Cultural superiority and inferiority (#270, Topic A)

Shortly after I returned home, I received a phone call. He introduced himself; he is a fellow member of the Washington Literary Society. There will be a meeting on December 9, when an author will discuss and sign his new book. The author has prepared some slides and a DVD, and plans to show them at the meeting. My caller then said, since I am an expert in slide projection, he requested that I do it at this meeting. Saturdays are days I normally go to the Library of Congress, unless there are events more important than my research project. Since I spoke to WLS at its November meeting, I asked my caller whether he was there. He wasn't, but he heard from others that my PowerPoint presentation went over quite well. Though I know WSL's meeting's time (I am a life member), I nevertheless asked my caller to make sure. On that specific date and time, I have a previous engagement: to attend the quarterly meeting of the Zheng He Society of the Americas. Thus, I declined my caller's request, and gave my reason. He then said: "Zheng He is an important person. He may be compared to Columbus." (All exchanges were in Chinese; I rendered them into English for this entry.) I immediately corrected him: "No, no, no. You should say that Columbus may be compared to Zheng He. Zheng He sets the standard." He said he would remember this; with that, we ended the call. But I was upset. I am invariably upset when a person of Chinese ethnicity fails to acknowledge China's rivaled cultural heritage but, instead, merrily (ignorantly?) misattributes her contribution to other countries. A common encounter with me is on the origin of chess, the proto-chess. Before I could continue by saying that it was a Chinese invention, I was invariably interrupted: "Chess was invented in India, isn't it?" With that self-assured declaration, my enthusiam in continuing the conversation is invariably lost . I would merely say "It was a Chinese invention" (#46, 1/22/06) and proceeded to excuse myself.