So I ran into someone on the street.
He asked me if I am from China. I said yes. Then he said he has a friend who went to China. Without my asking how was it, he said "She told me in China, no one can practice any religion, except for tai chi".
I was stunned for a second. and said "what?, tai chi?"
"Yes" he continued, "she also told me the emperor does not like christianity, or what is that person called again, not emperor, you know china is a communist country, so do you guys call him dictator?"
"President, actually", I replied, at a loss how to explain to him what my perspective is"
"yeah, president", he continued, but probablly not so convinced that we also use such a term. He went on to tell me things that made me wonder if I ever lived in China.
Don't get me wrong. I like this fellow. He is a superb man from other parts of our conversation, not on china.
But it strikes me as horrifying that in US, some people still cling to such an outdated view of China. That impression is probably true 40 years ago when China was in the cultural revolution.
What can I say? When we move to a place that is foreign, and when we have language barriers, and when we move there with prejudices, our perception of that place will be quite wrong. Maybe we enclose ourselves too much to protect ourselves and we never even ventured to see the true place.
We trust anecdotes too much. It is more personal than hard facts. After all, a trusted friend told me so. Just as we need to take a grain of a salt with what eye witness say in court due to many cognitive bias, personal perceptions could easily go way off when the subject is complicated and hard to comprehend.
Maybe I should not think of this too much. This is after all, an encounter, and will be an anecdote, isn't it?
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