Iron and Silk

by Mark Salzman

Question: Why did different people in China react in such extremely different ways to the presence of a foreigner?

 Answer: When Mark was voyaging throughout China, he came across many different people, all 

of whom reacted to him in significantly different ways.  The people on the train in the middle

and beginning were awed and slightly disgusted at his appearance, his students were shocked

and delighted at his fun and humorous approach to learning, a fisherman he met insisted

that Mark come back to his home in order to show his wife and family, and then wanted him

to live with them, some shop keepers were insufferably rude, the communist officials always

 tried to appear happyand hide the poverty of China, the people at the end treated him with familiarty,

and others treated him the same as they would treat anyone, with due kindness.  

Most of the people in China were shocked at his appearance, and most thought him ugly

and unnatural, because so may of them had never seen a white man before.  Mark also gained 

minor preferential treatment in general, because people were shocked that a foreigner

could be so hard working. But besides this, the reactions were immensley different, because 

of the nature of China.  China is massive, and full of different cultures, and seperated into 

regions.  There are thousands of different dialects in China, and all of these are born of 

different cultures.  As is shown throughout the book, people from different regions of China

not only speak different languages, but have different customs, writing styles, and manneurisms.

Because of these regional segregations, China is more like several countries than one united one,

and therefore peoples' reactions differ beyond individual reactions, they differ in cultural reactions.