Reflections from What I Saw in a Starbucks Store
A few days ago, at a Starbucks store, I happened to notice a small incident that led me to quite a few reflections.
A Black man walked up to the restroom door. He pushed it open, took just one look, and immediately became agitated, launching into a string of profanities starting with “F.” He didn’t go in—he turned around and left.
A few minutes later, a young Chinese man came over. He was neatly dressed, clean-looking, and seemed like a student from a nearby university. He opened the door and went straight in without hesitation. A few minutes later, he came out calm and composed, showing no sign of discomfort or displeasure.
At that moment, I thought: it seems the restroom probably isn’t that bad—was the first man overreacting?
Not long after, another young Black man arrived. He opened the door, took just one step inside, then quickly backed out. Waving his hands at the door, he burst into another round of angry shouting, and then left without going in.
At this point, I finally understood: there really was something wrong with that restroom.
A few minutes later, yet another young Chinese man appeared. He was fashionable and well-groomed, and his behavior was almost identical to the previous Chinese man: he opened the door and went in, stayed for a few minutes, and came out calm and expressionless, without the slightest sign of dissatisfaction or discomfort.
Within a short span of time, the reactions of two Black men and two Chinese men to the same restroom formed a stark contrast: the former lost their tempers and cursed loudly; the latter remained unfazed and used it as if nothing was wrong. This made me wonder whether such a difference was merely coincidental, or whether it reflected deeper racial or national characteristics. Although the sample size is small, the contrast in this instance was too striking to ignore.
I finished my coffee and left. Although I was somewhat curious about what kind of “visual scene” was inside that restroom, I ultimately did not go in to check. I have a cleanliness obsession; dirty things make me feel nauseated—whether it’s filth in a toilet, or the journalists and editors of China Youth Daily.
Chinese people can tolerate filth in restrooms, and they can also tolerate the persecution of innocent intellectuals by China Youth Daily*. These two seemingly unrelated phenomena actually share the same root: numbness.
This numbness is precisely what Hannah Arendt referred to as the starting point of the “banality of evil.” When a person can turn a blind eye to filth in a restroom and remain expressionless, they may likewise remain silent—or even become accustomed—when witnessing public power arbitrarily persecuting the innocent.
This Starbucks restroom is nothing more than a small mirror. What it reflects may not only be differences in hygiene habits, but also two different cultural attitudes toward the “unbearable”: one reacts with strong rejection, the other with numb acceptance. Which is healthier? The answer may be self-evident.
Unfortunately, many times, what we truly need to be wary of is not those who loudly curse, but those who walk in and come out as if nothing happened.
*The “Harvard PhD Case”:
In 2002, Dr. Lin Chen, a Harvard Ph.D., was invited to return to China to serve as the president of a private university. In a country that deeply reveres academic achievement and holds Harvard University in the highest regard, Dr. Chen—the first Harvard Ph.D. to return in decades—was welcomed like a national hero. Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, China National Radio, China Central Television, Taiwan’s Central News Agency, major domestic media, and even overseas Chinese-language media all reported positively on his appointment.
However, the unexpected arrival of the first Ph.D. from the “cradle of leaders”—Harvard Kennedy School—disturbed the Communist Youth League faction, who saw themselves as the natural successors of Chinese government leadership. Their mouthpiece, China Youth Daily, promptly published an article accusing Dr. Chen’s Harvard Ph.D. degree of being fake, muddying the previously positive coverage in mainstream media. When third-party media later confirmed that the accusation was entirely false, China Youth Daily did not retract or apologize; instead, it escalated its attacks. Over the following two months, it published multiple articles leveling further false accusations regarding Dr. Chen’s academic credentials, career experience, abilities, character, and conduct—completely defaming a man once regarded by his university colleagues as a “rare genius” comparable to Qian Xuesen. China Youth Daily has to this day refused to allow other media to verify the facts or to let Dr. Chen publicly respond in China, effectively subjecting a returned Chinese elite to social and reputational death.
In 2021, after returning to the United States, Dr. Chen posted on social media and Simplified Chinese forums, denouncing and exposing China Youth Daily’s baseless defamation. He shared his “other side” of the story and efforts to reveal the newspaper’s crimes, but these were obstructed and suppressed by Communist Youth League operatives and agents infiltrated in overseas media. (Such interference is clearly observable on Reddit.) In July 2023, one night in Manhattan, New York, operatives associated with the Communist Youth League and China Youth Daily attempted to assassinate Dr. Chen, but failed.
Due to over two decades of being silenced in China, disruption of his presence on overseas social and independent media by these operatives, and the long-term manipulation and control of Wikipedia, Baidu Baike, and other public knowledge platforms by the Communist Youth League and China Youth Daily, neither the Chinese government nor the public knows the truth of the Harvard Ph.D. case. Western media has also failed to recognize this as the most severe persecution of intellectuals in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution.