I was sent to America by my university as a visiting professor in 1995. According to regulations in China, I was given some money for buying clothes. It is one of the public expenses related to sending a person abroad for such purposes. 

Here "clothes" does not refer to underwear. The money is meant for buying a decent suit or dress so that one can present him/herself decently as a representative of the People's Republic of China in front of foreigners. A related phenomenon is the fact that when state leaders visit foreign lands, they will have their suits or dresses tailor-made. The Hongdu (Red Capital) Garment Factory in Beijing is famous for this stately business. This philosophy of decency has been extended to the general public.

 Associated with buying new clothes when going abroad is my concept of spending Chinese money lavishly, believing that once abroad, one will have plenty chance of making money and that money will be US dollars, eight times that of the equivalent Chinese monetary unit.

 Armed with the official concept of decency, plus the myth of America as a land covered with gold, I bought three things before going abroad: clothes, a suitcase and a wrist watch. I believe that compared with some other people, my expenditure was still modest. I bought an upper piece of a suit and a complete suit at Xidan Shopping Center. In buying them, I aimed at the price and at the same time tried to save money. The principle was that I should save money "decently". So I bought this suit at half of its marked original price. I won't tell you how much it was, but the original price made me feel at ease that I was not going to wear some garbage.

 The suitcase I regarded as a necessity. When traveling in China, I never used a suitcase so I never had one. I only used a bag, which when necessary could be carried like a back pack. Suitcases for me were very clumsy and not handy. But now since I was to go abroad, and wherever I went I would be carried by vehicles, I should bring with me a "decent" suitcase. So I went to Xidan and bought a suitcase with two wheels, a pull-out and a combination lock. A small incident during my purchase was that the private peddler told me that I should buy a "da bao dai"( a toughly woven cloth or nylon band used to reinforce the suitcase in case it should break loose in rough handling. I asked about the price and was shocked at it. I finally decided that I could use my old army back pack string and other ropes for that purpose. After all I had got a decently looking suitcase and it would not matter much if I should decorate it with ugly looking strings and ropes.

 My original watch broke down conveniently before I left Beijing. I went to Caishikou Department Store to buy a new watch. In China, I would have been satisfied with a watch priced as 40 Yuan ($5), but since I was going abroad, I bought one at a higher price, just to give me some psychological comfort that I would be wearing something worth to be looked at by foreign barbarians.

 After I arrived in Dallas, I found that one handle of my suitcase was gone during handling. The suitcase was still closed tightly, maybe due to the strings and ropes. As time went by, I found that I could buy some used suitcases of much more reliable quality from flea markets or yard sales. I also found that I had little chance of wearing that newly bought suit. My old suits sufficed pretty well. As to wrist watch, I found that I could buy a much better looking one from a US store with equal or less money. The most revealing discovery was that America was not a place with easy money and Americans normally did not mind how you looked like, especially when you were a student. I believe that even if I have gone to America wearing a pigtail of the Qing style, the most shocked people would not be the Americans, but the Chinese.

 The Americans are easy to be deceived by appearance. If you are wearing a suit that looks nice enough, they won't come closer, like many Chinese do, to examine the quality of the texture of your suit and gossip about the value of it. They will consider you formal and respectful enough.

 Of course I am talking about daily occasions. I am not talking about diplomatic conferences. Do not most Chinese who go abroad live in the daily, mundane and worldly situations? How many of them carry the responsibility of winning foreigner's respect for a homogenous abstraction of " The Chinese" ? What is more, the basis on which respect can be achieved may differ greatly in America and in China.

 Not long ago I read an article in a decent magazine published in China. It is called, in English, "The Successors of China". In this article, the author described a couple studying and then working in the United States. She told the reader a story: one day the couple went to a superstore. On seeing that they were Chinese, a female "shopping guide" "politely and courteously " led them to a flea market by the side of the store. The couple were greatly humiliated and went back and "bought all they need for daily use there in front of that shopping guide". Since then, in order to "win bright face" for the Chinese, the couple never went to flea markets. They never rented out their vacant rooms. They never thought of buying used cars. According to the author, this couple represent the Chinese who are real Chinese.

