RIGHT TO THE CHIN

CONFUCIUS SAY, "I NEVER SAID THAT!"

from the Chattanooga Outlook

I recently started drinking green tea. I had heard about its health benefits, but never actually experimented with it. After a friend poured me a mug, I felt myself developing a mild addiction. It was quite tasty and refreshing (like it said on the box) and, almost overnight, I began to feel calmer, healthier, and more culturally diverse.

As I went shopping for my first box of this wonder beverage, I noticed just how many choices there were. In my favorite trendy local "health food" grocery store, about half of one aisle is devoted to tea. Of that half, roughly half is devoted to green tea, and its various bastardizations.

Picking a box to buy was not as easy as I thought it would be. I didn't exactly know what to buy. All I knew was that it had to be good for me, and that it had to be green. Finally, after ten minutes of staring at more tea than I ever thought existed, I narrowed my choices down to two.

My first choice, TAZO Green Ginger, had a classy package and some vividly inspirational words on the wrapper. "There is a garden overlooking the Yangtze River gorge where an elderly man contemplates his life while sipping a cup of Green Ginger. Perhaps you would like to join him."

I though to myself, "Wow, I sure would like to join him! That sounds fun and peaceful and enlightening!"

It might be advantageous of other companies to employ a similar approach when peddling their goods. "There is a porch overlooking a backyard party where a redneck, contemplating fighting the dude that hit on his girlfriend, sips his sixth Pabst Blue Ribbon. Perhaps you would like to join him." Like the tea bag gives us a glimpse of oriental life, the PBR ad could give other cultures a glimpse of ours. Oh well. Whatever. Back to shopping…

My second choice, Celestial Seasonings Decaf Mandarin Orchard Green Tea, had a few more things going for it. First, it tasted like orange. I like orange. Second, it was very specific about its nutritional value. "Green tea is a natural source of antioxidants, which neutralize harmful molecules in the body known as free radicals. By taming free radicals, antioxidants help the body maintain its natural good health." I thought this was good. I consider myself to be something of a free radical, too, and anything that can subdue me is worth trying.

The third reason I picked this particular tea was because it was the cheapest. If I'm going to be a sucker, the least I can do is save a few bucks.
And the last reason I picked it was because there was a cute little panda on the box. As I asked the clerk in the store to help me select a green tea, I had noticed that the ones that he recommended had either a panda or a bald, robe-wearing oriental man sitting Indian-style on the box. That's how you know they're authentic.

Like many of my fellow countrymen, my use of green tea symbolizes our sort of fascination with the "wonders of the East." Remember the "Ancient Chinese Secret" commercial for laundry detergent? Several women I know only go to get their nails done by the oriental ladies at the mall because they tell me that these ladies have a special "ancient technique" that makes the nail polish last longer. This is obviously a fallacy. While the ladies do a great job, and are sweet as can be, their nail polish applying techniques are not ancient because nail polish, itself, is not ancient.

We are also very attached to eastern philosophy. And where do we get it? Fortune cookies and books about philosophy and philosophers like Confucious. Many of these books were written by short, bearded Americans who've never even been to China or Japan. And how do we quote this brilliant man? "Confucious say…." Grammatically incorrect. If we have such respect for his teachings, can't we quote him correctly? Do we have to dumb him down for mass consumption? I'm sure the man knew how to properly conjugate his third person singular verbs.

When pushed through the meat grinder that is American commerce, oriental culture looks phony and convoluted. Leave it to us Americans to exploit the simplest and most cherished foreign traditions.

"There is an arrogant country overlooking all others where the people use up foreign cultures and traditions in order to make a buck. Perhaps you would like to join them."

Posted by colrus at October 11, 2000 11:23 PM