My good friend Ernie has taken over as Managing Editor at China Expat and the blog posts have gone way up in quality! In his latest blog post, Ernie describes something quite familiar to me that I first experienced way back in my Japan days in the late 80s and early 90s til now, although I like to believe I have mostly recovered since then. I’m refering to Marco Polo Syndrome, or the affliction that allows one to temporarily (hopefully) behave as though you have single-handedly discovered China (or Japan.. or Thailand.. or whereever it is you hang your expat hat) and look with disdain upon your fellow foreigners, be they residents or tourists.
Quoting Ernie…
Early Symptoms of MPS
Early symptoms of MPS strike first-time visitors to China, and are usually only temporary for those of sound mind and character. Particularly at risk are Americans who refer to Asians as “Orientals”, or God forbid, “Yallers” [only in the South]. Symptoms may include but are not limited to:
1. Standing in the middle of bustling Chinese commercial centers and shaking one’s head in wonderment at the inevitable McDonald’s and KFCs.
2. Uncontrolled yelling and gesticulating on encountering stalls full of Chairman Mao alarm clocks and red-star army caps.
3. Communicative Aphasia, manifested by shouting English in the mistaken belief that increased volume can bridge the language gap.
4. Selective diminution of the ego, manifested by gladly undergoing various humiliations in order to hit it off with “the natives”.Snap a picture honey! Me & Mickey Rourke’s chubby bastard child are blending in!
5. Maniacal euphoria at riding a crowded Chinese subway/bus, followed by profound dismay on noticing a fellow foreigner who is completely unmoved by the environment.
6. An OCD fetish for buying and donning all manner of unsightly hiking clothes, bags, and boots, more suited to an exploration of the Yukon than the two kilometer stroll from one’s hotel to Wangfujing Street.Chronic MPS
Sadly, the Institute of Recent Studies has found that one in three long-term visitors to China develop chronic MPS. Signs of chronic MPS include:
1. Depraved ogling of a fellow foreigner’s Chinese girlfriend/wife, while walking about with one’s own Chinese girlfriend/wife, followed by a pronounced slump of the shoulders if the other Cg/w is perceived to be ‘hotter’. A cocky strut denotes that the MPS sufferer has concluded his Cg/w is ‘hotter’.
2. A compulsion to speak sub-standard Chinese at street-hawker decibel levels, followed by rage and shame when the Chinese listener doesn’t understand, or even worse, when corrected by another foreigner.
3. Practiced cunning in surreptitiously determining other foreigners’ “time in”. A condescending smirk follows an evaluation of having served in China longer; a studied indifference follows an evaluation to the contrary.
4. An irresistible urge to one-up any and all anecdotes by other foreigners wishing to show that they, too, have been “in the bush”.
5. Selective public blindness to other non-Chinese, to the extent of not noticing one if they were the only two people in Tiananmen Square, and the other foreigner was copping a squat in full Pennywise clown gear.
