为什么美国人对中国和中国人如此无知？ [美国媒体]

Why are Americans so ignorant of China and the Chinese?

为什么美国人对中国和中国人如此无知？


Kelvin Wong, former Research Intern at USC US-China Institute
Answered Mar 19
It is hard to quantify whether Americans are ignorant of China and the Chinese people because there is a lack of scientific polling on testing Americans’ understanding of China. The perception that Americans are ignorant may be skewed either way by a subset of academics in the US who are very knowledgeable about China or the broader stereotype that Americans are all dumb and ignorant of the world around them.

很难量化美国人是否对中国和中国人一无所知，因为在测试美国人对中国的理解方面缺乏科学的民意测验。认为美国人无知的看法，可能会被美国的一部分学者所扭曲，他们对中国非常了解，也有一种更广泛的刻板印象，认为美国人对他们周围的世界都是既愚蠢又无知的。

Even though China is a rising economic superpower and whose emergence on the global stage affects the lives of all Americans, most Americans do not care about China as they are most likely focused on their immediate lives. Most Americans’ understanding of China is influenced by the dominant American news media which tends to portray China in a negative light. Most Americans do not know that China is the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity, lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the past few decades, and has coastal cities that have living standards on par with the US.

尽管中国是一个正在崛起的经济超级大国，其在全球舞台上的崛起影响着所有美国人的生活，但大多数美国人并不关心中国，因为他们最有可能关注的是他们的眼前生活。大多数美国人对中国的理解受到占主导地位的美国新闻媒体的影响，这些媒体倾向于用负面的眼光来描绘中国。大多数美国人不知道，按购买力平价计算，中国是世界上最大的经济体，在过去几十年里，中国让数亿人摆脱了贫困，沿海城市的生活水平与美国不相上下。

In analyzing American ignorance of China, one must understand the American mindset. Because America has been the dominant superpower ever since the end of WWII and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is a prevailing narrative that the US is an exceptional country. This permeates throughout American society in the belief that there is no need to learn about more countries on a deeper level. In order to understand a country and its culture, you have to physically be there.

在分析美国人对中国的无知时，必须了解美国人的心态。由于自二战结束和苏联解体以来，美国一直是占主导地位的超级大国，人们普遍认为美国是一个例外的国家，这渗透到整个美国社会，美国人相信没有必要在更深的层次了解更多的国家，而为了解一个国家和它的文化，你必须亲自去那里。

Most Americans don’t have a passport and do not travel abroad as often. Currently about 25,000 US students study in China. While that may sound good on paper, consider that there are over 370,000 Chinese students studying in the US right now. It is safe to say that Chinese people understand America more than American people understand China. Chinese people, especially the younger generation, grow up learning English as a second language in school as the society is cognizant that English is the global language for business. Chinese people consume American media through Hollywood movies, sitcom shows, and popular music stars. Most Americans can barely name a popular Chinese singer or actor/actress.

大多数美国人没有护照，也不经常出国旅行，目前约有25，000名美国学生在中国学习，虽然这在表面上听起来还不错，但考虑到目前有37万多名中国学生在美国学习，可以肯定地说，中国人比美国人更了解美国，中国人，尤其是年轻一代，在成长过程中把英语作为第二语言，因为中国社会认识到英语是全球性的商业语言，中国人通过好莱坞电影、情景喜剧和流行音乐明星来消费美国媒体，而大多数美国人几乎不能说出一个受欢迎的中国歌手或演员的名字。

Overall, it is in the best interests for American people to better understand China. China is fast becoming one of the dominant global actors in the international system. The relationship between the US and China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, and whose outcome will ultimately affect the direction of the 21st century.

总的来说，更好地了解中国符合美国人民的最大利益，中国正迅速成为国际体系中占主导地位的全球角色之一，美中关系是世界上最重要的双边关系，其结果最终将影响21世纪的走向。

Ye Liu, M.A. Linguistics & Medi Literature, University of Bonn
Answered Mar 19
Most people in this world are very ignorant about foreign countries, and the American people on average are not extraordinary.
When I first went to Europe, a lot of Europeans told me - “Oh, you wear our European clothes!” “Oh, you have European eyes!” And so on and so forth.
In fact, most American experts on China matter know China fairly well, including Gordon Chang of China collapse fame, who worked in China for years. Why Gordon Chang has an extremely dismissive view about China, that might be more a matter of personal angle.
And according to a few anecdotes I know, American intelligence community know China extremely well. Many young intelligence agents speak Chinese without accent and have years of immersion experience in China; the high level officers have wide connections across Chinese society.
After reading the Wikileaks intelligence documents related to China, I have no illusion that the real professionals in the US government are any stupid people.
As for normal people, America is a economically and in matter of information infrastructure far more advanced and resourceful society than China. I think, if an average American want, he/she can have him/herself not any less informed than I do about America. It is just that most people opt not to.

