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Marco Polo Syndrome
MPS was first diagnosed by Ernie Diaz on his first visit to Beijing late last century. Finished with his obligatory greasy duck and Great Wall inspection, he turned his attention to more Larry David-esque matters. An amiable man (on the surface), Diaz grew perplexed at the high proportion of fellow foreigners in the big Smoggy who refused to return his friendly grin, or even make eye contact.
Back home, ensconced in his duct-taped la-z-boy, Diaz applied the empirical methods of Spinoza, and aided by several snifters of Cutty Sark, rapidly deduced the matter.
Aloofness springs from insecurity, and hostility from fear. He reasoned that, having no knowledge of his extensive criminal record [or subsequent fully paid debt to society], these mamalukes could not be reacting to him, but rather to the fact that he too was a foreigner.
He knew that in America, strange birds of a feather, particularly Asian, bonded like Bloods caught on Crip turf, nahm sayin’? Why would big-noses in China actively avoid each other? The recent coverage of MPS by the good people at Sinosplice and Shen Zhen Ren means that there’s enough awareness of MPS to merit clinical explication.
Early Symptoms of MPS
Early symptoms of MPS strike first-time visitors to China, and are usually only temporary, for those of sound mind and character. Particularly at risk are Americans who refer to Asians as “Orientals”, or God forbid, “Yallers” [only in the South]. Symptoms may include but are not limited to:
- Standing in the middle of bustling Chinese commercial centers and shaking one’s head in wonderment at the inevitable McDonald’s and KFCs.
- Uncontrolled yelling and gesticulating on encountering stalls full of Chairman Mao alarm clocks and red-star army caps.
- Communicative Aphasia, manifested by shouting English in the mistaken belief that increased volume can bridge the language gap.
- Selective diminution of the ego, manifested by gladly undergoing various humiliations in order to hit it off with “the natives”.
- Maniacal euphoria at riding a crowded Chinese subway/bus, followed by profound dismay on noticing a fellow foreigner who is completely unmoved by the environment.
- An OCD fetish for buying and donning all manner of unsightly hiking clothes, bags, and boots, more suited to an exploration of the Yukon than the two kilometer stroll from one’s hotel to Wangfujing Street.
Chronic MPS
Sadly, the Institute of Recent Studies has found that one in three long-term visitors to China develop chronic MPS. Signs of chronic MPS include:
- Depraved ogling of a fellow foreigner’s Chinese girlfriend/wife, while walking about with one’s own Chinese girlfriend/wife, followed by a pronounced slump of the shoulders if the other Cg/w is perceived to be ‘hotter’. A cocky strut denotes that the MPS sufferer has concluded his Cg/w is ‘hotter’.
- A compulsion to speak sub-standard Chinese at street-hawker decibel levels, followed by rage and shame when the Chinese listener doesn’t understand, or even worse, when corrected by another foreigner.
- Practiced cunning in surreptitiously determining other foreigners’ “time in”. A condescending smirk follows an evaluation of having served in China longer; a studied indifference follows an evaluation to the contrary.
- An irresistible urge to one-up any and all anecdotes by other foreigners wishing to show that they, too, have been “in the bush”.
- Selective public blindness to other non-Chinese, to the extent of not noticing one if they were the only two people in Tiananmen Square, and the other foreigner was copping a squat in full Pennywise clown gear.
Currently, there is no cure for MPS. However, we here at the China Expat Foreign Pathology Center are working day and night to help jabroneys across China who suffer this cruel affliction. We depend on your generosity to keep hope alive. Won’t you give? For what you spend in a ‘hair salon’ each Friday night, you can help that poor jerkwad sitting with his laptop at Starbucks, glaring at you for de-Chinafying his environment.
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What the hell you talking about? Late last century you must have been at least eight years younger than you are today.
Ahhh yes, they were simpler times. My prez was a man of clandestine nookie instead of clandestine crookery, and a Beijing subway ticket only cost 3 kuai…
Means nothing these days. Nothing at all. China of the past is gone. With such rapid growth and changes, even 1 or 2 years ago is fast becoming obsolete. Last century is no longer relevant.