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Viv asks:
In this sentence, "you have my word that we won't stick
your name on the account", what does "stick... on" mean?
My comments:
It means,
Viv, you've gotten away with it. So, cheers.
When they stick a crime or just something bad on you, they mean to say
you're responsible for it. In your case, you've got their word (promise)
that they won't blame you for whatever it is that had happened.
Last week, in the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings,
some people apparently tried to stick it on Korea, or China, or Asia in
general, all on the strength of such weak arguments that Cho Seung-Hui was
an immigrant from Korea, that he was sometimes (mis)taken as Chinese, or
that he's Asian-looking.
I read somewhere that a Korean retorted, quite correctly, that Cho left
South Korea at the age of eight and spent most of his formative years in
the States so they can't possibly stick it on Korea. Cho, who killed 33
people including himself on Virginia Tech campus on Monday, April 16,
2007, was 23.
Likewise, you can't stick it on China. At least once Cho was mistaken
as Chinese. "In high school, Cho Seung-Hui almost never opened his mouth.
When he finally did, his classmates laughed, pointed at him and said: 'Go
back to China.'" (Va. Tech shooter a 'textbook killer', Associated Press,
April 19, 2007).
Nor can you pin it on Asia. After all, almost all East Asians look the
same to the less discerning American eye.
Whom do we stick it onto, then?
If I have to assign blame, I will stick it first on Cho, obviously,
then on gun control or the lacks thereof in America, then on pop culture
and on society at large.
I, for one, believe it is not as far-fetched to blame it on society at
large than on a specific target such as Korea. Society at large, you see,
both yonder across the oceans and here in this country looks too much up
to what is called success but has too little respect for and tolerance of
what is considered to be failure. I mean, only by contrast do we tell
success from failure. So theoretically for society as a whole, these two
are equally important - we should therefore reserve a degree of respect
for those who fail, who come up short but also run.
School bullies, for example, pick on practically anyone who's not
regarded as "one of us". You may get glared at, jeered and sneered at for
one of these perfectly harmless "crimes" - that you come from another
country (or another province for that manner), that you don't get ushered
to school by a sedan car, that you speak a non-local dialect, that you
have an odd accent, that you have a physical disability or simply a
harelip, that you have a mental problem…. The list goes on and on.
In the mainstream society of one-upmanship, pop culture craves for
bringing up heroes (American Idol, or the Super Girl in China) and in the
process create as a by product victims and villains, of whom Cho is but a
latest and most disturbing example.
No doubt, blaming it on society at large is in vain. Cho himself tried
to do it, and what consequences did he come to? Cho argued in his
manifesto, sent to the NBC in between the murders, that he was out to
avenge rich "brats" with had their "Mercedes", "gold necklaces", "cognac"
and "trust funds". But he had no argument, really - none of the above
justifies the shootings.
But, as a lesson, we as individuals need to be constantly reminded of
the social callousness we often displays toward the weak and
underprivileged.
In the same time society advocates winning, it'd best advocate also
tolerance and understanding towards losing. By all means win, but please
maintain a healthy respect for those who fall behind.
It's called "live and let live". In this age of wealth and profligacy
in many places, we instead may advocate "thrive but let survive".
Or we run the risk of seeing another Cho in another guise on the loose,
lurking and ready to pounce.
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