years. Americans who have been in China, missionaries, doctors, teachers, officials, and businessmen, have a good record. So the way to friendship is all paved for you. Added to this is the fact that we are allies—a fact in which the Chinese take pride. The first thing you should learn to say in China is “I am an American.” It is the best passport you can have.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE ARE LIKE AMERICANS
OF ALL the peoples of Asia, the Chinese are most like Americans. Those who know both peoples often remark at the likenesses. One of the reasons, perhaps, is that we both live in countries where there is plenty of space and a great variety of climate and food. We are alike, too, because we both love independence and individual freedom.
Another likeness is that we are both humorous people. The Chinese love a joke just as well as we do, and they laugh at the same sort of thing. Their stock jokes are the same as ours—about professors, and doctors, and Irishmen—the Chinese equivalent for the Irish being people from Hunan province. They laugh about stinginess, about country hicks, and smart city people. Their conversation is full of wit, and lively humor, and they love slapstick stuff, their own and ours. Listen to a Chinese crowd laughing at Charlie Chaplin or Harold
