I used to read your columns as artwork and took them as textbook for learning English. Now, I wish to discuss some thoughts on your recent column, “Absorbing the Impossible.”
I immigrated from China years ago and am now an American citizen. I love America for many reasons and one of them is this: America is a free country and anything is possible. As an American born in this country, why did you find it impossible to believe that Trump could be President of the United States?
The Europeans often like to say that Americans are rude. Indeed, rudeness is rooted deeply in American culture and tradition. Mr. Trump is a rude man. His success in this election means the returning of an American tradition. Bob Dylan was not heard from for weeks after winning the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, which also signaled a return. With a 165-year-old history, the NYT can see that the rude American culture is coming back.
China, with its Confucian tradition, likes to consider itself a state of civility. Compared to my former life in China, I have now become rude, a lover of rude America and its rude culture. My rudeness was formed by higher education and the freedom we have in the U.S.
The United States is a world of young people. However, America itself is getting old. A Chinese phrase goes: renew the old and be young again -- rejuvenation! As a rude old man, Mr. Trump and his Presidency will hopefully help rejuvenate America. Perhaps the real story of this dramatic election is what makes me feel fortunate as an American. No matter what party one belongs to, it proves that ours is a free country where anything is possible.
In my view, this election has less to do with elites vs. grassroots, college educated vs. non-college educated, men or women, white or black, but rather about the return of an American tradition.
I cannot say that I fully understand this election or what it will mean for America. However, in this “rude” country of ours, all Americans have the freedom to express their views and elect their leader. In the “civil” state of China, people have no such freedom.