Sunday, July 19, 2015

In Transition

In the eleventh grade year of Language & Literature at my Beijing school, we read an essay by David Sedaris entitled "Chicken Toenails, Anyone?"  In this essay, Sedaris (fresh off a trip to Japan) goes to China and has some culture shock.  Because he's Sedaris, he reacts to his culture shock with brutally funny observations; disappointingly, he uncharacteristically spends too little time reflecting on what his reactions to China might mean about him.  The usual Sedaris self-deprecation is mostly absent, and he goes for low-hanging fruit: dirt, organ meat, and China's ever-present bodily fluids.  He takes delight in comparing China's chaos to what he observes as Japan's careful aestheticism.  As my students said, it's not that what he says about China isn't true, it's just that it isn't complete.