Chronotropic
kro•no•tro•pic (noun)
In cardiology, chronotropic describes the properties of heart muscles related to frequency and time dependance that allows the heart to contract with greater force.
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So this weekend was Chinese New Year, and I had a blast with my sister, my cousin David, and my nephew Nick playing Taboo (c.f. facebook for quotes). However, during the evening, the adults participated in (what was in my opinion) a rather disheartening conversation. It wasn't so much the topic of conversation as the opinions expressed that were disheartening.
Allow me to elaborate. I only stuck around for two small portions of the larger conversation (instead electing to have fun with my cousins downstairs). The one that really bothered me was the discussion surrounding the current gay activism movement. The members of the older generation (my parents, aunts, and uncles) thought that this push for equality represented just one of the ways in which Western culture was weak and inferior to Eastern culture and philosophies.
One of my aunts expressed disdain over the legal ramifications for refusing employment to a person based on their sexual orientation. She, being a devout (and, if I may say, ignorant) Christian, she was talking about this from a religious point of view, her argument being along the lines of "I refuse to offer you employment because we are a religious institution and therefore refuse to employ homosexuals."
I was, frankly, quite appalled at the ethical considerations of such a remark, and pointed out that one would never say that about race; for example, I would never dream of saying to someone "I don't want to hire you because you are Chinese/Indian/Caucasian etc." I said that when it comes to certain jobs like accounting or computer programming, ethnicity SHOULD not play a very large role determining job suitability, because in theory, any person, regardless of gender or age or ethnicity or sexual orientation, should be able to perform well given the same qualifications. She didn't seem to agree, and maintained that in any job, all these factors are important and would influence her decision as an employer.
I think the thing that struck me the most was when my father made this comment: he said that Western people, in general, compared to Eastern people, don't have a lot of inner strength. He referenced the whole movement surrounding mental health issues as an example. He said that people here can't handle the stresses in life, and at every little thing, people are crying "depression!" or "mental illness!", whereas the Asian response is to shove it down and move on. My mother said that Chinese people had to endure the Cultural Revolution, which was an atrocious time in Chinese history, but she wanted to emphasize that the people survived it, no complaints.
Another member of the family remarked that "in Chinese philosophy, one of the 8 Great Virtues is Endurance." They talked about how my grandmother and grandfather hated each others' guts, for the 50+ years that they were married. And at the end, it boiled down to this: my grandmother survived her marriage. She didn't get a divorce. A comment was made about how this philosophy, one of Endurance as a virtue, while excellent for social structure, is not always good for individual health.
Part of me wants to agree; it seems like people I know in Western culture appear to complain about their problems more than the Asians that I know; we tend to shove it down inside and move on. But part of me wants to argue that you never know what another person's experience is, so how is it that you can criticize what they're going through? It's like how I believe that a man can never criticize a woman for complaining about childbirth because it's something that he can never experience, and this something that he cannot understand. In the same way, I can never truly know what another person's life experience is like, so I have no right to discredit or judge another person for having depression.
It made me sad, because I thought, for the longest time, that I did have this endurance. I once thought that I would be able to put my own aspirations aside for the betterment of others. Now however, I find my endurance and my resolve wavering, and I'm sad to say that I am ashamed. I am ashamed because I am no longer able to put my own desires aside. I have failed to endure the hardships that I feel that I have the duty to endure. I feel like I'm taking the easy way out by choosing to do what I want to do, and not what my parents want me to do.
This conflict between my inner conservative Asian and the Westernized part of me. I'm not sure what will happen, but I guess I can only hope for the best. If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's this: things never turn out the way you expect it to.
-T
