The other day the ordinarily respectable General Colin Powell let his tongue slip and referred to the people living in China as Chinamen. Of course later on he insisted that he meant no harm and the word was used in a positive context, so on and so forth. I harbor no ill feeling against a damn soldier. But his remark somehow tickled me a little while I was drinking my morning tea and reading this ads-rich newspaper. Nothing more than that.

I have been thinking why Chinese men are being bashed from all sides all the time any time, consciously or unconsciously. Why us? Deep down, I really don't want to talk about this. I have enough friends telling me that they like my effort in writing and editing but don't necessarily agree with the points I make. That's cool. I can't please everyone. On the other hand, I don't wish to open any can of smelly worms to interrupt the daily pursuit of my friends. Also, I am a firm believer of fate. Whining is the worst kind of quality for any individual to have, man or woman. The problem is that the more I try to distance myself from this sticky point or disturbing notion of Chinamen bashing, the more deeply my little mind probes or swims into it. Not that I have come up with any answer that comforts you or me, nor that all my thoughts are deep here, mind you. I am just fallen in the trap of my own thoughts over a cup of tea, I am telling you.

Alright, let's cut to the chase here. And let's start by trudging onto something dangerous on the spot: at least in Chinese culture just like in any other culture, women are allowed to have soft spots inside, the essence of femininity if you will. Chinese culture, the male-dominant culture of course, looks down but also expects women to be soft and tender or even sentimental. If you read our great literature, nothing is more lovely than a little woman of sophisticated tenderness. Oh please don't, three inch lotus would get me sick in the stomach. Not the kind that reminds me that our ancestors, indeed, overdid the thing. As in every culture, Chinese men are expected to be tough and rough. The interesting phenomenon is that while in the West sensitivity in a man is considered a plus, a sentimental Chinaman is almost a given, a cliche that went sour, a stereotype that can't balance off the negativity from hidden compliments, if there is any. We are too sensitive, my dear, and we need to get the hell out of that mood fast. The bottom line is that Chinaman is burdened to prove his manhood; otherwise, the world will collapse on our head and we will have egg yolk and white all over our Chinese face.

I don't really know what happened. I must have been in my winter-summer hibernation for a long time. That's right, I was born not only late but also at a wrong time. So were you, my dear, sorry to remind you. Anyway, when I woke up, I read Professor Yu Qiuyu's article, "Snow at Yangguan Pass," in which he praises, with obvious pride, Chinese men of the Tang Dynasty as men of impeccable poise, big heart, wide vision and great intellect, as symbolized by the great poet Wang Wei. Really? They were that good? Now it seems that I need to check myself in the mirror. The sad thing is that those 800 some odd years in between have been really cruel in washing off every good code away from my genes? There seems to have had a major erosion somewhere in between. Look at me, I can't poetry, I can't fight a war, I can't be a man, and I can't even die. This is killing me. All is left is a me small, pitiful and whining.

Tang Days were of course the glory days for the Chinese people as a whole. Some would argue that I as an individual was not born in the right family, popping up in the lower part of the food chain, so to speak, to inherit the good genes and the bragging rights. Does that mean I am entitled to whine? I doubt about that.

Since then or even during Wang Wei's time, the Chinese as a people have suffered through disasters and catastrophes of historical proportions. We were beaten fair and square many times by all kind of forces, natural or artificial. We put on the costumes of aggressors some times and were forced to wear the drags for victims other times, in really random order. We have inflicted enough pain to others and got injured by others just enough times to become revengeful, though not yet resentful or hateful. We have lost our presumably unique attribute, magnanimity, something a great number of Chinamen had extracted from their bone marrow by sitting face to a cave wall for ages and ages. Now we don't even remember what it was. Let's face it, we were never real winners and we just learned to turn our head away from this sorry fact. Hey, let's pretend we are cool.

However, we are not dying off. This is probably the toughest part we have to deal with. History proves that we could face adversaries from bad to worse but we can't deal with ourselves. We have been merciless on ourselves or our own kind numerous times, if not all the time, even before others have met us. As recently as during the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, we stepped on ourselves and criticized the crap out of our soul, if we had any, for crying out aloud. Finally, we feel the fatigue facing the challenge pertinent to the question to be or not to be.

Maybe we have suffered too many defeats in recent centuries. Maybe we are tired of being backward, poor, hungry, deprived of glory of whatever form. We become anxious and easily irritated. We started to pity ourselves. Our heart keeps shrinking, vision narrowing, intellect decaying. We Chinese men become what we pushed our women to be over the centuries. The natural result is that our women become large and strong and we become small and petty. And some of our women have abandoned us simply because we are not man enough. All seems logical now, in great irony.

However, we don't cry. Hell NO. Instead, we get angry easily. But it's equivalent to whining, the worst kind of crying. And some of us may be champions of this "new age art form."

Don't get me wrong, ladies and gentlemen, deep inside I know we are still good, intelligent and hardworking, loyal and moral. We are still one of the kind. The problem may be that the damn world we live in no longer favors our kind of intelligence, loyalty and morality. We have to adapt and something in us has to give. We have to revolutionize or perish. We have to come out to the sun with eyes looking straight ahead and keep our head level. We have to regain the confidence that this world is still ours.

You are damn right, we must not cry. Cast your smile on that monster and it will die. And if it bites your head off, hope the next guy will muster enough concentration to slay that disgusting thing. Green monster, you say? Yuk. Maybe it's Halloween. Hey, when the time comes, wake me up, will you?