这个世界上的大多数人对外国都很无知，而美国人的平均水平也不高。
当我第一次去欧洲的时候，很多欧洲人告诉我：“哦，你穿我们的欧洲衣服！”“ 喔，你有一双欧洲人的眼睛！”等等等等。
事实上，大多数美国中国问题专家对中国都相当了解，包括在中国工作多年的，以“中国崩溃论”闻名的章家敦(GordonChang)，为什么章家敦对中国有一种极端不屑一顾的看法，这可能更多的是个人角度的问题。
据我所知，美国情报界非常了解中国。许多年轻的情报人员讲中文没有口音，在中国有多年的潜行经验，这些高级官员在中国社会有着广泛的联系。
在阅读了维基解密有关中国的情报文件后，我并不认为美国政府的真正专业人士是愚蠢的人。
就普通人而言，他们认为美国是一个经济上和信息基础设施方面远比中国先进和资源丰富的社会，我认为，如果一个普通的美国人愿意的话，他/她可以让他/她对中国的了解不少于我对美国的了解，只是大多数人选择不这样做而已。

Roger Gilmartin, Traveling the world and learning wherever I go
Answered Mar 19
If you really think about the Ameri-centric view of the world, most of the “news” we see / consume in television, radio, internet, etc. is focused on what most of us may find useful or interesting (then too, the US networks are all editing out anything that alters their worldview).
Usually too, the only way we hear about international news (EU, Russia, China, Africa, etc.) is then their news intersects with an American news story, and its usually told from the perspective of the American side. It is always slanted and spun.
We really have to go out of our way to get news that focuses on international news and opinion, that leaves out the American perspective. We have to read (and I do) the UK papers / BBC (also slanted but differently), Agency France Presse, Deutsche Welle, CCTV1 (and others), and in some cases, the source languages of those are not English.
Moreover, those who travel, and have either visited, worked in, or lived in China for a time, also know the truth, and can match what they’ve experienced to what they see / hear on the international news, and then the highly filtered viewpoint with the US networks.

如果你真正思考一下以美国人为中心的世界观，你会发现我们在电视、广播、互联网等中看到/消费的大部分“新闻”可能都集中在我们大多数人觉得有用或有趣的东西上 ( 美国的也都在改变他们的世界观)。
通常情况下，我们听到国际新闻 ( 欧盟、俄罗斯、中国、非洲等) 的唯一途径是当他们的新闻与美国新闻交叉时，而且往往是从美国的角度来看待的，它往往是是偏斜和扭曲的。
我们真的必须走出去获得关注国际新闻和观点的新闻，我们必须阅读(我也读过)英国报纸/英国广播公司(BBC)( 也是偏斜的，但稍有不同)，法国新闻社，德国之声，中央电视台1(和其他)，在某些情况下，这些媒体的源语言不是英语。
此外，在中国旅游、旅游、工作或生活过一段时间的人，也知道真相，并能将他们所经历的事情与他们在国际新闻上看到的或听到的内容相匹配，然后再与美国媒体网络高度过滤的观点进行对比。

Paul Denlinger, Have lived in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong; fluent in Mandarin (written, spoken)
Updated Mar 24
Most Americans are ignorant about everything, not just China and the Chinese.
This is because they live in a bubble. They get most of their information from the media, and lack curiosity because they are focused on their own interests.
As long as their personal interests are not affected, they don’t care.

大多数美国人对一切都一无所知，不仅仅是对中国和中国人。
这是因为他们生活在一个泡沫里，他们的大部分信息来自媒体，缺乏好奇心，因为他们关注的是自己的利益。
只要他们的个人利益不受影响，他们就不在乎。

Ya Mei, American born in China
Speaking for the average American…
We don’t understand Chinese
I think language is the single greatest barrier. We can’t socialize with Chinese. We can’t understand Chinese news. We can’t listen to Chinese music. If for some reason the US government made Mandarin a mandatory second language, I’m sure we would understand China much more.
Can’t visit China
It’s far away and expensive. For perspective: San Francisco is one of the closest major US cities to Asia, and the “hub” for flights to and from Asia. A nonstop, round trip flight SFO to Beijing is about 13 hours long each way and about $500 USD. A nonstop, round trip flight SFO to Hong Kong is about 15 hours long each way and $800 USD. And that’s just the flights. We also need to budget for hotels, food, etc.
We need a Visa. Luckily, there is now a multiple-entry 10 year Visa. But the process to get it, or the other Visas, is tedious and annoying. And it costs a bit of money. If I, the average American, just had a week of vacation and a little money to burn, China would not be the most convenient choice by any metric.

