Linh Dinh’s articles used to appear on Counterpunch, and I’ve posted some of them here …. I feel he is a very good writer. This article appeared on OpEd News. Maybe I like the article because I can relate to it, as my parents made the difficult decision to leave their homeland. Or, maybe I like it because on more than a few occasions lately I too have thoughts of escaping the USA!USA!USA!
Whatever. I just know that several of the opinions expressed in this piece will infuriate a few of you! Just as I like it ….
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Escape from America
By Linh Dinh
Lin Yutang wrote, “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” Born in Fujian, Lin also lived in the U.S., France, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where he’s buried. Whatever attachment Lin had to his childhood stews, fish balls, snails, clams and tofu, it didn’t prevent this remarkable author and inventor of the first Chinese typewriter from globetrotting to improve his mind then, finally, to save his own ass, as his favored Kuomintang got routed by bad-assed Mao.
Should I stay or should I go? Ambrose Bierce glibly defined an immigrant as “an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another,” but between any two things, types of coffee, meat loafs, races, there is always a value judgment, so one thing is always better or worse than another, though the verdict is never unanimous, for some people are even fond of ingesting egesta, or watching television nonstop, even to the point of leaving it on through the entire night as they sleep, so they can hear it in their dreams, I suppose. My friend T.J. does this. To each his own, then, but since leaving one’s country is never an easy step, logistically or psychologically, let’s examine the reasons for such a radical departure.
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