Chairman Mao Zedong was once quoted as saying, roughly translated, “Good good study day day up.” What Mao’s message means to us (“study hard and make progress every day”) is that good communication is essential and misunderstanding is awkward. In the past week, the Chinese in Beijing have had to reevaluate signs and menus translated into English, Indians have come up with a polite way of declining to pay bribes, and undocumented workers in the United States have worked to embrace the most immutable American tradition — all in an attempt to redefine the rules of the community in which they live.
No more “racist parks” in China
One of the more adventurous aspects of foreign travel is sampling the local cuisine. Recent visitors to China might have partaken in such delicacies as chicken without sexual life, fried crap, pee soup, or Regal Paw Conquering Everything Under Heaven. Amusing mistranslations have long been a staple of China’s signs and menus. A park for cultural minorities in center Beijing is labeled “racist park.”
However, with the anticipated arrival of the Western media scrutiny which will inevitably accompany the hosting of the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, officials in the city are working to clean up.
In order to make a good impression on visitors, the hosting city of the Olympics often rounds up undesirables and attempts to reform local custom to fit the Western “civilized” ideal. In 2004 Athens euthanized an estimated 15,000 wild dogs in order to make the city presentable to foreigners.
Chinese officials seem to think swearing and spitting hurt China’s image more than, say, child labor or inhumane factory working conditions. As such, citizens have been encouraged to not spit on the sidewalks and anyone caught during the Olympics will be fined $6.50 (a significant sum for the Chinese).
Other measures include education in how to form orderly lines (the traditional custom is apparently more akin to the mad rush for a room in Core during Finals week after the rest of the library closes). Liu Yang, who heads the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program for the city government, has even suggested that a hotline will be set up where foreigners can call in and report absurd translations.
The effort has been centralized with the Beijing government creating a standardized list of 6,500 translations for commonly used words and expressions. However, some private restaurant owners have been hesitant to embrace the mandatory standardization for fear of losing the novelty of nonsense English which is apparently particularly endearing.
Fake money reduces corruption
5th Pillar, a private group in India, has begun printing and openly handing out fake 50-rupee notes. However, they are worth nothing, look like the real thing only on one side, and instead of a pledge of authenticity, the new zero-rupee note reads, “I promise to neither accept nor give bribe.” The intent is for timid citizens to slip the fake note into the hands of those officials soliciting bribes.
Proudly standing atop the world bribery index (even beating out China and Russia), India’s social and political culture is heavily pervaded by corruption to the point of being taken for granted. For example, traffic officers often pay for assignment to intersections well known for the generosity of the kickbacks of motorists hoping to avoid tickets. And ordinary Indian citizens pay bribes worth £ 2.5 billion (about $5 billion) per year for public services which should be free.
The government claims to be taking steps to squash its corruption habit. The 2005 Right to Information Act allows the ordinary citizen to request public information and receive it within 30 days. However, it’s unclear whether the Act was a genuine attack on bribery or merely a construct of a larger market for bribe taking.
“One lady had been waiting a year for her land title and was told she would only receive it if she paid a 7,500-rupee ‘fee’. She went back to the office with one of our volunteers and got the document in 30 minutes without paying anything,” recounts the president of 5th Pillar, Vijay Anand.
The Indian actress and social-activist Suhasini Maniratnam who supports the zero-rupee effort has said, “The zero-rupee is a sort of emotional blackmailing of bribe seekers.” No offense Ms. Maniratnam, but it seems as if its going to take real, physical, perceivable blackmail on the part of the citizenry to put a perceivable dent into the culture of bribery.
Circumventing the system in order to pay taxes
Not having mastered the intricacies of making emails disappear quite yet, Don Brown , a Republican state Representative in Florida, got in trouble for sending an email to colleagues reading, “Don’t forget to pay your taxes – 12 million illegal aliens are depending on you!”
He has apologized and maintains the email was a joke. However, members of the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus have continued to take offense at the “extremely insulting” term “illegal aliens,” preferring “undocumented workers.”
The group most unconcerned with this semantics fight seems to be, unsurprisingly enough, illegal aliens. Forgoing the political correctness battle, they have instead been focusing on integrating themselves into the United States system by paying their taxes.
The individual taxpayer identification number (or ITIN) was introduced in 1996 as a means for individuals without a Social Security number to file returns. Of the 11 million numbers issued since, prevailing wisdom is that most have gone to undocumented workers. In 2005, 1.9 million returns were filed using the ITIN. Because the IRS is forbidden by law from sharing information with other government agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there is little fear of getting deported as a result of paying one’s taxes.
A hope of proving dedication to the American system, coupled with talk of legislation which would grant asylum to undocumented workers having paid taxes, have contributed to the trend. Someone should perhaps point out to these good folks that they’ve actually inverted traditional American values. I thought that in this country, the game is to hide income and avoid taxes.
Regardless, the commissioner of the IRS, Mark Everson, is frank in stating the IRS’ mission, saying, ”We want your money whether you are here legally or not and whether you earned it legally or not.”