Peter Hessler champions 'average people'
- Source: Global Times
- [21:06 July 26 2009]
- Comments
Negative stereotypes of East and West
Hessler identifies a link between some of the Western media’s negative but truthful coverage of the Chinese mainland and Chinese mainland school textbooks’ depiction of America: a society of constant murders and mayhem that hardly seems recognizable as his homeland to Hessler.
“It’s like the Fuling textbook. Sometimes the more information you have, the less you know. They were like splashes of foam on the surface of a massive sea change.”
On the issue of Tibet, Hessler’s apolitical approach was tested to the limits by the article “Tibet Through Chinese Eyes” published in The New Yorker in February 1999.
“Many Chinese working in Tibet regard themselves as idealistic missionaries of progress, rejecting the Western idea of them as agents of cultural imperialism. In truth, they are inescapably both,” he wrote.
Hessler sympathized with the average Tibetans and Han people who live in Tibet and find themselves in complicated and often troubled relations.
“They did not create these problems. They inherited them. And often they lack the historical and cultural perspective necessary to improve the situation,” he said.
The article came in for heavy criticism in the United States.
“People did not respond to it in a positive way, and I was attacked in print and on a radio show. But over time the article came to be seen in a different light, and I think it’s had a positive influence,” Hessler said.
“There are deeper historical reasons for the problems in Tibet, and I think that many people, both Chinese and foreigners, are not fully aware of the history of that place. And they respond in highly emotional ways, which is unfortunate. My goal was to explain some of the reasons why Tibet matters to Chinese people.
“In the American press at that time, there wasn’t a clear understanding of how the Chinese view Tibet, and why they care so much about this place. My goal was to explain this – not to defend it. But I tried to explain some of the historical reasons, the way that China was broken apart in the 19th and early 20th century, and how this experience shaped attitudes toward Tibet.”
