Sunday, October 7th, 2007
Yesterday, a friend and I went out with her friendship family in
Lynchburg. The couple were very nice and so were the other two American families with whom we had dinner. We dined in a restaurant out of the city named Liberty Station. Everything went comfortable for me on the dinner table until the time to pay the bill: the three American families pay their bills separately! I was a bit shocked because this would never happen in my own country,
China. In
China, if several families eat out together, one would usually offer to pay the bill. It is simply how things should be and it is unthinkable, and even rude, to split the bill. However, not seeing the slightest awkwardness in the three men of the families when they reached into their pockets for money, I had to assume that it is simply not how things should be in
America. As a “non-resident alien”—by the way, I really don’t enjoy this title—in America, I understand this incident as an example of the much-praised self-reliance in
America. Americans have a very strong sense of self-reliance. They believe that it is most meaningful when one achieves his or her goal through his or her own efforts, however difficult may it be. Children from affluent family usually don’t regard themselves as privileged because they know that the wealth belongs to their family, not to them, and it is only through their hard work can they gain their own wealth. It suddenly occurs to me now that the concept of self-reliance might have originated from the famous “American Dream”—“one’s prosperity depends on one’s own abilities and hard work” (www.wikipedia.com). The belief of being self-reliant is so deeply rooted in the hearts of Americans that, to some extend, foreigners might find strange or even irritating. I remember reading an interesting article in which the author observes that Americans may give verbal descriptions to people asking for direction, but they never show them to the place they want to go. This is because, according to the author, that Americans assume that everyone desires to rely completely on himself or herself. I personally think that trying to be self-dependent is very important and it’s a good value, but sometimes a little help from others can lead one to the shortcut. Who does not like shortcut?