 I do not want to comment on the details of this story, such as if there are shopping guides in superstores in America , if flea markets are generally adjacent to superstores, and if a shop assistant of a superstore will ever serve another store. All I want to say is that many Americans love to visit yard sales and flea markets. Many Americans rent out their vacant rooms. Many Americans buy used cars. In short, many Americans are thrifty and thrifty stores are a common thing in America. Does it mean that these Americans should be despised? Thriftiness, according to Max Weber, is one respectful feature of the Protestant culture that was an important agent in the development of capitalism.

 In this article, the author is basing her concept of decency and respect on wealth. I am sure that the couple studied in a good field that found them lucrative jobs in the United States. Eventually their decency and what the author terms national pride are based on US dollars. In writing that article, the author forgets that in America, there are many Chinese students struggling between study and existence. There are many Chinese students buying from yard sales, driving used cars and finding cheap rooms to rent. According to the logic of this author, these Chinese are the people who have lost their motherland's face in the foreign land.

 "Bai kuo"(showing off wealth) is a deeply rooted concept in Chinese culture. It is not uncommon that many Chinese will not be themselves once they become rich. It is not uncommon that respect is often associated with wealth and power. This is especially so in the commercialization of China in these days. The magazine "Successors in China" walks on two legs: success and China. By success it refers to the elites. It is therefore a magazine of the elite Chinese that constitute only a small drop in the ocean of the nation and consequently can’t represent China to the international world and to the readers back in China. By the leg of China, the magazine sometimes resorts to a blind national arrogance rather than rational pride in its discourse.

 In fact, not all Chinese who have become rich in America are like that. In Houston I was the guest of my student's home. His parents came to the United States in the 60's and are now running a restaurant. They now live in a nice house in the northern part of Greater Houston. When we arrived in Houston from Waco, it was already dark. We first went to the restaurant. They served Chinese buffet and the food looked nice. I was hungry, but the father said we were going out to eat, because the food in his restaurant, in his opinion, was not genuine Chinese. Then my student drove me to his house. It was not until his parents closed their restaurant at 11:00 pm that we started to go to eat. They drove me to the China town in southeast Houston, a 40 minutes drive. My mainland schemata told me that they were going to treat me like an important guest and entertain me with real good Chinese food. I did not feel at ease about this prospect. I would rather eat in his restaurant.

 But it turned out that we only had some real Chinese noodle and other stuff that did not look as magnificent as it would be in mainland China in such an occasion. They did not order more than necessary and whatever was left was packed home.

 I believe that many American Chinese who have gone through hard struggle and become successful to some extent have learned the way of thrifty and hard work. Compared with them, those Chinese new rich who smoke money like cigarettes in the pubs to show off their wealth are so ugly to look at.

 Being a student now in Canada, I also have learned to be frugal. I now regarded 50 dollars as a big chunk of money to spend. I carry in my pocket five to ten dollars in cash. While in Beijing, I carried more than a hundred times this amount in cash when I went out although I did not spend much. I learned to calculate the unit price of merchandise in food markets. Being consciously economic sometimes causes pain, but at the same time one develops a sense of the real value of money. I often wonder when I go back to China, if I am going to spend at will to experience the feeling of being the master of my money or if I am going to be more careful than I used to be when spending, that is, careful to get the real value of goods.

 Back to our topic of buying things when going abroad. My advice now is that do not think you represent a country or a nation. That official discourse is purely bull shit. Think of your needs as a human being and act on common sense. When you go to the airport, it is not shameful if you put all your belongings in a cheap bag normally used by migrant laborers in China. When you come back from the United States, you will be able to bring back really decent, tough albeit used suitcases and other stuff. It is no exaggerating to say that if there is gold in North America, it is in the flea markets.

 Oct. 1997, Fredericton, Canada