我代表普通美国人发个言。
1、我们不懂中文。
我认为语言是最大的障碍。我们不能和中国人交往，我们听不懂中国新闻，我们不能听中国音乐，假设出于某种原因，美国政府把汉语普通话作为强制性的第二语言，我相信我们会更了解中国。

2、不能访问中国。
去中国又远又贵。例如：旧金山是美国离亚洲最近的主要城市之一，也是往返亚洲的航班的“枢纽”。从旧金山到北京的直达往返航班每程大约13个小时，大约500美元，单程往返直飞香港约15小时，每程800美元，这还只是航班费用而已，我们还需要为酒店、食物等做预算。
我们需要签证。幸运的是，现在有一个多次往返签证可以10年一签，但获得签证或其他签证的过程既繁琐又烦人，而且要花点钱，如果我，一个普通的美国人，有一周的假期有一点钱，无论按哪个标准衡量，中国都不会是最方便的选择。

Don’t want to visit China and don’t want to learn about it
WARNING: GROSS SIMPLIFICATIONS. Even if we could absolve of all the above barriers, the truth is that many Americans just aren’t interested. America is a European-molded society. We share the same ethnic backgrounds, history, religions, languages, foods. Even Americans who aren’t of European descent will inherit the European-American cultural legacy.
While Europe defined America and has shaped it throughout America’s 300 years, Asia’s culture and history doesn’t really impact Americans until the 19th century. Then, the narrative about those relations is that the Asians were the adversaries (Chinese during the Gold Rush, Japan during WWII, Communist China, Communist Vietnam, etc)

3、不想去中国，也不想去了解它。
即使我们可以免除所有上述障碍，事实是，许多美国人只是纯粹的不感兴趣，美国是一个由欧洲塑造的社会，我们有着相同的种族背景，历史，宗教，语言，食物，即使不是欧洲血统的美国人也会继承欧美文化遗产。
欧洲定义了美国，并在美国的300年里塑造了它，而亚洲的文化和历史直到19世纪才真正影响到美国人，而且关于亚洲的描述往往是，亚洲人是敌人( 淘金热时期的中国人，二战时的日本，共产主义的中国，共产主义的越南等等 )。

That said, I think there are more edge cases than not. And a lot is changing. More and more people are learning Chinese. The 10-year visa is a great help. And Asian Americans are becoming a bigger presence in America…(oftentimes) bringing Asian culture to our shores, and changing the conversation about Asia and Asian-ness in the US.

话虽如此，但我认为还是有很多边缘案例存在，很多事情都在改变，越来越多的人在学习汉语，10年的签证是一个很大的帮助，而亚裔美国人在美国的影响力也越来越大。。。( 经常 )把亚洲文化带到我们的海岸，改变了关于亚洲和亚洲人在美国的话题。

Johnny Hawaii
Answered Mar 24
American’s understanding of other countries come mainly from television shows and movies. Since Hollywood does not consider China and Chinese people to be an interesting topic, it is ignored. The same can be said about many other countries. Some Americans become more interested in other countries after they travel or meet people from other countries at work. However, this is true only for a few and the majority never develop an interest in the outside world.

美国人对其他国家的了解主要来自电视节目和电影，因为好莱坞不认为中国和中国人是一个有趣的话题，所以它被忽视了。许多其他国家也是如此，一些美国人在旅行或在工作中遇到来自其他国家的人之后，才会对其他国家感兴趣，然而，这只适用于少数人，而大多数人从未对外界产生兴趣。

Ithamar Paraguassu Ramos, I have many relatives who immigrate to USA
Most Americans live in a bubble of ignorance and dont know much about anything.
They are indoctrinated to not be interested to learn and be proud about it, what make them very easy to be manipulated and controlled.
Is not hard to find an American who believes that some cultural thing like their creepy Puritanism and obsession with segregation and classification of people is normal, biological and happen in every place. When US is the only place you can find it.

