Hypocrites

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I often wonder, maybe human beings are all hypocrites. And as you age, your ability to reveal hypocrisy (of your own or of others) improves. Years ago I met someone who told me he came to Taiwan because he adores Chinese culture, but when I realized that after 5 years living in Taiwan he barely spoke Chinese, it began to dawn on me that oh-there-are-many-of-you-out-there-with-a-story-of-giving-up-awesome-payroll-and-came-to-Taiwan-to-teach-English-because-of-the-love-for-Chinese-culture.

我常想，人們多少都有偽善的時候，年紀越大，能發現的偽善(自己的或他人的)就越多。例如20歲時的我曾在新加坡認識一自稱愛好中國文化的加拿大人，回台後還邀我去故宮為他導覽，不過當我發現他在台住了5年卻連基礎中文都不會說，我才恍然大悟，原來大家都有個因為熱愛中國文化而放棄本國高薪遠渡重洋到台灣教英文的激情過去。

"Stuff White People Like" is a book that reveals various hypocrisies of North Americans. There are people who prove their spiritual individuality by their acquaintance with religions that their parents don't belong to, their wide experience and extensive knowledge by travelling to the First and the Third World, their concern about international affairs by supporting Tibet(something much easier to support blindly, compared to global hunger, poverty or environment), their ability to see through capitalism's real face by hating corporations, and so on. Revealing hypocrisies like these is something I've been enjoying a lot too, and I have done to probably everyone of you regardless of ethnicity or relationship to me, and got a conclusion that human beings are all hypocrites. Then I ask myself, fine, then so what? When such ability as to revealing human hypocrisy improves, this world turn out to be, actually, quite bring.

"白人喜歡的東西"是一本揭露北美人諸多"偽善"事蹟的書，例如藉著接觸跟爸媽信仰的不一樣的宗教來證明自己靈魂自由、藉旅遊來證明自己見多識廣、藉支持藏獨(aka.比起全球貧富差距、環境議題等，更容易盲目支持的理想)顯示自己關心國際時事、藉討厭大企業來證明自己看穿資本主義的真面目，等等等等。揭發偽善的事情我也很喜歡做，然後得到了一個結論就是人類都是偽善的(這樣講起來好聳動喔，應該說，人類都有偽善的一面)。可是我問我自己，有了結論又怎樣? 當"發現人類偽善"的能力不斷增強後，這世界不也開始變得無聊了嗎?