*Gives lectures on China to university students
*Teaches everything to be particularly and specifically smearing and defacing about China instead
No wonder the West has such fvcked-up views of China and the Chinese people.
Orientalism by
Edward Said, an actual academic, is a good if not tough read that provides a critical assessment of ex-colonial attitudes toward Asians, specifically West Asians (aka Middle-Easterners as they colloquially labels them).
It describes how their image and understanding of other cultures, predating the internet age, are shaped entirely by superficial 3rd-hand accounts e.g. travellers with pieces of photographs/paintings (see book cover), while also projecting their own biases to fill in the gaps. This led to some very romanticised yet skewed views of Asian cultures, severely disconnecting them from actual realities of the region. The author traces subsequent imperialistic ambitions as justification for the mismatch of expectations.
In essence:
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - ironically enjoyed by many perpetrators of such views
You can see how nearly 40 years after the book's publishing and nothing's changed during the GWOT. How many think-tankies actually learnt Urdu/Arabic? How many learnt Mandarin today while assessing China? It's a transcendental piece of literature that I fear a single comment from a brainlet can't possibly encapsulate all of its brilliance.
Or you can just watch Avatar 1 again and catch the sequel, now in theatres lol