大多数美国人生活在无知的泡沫中，对任何事情都不太了解。
他们被教育成对学习不感兴趣，并为此感到骄傲，这使得他们很容易被操纵和控制。
不难找到这样一位美国人，他文化上相信这样一些东西，比如令人毛骨悚然的清教主义、对种族隔离和人的分类的痴迷，人中的分类在任何地方都是基于自然性、生物性的，而美国是你唯一能找到这些乱七八糟的东西的地方。

A very common and retarded fear of Americans is yhe attack from the close and enormous south Korea. When they discover that North Korea is the size of Mississippi and is in practically the other side of the world, they feel very dumb for fearing that country.
The same happens with China. Is common to see the news giving half baked information on purpose that they know ignorant people will misinterpret. Many Americans fear China and they dont even know why.
I asked and almost each one gave a different answer.
The only consistent answer was: “The media make us fear China to manipulate us with the politicians.” And that is the right answer.
You are not obligated to vote in America, But fear and ignorance make people vote.
Is interesting to the politicians.

美国人最普遍最弱智的恐惧之一是来自邻近的庞大的朝鲜的攻击，当他们发现朝鲜其实只有密西西比河那么大，而且实际上在世界的另一边时，他们肯定会因为害怕这样一个国家而感到非常愚蠢。
对中国也是如此，人们经常看到新闻故意提供的半生不熟的信息，媒体知道无知的人会曲解这些信息，许多美国人害怕中国，他们甚至不知道为什么。
我问了很多人，几乎每个人都给出了不同的答案。
唯一一致的回答是：“媒体让我们害怕中国用政客来操纵我们。”这是正确的答案。
在美国你没有义务一定要投票，但恐惧和无知会让人们投票的。
政客们对这点都很感兴趣。

Sakuragi Rokurouta, level 100 in video games, level 3 in real life
I’m pretty sure the same applies the other way round. Owing to the lack of freedom of information in China, most Chinese people would have a very limited understanding of American history and culture from sitcoms and spaghetti westerns. In their minds America would be a clusterfuck of cowboys and Indians and black guys playing basketball.
You could say the same about what most people know of Japan, that being sushi, Samurai and anime schoolgirls.
American ignorance is only in the spotlight given them being the most powerful nation on earth. Nobody would care if a Central African tribesman thinks all Chinese people can fly like in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Nobody gives a shit if Zainab from Borneo believes Chinese people get their planet-busting kung fu powers from eating dogs. Give the Yanks a break, 10% of them live in prison and over half of them are broke and living in trailer parks. They don’t have it easy.

我敢肯定反过来也一样。由于中国缺乏信息自由，大多数中国人对美国历史和文化的了解非常有限，大多是从情景喜剧和西部片中得来的，在他们心目中，美国会是牛仔、印第安人和打篮球的黑人的集合体。
大多数人对日本的了解，你也可以这么说，那就是寿司、武士和动漫女学生。
美国的无知只是由于他们是世界上最强大的国家而成为聚光灯下的焦点。没人会在意中非部落的人是否会认为所有中国人都能像“卧虎藏龙”那样飞行，也没人会在意婆罗洲的纳布人是不是相信中国人从吃狗肉中获得破坏地球的武功，让美国佬歇歇吧，他们中有10%的人生活在监狱里，超过一半的人身无分文，住在拖车公园里，他们也挺不容易的。

Alejandro Peralta, studied at The United States of America
Answered Mar 18
It is similar like why Chinese are ignorant of America and Americans.
Simply put, the Americans are too wary of their own life and they have too much problems to handle at home. Right now the Americans are arguing over how to take stance on gun control or gun rights, to the repeated problems between the people and the clown named Donald Trump.
On the same time, Chinese are busy working and they are working hard as possible because this is their job. Chinese are utilitarians, they have zero interests of political discussion to what others unless, this is their life to make sure.
The best is, keep it status quo.

这就像为什么中国人不了解美国和美国人一样。
简单地说，美国人对自己的生活过于谨慎，他们在国内有太多的问题要处理。目前，美国人正在就如何在枪支管制或枪支权利问题上采取何种立场争论不休，解决民众和名为唐纳德·特朗普的小丑之间反复出现的矛盾。
同时，中国人也在忙着工作，他们在努力工作，因为这是他们的工作。中国人是功利主义者，他们对政治讨论的兴趣是零，除非，这是他们生活的保证。
保持现状就是最好的。

Baozao Laoge
Answered Mar 19
Because China is still too weak. When the aircraft carrier per people is level with USA, you are immune to ignorance.

因为中国还太弱。当人均航空母舰数量与美国持平时，你就不会受到无知的影响了。