We all know people like this and may sometimes recognize ourselves exhibiting these attributes from time to time. What makes Sedaris a generally adept writer is his ability to turn his faults into some sort of lesson or awakening, a cautionary tale, or at the very least, an interesting anecdote that keeps you turning pages and snickering, chuckling, and even, on occasion, laughing out loud.
Unfortunately in his essay about China, '#2 To Go' (originally titled 'Chicken Toenails, Anyone?') Sedaris comes across as one of these characters that he was originally making fun of; his view on the country comes off as ignorant as the comments of a Shanghaiist article. He admits never to liking the food, in Raleigh, in Chicago, in New York. So I won't fault him for hating the food in China (holding back from a "even though that opinion is wrong" comment...oh shit, there it goes!). But it's the way he talks about the people. How he compares them to the Japanese and how pure and virtuous they are, whereas the Chinese are just disgusting and weird and barbarous. And yet, he's the one who pissed in a children's sandbox at 35 years old and holed up in the women's room of an Amtrak after the bar closed to smoke pot and get wasted with a stranger.
As stated earlier, Sedaris will readily admit his faults, but he can usually drag some sort of lesson out of it, kicking and screaming. Here, the only compliment he can give to China is that you get the check at a restaurant faster than in France and that people don't have annoying dietary habits like in the States.
And it's not that he can't write about race. He is poignant earlier in the book about it, particularly in 'Obama!!!!!' where all of Europe apparently expected Obama to lose the election in 2008 because America would never vote for a black man for president. Sedaris is aware of his race consciousness and how he interacts with people other races, but also concludes "I'm more afraid of conservatives than I am of black people. I think a lot of Americans are."
I remember the gobbing and hocking and spitting and pissing in China. I remember the foul smells and the beautiful smells and the wonderful sights and friendly people I met, not to mention all of the amazing meals I had there. Sedaris seemed to miss all the beautiful trees and just saw one ugly forest. Jeff Yang, writing for the SF Gate, succinctly puts it: "Sedaris's narrative is condescending, xenophobic and thoroughly venomous -- a sweeping 2,700-word dismissal of an entire culture and society based on a few singular anecdotal experiences." In that piece, Yang goes on further to critique his own culture and understands how such critiques can be virtuous, not hateful: "Unless we engage with the darker aspects of the places we've come from, we can't ensure that they change in the present, or that they won't recur in the future."
Had Sedaris given his own writing a little more thought, he too could have come to a similarly wisened conclusion. Had he looked into why people in China eat the "gross" things that they do, even the recent history of the country, he could see that people over there haven't even had the option to have the dietary restrictions that we have in the US. The fact that he can't see anything worthwhile about a country with a history that puts North Carolina's to shame, that he failed to turn his skewered point of view into a way to poke fun at his own discomfort and instead took it out on an entire country of people, is well, almost impressive, if it wasn't so disappointing. We know you can do better, David. The rest of these essays in this collection, and in past ones, prove that.
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