Interview with Sheridan Prasso Author of the book "The Asian Mystique"
In a land perceived by the Western world as filled "Mystery and Sex, Fear and Desire"
Perception of The 'Orient' that has always meant lands far away,
full of opulence and sensuality, danger, depravity, and opportunity in Western eyes"
(Taken from Sheridan Prasso's "The Asian Mystique")
BUSINESS
US ASIANS:
You've stated "we view Asia through lenses of either "weakness" or "threat"
- we can conquer, how many failures does American businesses need to suffer
that will prompt the U.S.-based companies that are targeting the consumer
base throughout China and Asia to recognize that a tangible "change of
thinking" is needed?
I don't think it's
a quantitative thing. What I can say about this is that ignorance puts
us at a disadvantage in our dealings with China. Any person in business
seeking to have advantage needs to be informed. Being informed takes deliberate
study of Chinese culture and tradition, and an awareness of where our
misunderstandings have been in the past. My hope is that my book will
make a contribution in this regard.
US ASIANS:
Noting CNOOC's failed proposed bid to purchase Unocal creating the constant
"Yellow Peril" theories, despite Greenspan's statement that the fears
debated in Congress were unfounded - how could one explain this fear while
American businesses constantly strive to capture the consumers in China?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: The concept of
"Orient," in the Western mind, has always meant both danger and opportunity.
They are not mutually exclusive.
US ASIANS:
Recognizing your challenge that American CEOs not see Asia as "conquerable"
and dangerous" - what tangible and concrete motivation/fears would prompt
this change of thinking to the mutual benefit of all parties?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: Well, I keep giving
the same answer, and here it is again: read my book.
POLITICS
Dr. Wen Ho Lee
Dr.
Wen Ho Lee, a patriotic Taiwan-born American scientist was accused of espionage by
Congress & the media while being portrayed as the
most dangerous traitor since the Rosenbergs.
For more info, click
HERE
US ASIANS: What
is your reasoning on why people such as Wen
Ho Lee received hundredfold attention and scrutiny, especially
when people that got convicted of similar and/or greater crimes
at the same institutions are just given a "slap on the wrist?"
SHERIDAN PRASSO: Yellow
Peril is deeply institutionalized in American culture.
There is a fear that Asian men are inscrutable
and untrustworthy - a long-standing image in the stereotyped portrayals
of Asian men in Hollywood and manifested in Fu Manchu, the old "Heathen
Chinese" poem, and a number of other representations.
"Committee of 100" surveys"
(done in conjunction with ADL - Anti-Defamation League) have found
that a majority of Americans say they don't trust Chinese Americans
to be more loyal to the United States than to China. Wen Ho Lee
was a victim of that Yellow Peril-motivated fear.
US ASIANS: Patronizing
stereotypes can subvert entire business strategies.
US ASIANS:
Agreeing with your assessment of the destructive nature of stereotypes
about Asia and the social, cultural, and political ramifications of allowing
them to fester unchallenged, what factors will motivate Hollywood and
American businesses to consider other options - especially noting the
recent CNOOC and Hong Kong Disney examples?
Memoirs
of a Geisha
SHERIDAN PRASSO: There are other
options. There are indie films. There are Asian Americans who challenge
the stereotypes. But the real money to be made in movies such as "Memoirs
of a Geisha." As long as that is the case, it will not change very much.
US ASIANS:
With Western men/business seeing China is either an economic threat or
a market we have to conquer, penetrate and dominate - along with the inability
to see it as an equal partner or with the nuances or realities that it
really is - what factors will effective start a "change of thinking?"
(i.e. Sino/American businesses, time, more interracial marriages/relationships,
better media portrayals, etc.)
SHERIDAN PRASSO: Sure, all of that
would help. But Western culture also needs a full recognition of our history
of East-West interaction and why we hold the images in Western culture
that we have today.
US ASIANS:
Why do you feel that successful companies that have included a "global
element" to their business coverage haven't overcome their embedded stereotypes
of Asia - despite the vast potential of customers that these companies
have identified and the resulting financial rewards?
SHERIDAN PRASSO:
Images are powerful and pervasive in our culture. They are hard
to overcome because they are what people have come to expect in
their understanding of foreign cultures.
US ASIANS:
With a full 97 percent of companies exporting products from the United
States are small- and medium-sized, meaning that they employ 500 or fewer
employees that indicates the influence of small businesses, what additional
things do they need to do to go beyond being restricted by the Asian mystique
to embrace a mutually-beneficial business relations with Chinese businesses?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: Knowledge and
awareness are always the key to business success, for
businesses of any size.
US ASIANS:
How important is the element of "power" that maintains the vast cultural
divide and inaccurate stereotypes between East and West, even in these
days of easy travel and instant access?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: Very important.
America is currently the most powerful and richest nation in the world
without an enemy at its borders. Unlike smaller countries that must seek
knowledge in order to gain advantage or fend off enemies, we do not have
such a cultural motivation in American culture - yet.
HISTORY
US ASIANS:
Remembering Edward Said's words "Orientalism is a Western-style for dominating,
restructuring and having authority over the Orient" - where one of the
important developments in nineteenth-century Orientalism was the distillation
of essential ideas about the Orient-its sensuality, its tendency to despotism,
its aberrant mentality, its habits of inaccuracy, its backwardness-into
a separate and unchallenged coherence - what factors are allowing Western
men to continue this stereotype?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: I think that perhaps
I have answered these topics above. Because it is a topic to which I have
devoted more than 400 pages, it is difficult to encapsulate or expound
on this more than I have above. I would emphasize, however, that it's
not just men, it is our culture in general, as witnessed by the popularity
of the Memoirs of a Geisha among women.
US ASIANS: With their Euro-centric
viewpoints causing problems in Asia - along with other parts of the world
where the communities are of a different color (i.e. Africa, South
America and the Middle East) - when will the leaders in the "Western
World" feel comfortable enough to negotiate on a level-playing field?
SHERIDAN PRASSO: As long as the
U.S. remains the most powerful and richest nation in the world the current
state of affairs and the paternalistic attitudes of U.S. foreign policy
will continue. When we begin to feel enough of a challenge by Asian countries
- or enough of an opportunity with them - it is only then that we will
begin to level the playing field.
