Dear friends: it is a true pleasure to be here with you tonight. Thank you all for coming to help us celebrate our CAEA one-year anniversary and to participate in our annual Thanksgiving event.
As the name suggests Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. I would like to ask each of you to pause for a second and think about something you are really thankful for in your life.
For me, I would like to thank to the tremendous improvement in US-China relations in my life time. It still has a long way to go but it has made dramatic improvement. My husband told me his father made him watch President Nixon resign as little boy, telling him: "Nixon is a criminal." Meanwhile, 10,000 miles away, my parents were telling me "Chairman Mao is a hero. He is a God". My father was in North Korea for over 7 years and fought Americans in the 50s and my step father-in law was there fighting Chinese soldiers. When the Chinese Embassy got boomed in Belgrade and Chinese spoke of "killing Americans" was spreading in Beijing in 1999, my mother in law was so worried. We all cried on the phone.
That day became my first day to pray for the US – China relations. That's the day I realized I'll be always in between the two countries and two cultures. This feeling has been brought even deeper with a process of raising my three children. Balancing and blending the cultural values of the two cultures have become a daily ritual for me as they are for many of you here tonight. CAEA is a platform for us to explore what is essential and what is mutable in Chinese and American business and social protocol and etiquette. We want to pick the best parts of the two cultures for ourselves and our children.
So tonight is an attempt by Chinese and American people to explore the ritual, understand its protocols and discuss what is best to preserve. Preserve for our next generation. This not only helps Chinese people trying to acclimate to life in the US with an important annual function, but it also gives died-in- the-wool Americans a chance to reflect on how others view this very social holiday.
Protocol may sounds like a fancy way of saying rules to you. And etiquette sounds like highbrow way to say manners. But they are chosen by the society with care. They are the opaque sinews that hold together a business or national culture. I say "opaque" because they can be understood, but they aren't obvious. Each of you here tonight, has spent some amount of your life living in another culture, trying to acclimate. You are a select sub- group in the world. Most people will never know this struggle. You can certainly understand that comprehending the "why?" behind how everything works in a new culture is a long and challenging process.
Once you understand what is going on behind the protocols, you can take the pieces that work for you and train and cultivate yourself so that they can become part of you. When the rules become less opaque, you are empowered to be yourself: a unique integration of your host and parent culture.
That's what we're here for.
So here we are at Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful holiday to look at. While it is a quintessentially American holiday, it is, like America itself, remarkably inclusive. CAEA wants to make Thanksgiving dinner its annual event – family and friends coming together acknowledging all they have to be thankful for, and all they still want to achieve. This celebration of tradition is universal to every culture. In particular it symbolizes our common struggle of strengthening US China relations, for ourselves and for the next generation. Look at all we have to be thankful for, and look how far we have to go.
Welcome to our feast!
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