Young Americans

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jason Lew had visited his mother's old house in China once, when he was 6, and remembers feeling out of place within its small concrete rooms. But when he entered that same house in July, something hit him.Touching the cold walls of the house, Lew cried."I had the sensation of coming home," he says.Lew, 17, is one of 10 Chinese-Americans reconnecting with their families' homeland through "In Search of Roots," a yearlong program of research and study sponsored by the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, the Chinese Historical Society of America and the Overseas Chinese Affairs office in Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China.

YOU PARENTS out there should be aware that the young people have invented yet another alarming trend. I frankly wonder why we, as a society, even allow young people, inasmuch as all they ever seem to do is think up trends that we do not approve of, such as sarcasm, tattoos, and referring to pioneering rock- music geniuses of the '60s as "old" just because they are dead or in comas.I found out about the latest alarming youth trend thanks to several alert readers who sent me an article from the Straits Times of Singapore.

LOS ANGELES -- It was the early 1990s, and recent college grad Stephanie Brail was doing precisely what someone of her generation was supposed to be doing. Nothing.Like many so-called Gen-Xers -- the 80 million Americans born between 1961 and 1981 -- she was rudderless. The English and music major drifted for several years, working at a nonprofit here, writing a free-lance piece there. In between, there was a lot of time in coffeehouses.Then she started to teach courses about computers, something she had used in one form or another since childhood.

Baltimore resident Kenneth Merchant, soon to be an engineering student at Morgan State University, doesn't smoke American cigarettes at all. He prefers bidis, a flavored cigarette imported from India, for the extra kick they give. "It's just like cigarettes," he says, "except it's a little stronger."Bidis, Americanized as "beedies," are 2 inches long, hand-wrapped in a brown leaf called tendu and tied at one end with string.Although this description may suggest marijuana, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has found that beedies contain no controlled substances.

LOS ANGELES -- Why are we in Kosovo? Because we have no draft. This war, in the air or on the ground, means nothing to most Americans. The military, all volunteers, go about their business and the rest of us go about ours.On the campus of the University of Southern California, where I lecture on the relationship between presidents and the press, there are more than 20,000 young Americans. You can walk from one end of the campus to the other on a fine, sunny day in the spring and never hear the word "Kosovo."

NEW YORK -- "What do you think of the idea of our Peace Corps?" President Kennedy once asked Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of India. A good plan, Nehru answered; young Americans can learn a lot from Indian villagers.The American was not amused; he thought the Indian arrogant. But Nehru was right, and the arrogance was ours. The major impact of sending tens of thousands of Americans abroad over the past 35 years has been to create alumni who actually have a feel for the world and America's role in far off places.

MEMORIES of the acrimony that preceded the Million Man March of 1995 have blurred. Fears raised by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's plans for that mass rally are not recalled as vividly as stories of the harmonious event that took place.Years hence, will that also be the case with the Million Youth March to be held this weekend in Harlem? One can only hope.New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani tried to withhold a parade permit for the march, organized by former Nation of Islam henchman Khalid Abdul Muhammad, whose anti-Semitic rhetoric was deplored even by Mr. Farrakhan.

Cinema Sundays, the film lovers' series at the Charles Theatre, wraps up its 12th season Sunday with a screening of "Smoke Signals," a film by Sherman Alexie and Chris Eyre that opens in Baltimore in July.This coming-of-age tale follows two young Native American men as they travel from their reservation in the Pacific Northwest to Arizona, where one of them will recover the remains of his late father.The touching and funny film, which was a hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival, will be introduced by WJHU radio host Marc Steiner.

WIMBLEDON, England -- There was a time when Americans came to Wimbledon to win championships.Now, they're having a tough time just winning matches.Yesterday, it was No. 5-seeded Lindsay Davenport's turn to suffer a Wimbledon embarrassment, losing in the second round to Denisa Chladkova, 7-5, 6-2.The outcome left two American women in the draw, Monica Seles, a 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 winner over Kristina Brandi, and Mary Joe Fernandez, a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Aleksandra...

IN 1961, President John F. Kennedy made an audacious promise. Within a decade, he said, Americans would walk on the moon.To accomplish this goal, he brought together thousands of the country's top scientists, engineers and designers to carry out a broad-based program of research, development and experimentation. Eight years later, Neil Armstrong made President Kennedy's promise a reality.In 1996, President Clinton made an equally audacious promise. Every 9-year-old, he pledged, will be a reader.