Chinese side, titled: Spain basketball team add victory to insult against China. The New York Times, and a lot of the press, was similarly inflamed.

When I was watching the USA-Spain game, the commentator said: “You would have thought that someone on the team, when taking the photo, would have stood up and said it was not a good idea”. Ah yes, because pulling the sides of your eyes is OBVIOUSLY an insult. As far as I know, this has only been an issue for the Western press, and the Chinese didn’t pay much attention. Apologies were made, and now this all seems water under the bridge.
I wonder about these hypersensitive journalists and guardians of decorum and decency. With that much alertness, and such a bleeding heart for injustice, do they get any sleep?

License to, um, drive?

At last I have received my Washington driver’s license on the mail. I was supposed to get one in my first month in Seattle, but the paperwork to be done was too rigid.

The process to get a driver’s license here is very different from Spain, and it doesn’t make much sense. First, the eye exam, which allowed me to pass without my glasses, even though I failed to read several characters in the first row. I think you have to be legally blind to fail this test. Then the knowledge test, about 20 multiple choice questions, about 16 of which are absolutely idiotic. Then about 4 ridiculous questions to justify that not everybody can pass.

Sample stupid question (a bit exaggerated): You come to traffic light that is green for you, but there is an old lady crossing the street. Choose one of

1. Run over her, she’s jaywalking.
2. Swerve to the sidewalk to avoid her.
3. Brake to avoid her.

Sample ridiculous (not exaggerated): If caught drunk driving, you will be fined at least

1. $220
2. $240
3. $260

Why do you need to know the exact amount? Isn’t it good enough to know you will get a substantial fine? Maybe they want you to have educated discussions with officers when they give you a ticket.

Then the driving test. The testing facilities are in the middle of nowhere, so that there’s no traffic, of course, and you’re supposed to take your own car, and own insurance for it already – yes, you get car and car insurance before you get a license.
Since the test facilities are so far from traffic, you don’t get tested under real conditions, and they pick at details. I failed my first time, because I left a stop sign too soon, when there was absolutely no car anywhere to be seen. But as the lady who tested me pointed out, although it was obvious I was a safe driver, this was a test and I needed to show what I could do.
I passed the second test, a week later, but the tester gave me a poor grade, for one fair overlook, and two silly details:

1. I didn’t attempt to turn right on a red light (this is legal in some US states, but not others). She checked a box for “Congestion potential”. Yes, we don’t want me single-handedly provoking a traffic jam.
2. I made a turn to the left to a parking lot, with a wider curvature than the tester liked.

Throughout all this, we crossed paths with a total of maybe five cars and two pedestrians, and took probably three right turns and three left turns, plus parallel parking, and entering a street in reverse, something that in Europe would get a ticket.

I have to say, I have felt safe driving in this country. The drivers are polite and they respect the speed limits, which are very low, much lower than we’re used to in Europe. But now I know that the drivers, at least in Seattle, are not tested for entering a highway, nor in heavy traffic, nor on left turns in busy streets, nor in roundabouts. They can also have very bad eye sight, and little knowledge of traffic signals. Hmm, reassuring.

Impostor

I didn’t do, nor will do, much of anything this weekend, so here goes another random post.

Now and then I have days in which I feel like an impostor. Everything seems arbitrary, and I don’t want to leave home, because every action I know I’m going to take, and everything I’m going to see, seems fake.

I’ve had days like these for a long time. I remember being a child and having days in which I didn’t want to go to school for this same feeling of artificiality. They have never bothered me, and on them, I have still gone to school, or parties, or work, and behaved as usual.

I sometimes wondered if it was natural to have these days, but I think the funny thing is not having them all the time. It is a very artificial world, after all. Why do bacteria exist? Why do we drive around in cars? Why do we make friends and enemies? All very arbitrary, especially for an atheist like me.

Then I think of other people, and wonder if they feel like impostors. Most of them should, because they are. The more strongly people try to convey their role, the more I think they’re pretending.

Here are some things that tend to arise suspicion in me:

• Saying “I love my job” – what, isn’t liking your job good enough?
• Giving “110%” or being “Passionate, dedicated” – means you’re trying too hard to convince others of your authenticity.
• Displaying “vision” and being “vocal” in meetings – probably you’re reenacting some fantasy or wishful thinking.
• Talking about “culture”, or “the establishment”, or “creativity”, or being a “connoisseur” of any subject – did you ever dream you would become such a phony?
• Saying you don’t care what other people think.

I know, I know, we are all playing our roles, it’s just that the more people try to stand out and distinguish themselves, the more I think they’re clones.

I remember, apropos of nothing, a funny anecdote. A couple of years ago I went to my friends Mai and Ken’s house for a barbequeue. I ran into Andrea there, whom I hadn’t seen in a long while. We started discussing films, as we often do, and I commented I had enjoyed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. SpongeBob is a children’s cartoon that has a quirky humor I like, and a bad reputation among adults.
An older man in the party realized we were talking about film and joined our conversation. He had recently seem some art-house film, which probably Andrea and I weren’t too impressed with. Then he inquired about the film we were talking of. “Oh, SpongeBob. Hum”. He invited me to elaborate, probably trying to puncture my ego, but little did he know me: I regaled him with a detailed narration of how SpongeBob and his friend Patrick go on a journey to find King Neptune’s crown, and save the life of their boss, Mr. Krabs, whom King Neptune thinks has stolen the crown.
The man listened condescendingly, and probably concluded I was an idiot. I wonder if he realized Andrea and I were having a laugh at his expense.

The point of this digression is that it is easy to become stuck in roles, like being a film expert, a wine expert, a traveler, a bum, a whatever. The people I like most are the ones who don’t fully believe the roles they are playing. After all, who do we think we are, ey?