I’ll get classes out of the way again early. Theory of Organization Management was another three hours eradicated. The professor wasn’t there as she was wrestling with something of a fever, but the TA was and we were made to do presentations anyway. The same presentations we had to do because the previous week neither of the two groups that overlapped with each other stepped up to the plate. Our group went second of seven. I regurgitated some stuff from our textbook about horizontal and vertical structures while simultaneously wowing them with the talent I refer to as “White Lighting.” It’s quite easy to pull off. Pick a spot and stand there. Look at people, and be white. Then return to what you were doing; reading, fiddling with your phone, or in my case making a presentation. Continue being white and looking around. Wash, rinse, repeat. For advanced studies in White Lightning, there are courses on idly stroking your thick beard, muttering barely audible words of English, and nonchalantly pulling out your American passport to fan yourself. Personally, I say keep it simple.
Sometimes though, it can backfire. In my class on Marketing Management, I was the lightning rod. With every new example in the powerpoint, the professor quickly turns to me, interrupting my ever-so-diligent studies.
“Er-uh-ka!” Crap. This always happens with Chinese people. They don’t have a hard k sound that isn’t followed by a vowel. Thankfully most of my classmates don’t seem to get it.
“Yes?” I give him the three second look, then a quick glance at my computer and a drawn out examination of the projector, showing how enthralled I am.
“Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi?” As an American of course, I am not presented the opportunity of liking neither. But I live up to this stereotype and like all colas, so I play ball. (For the record, I am an RC Cola man.)
“Ummm… I don’t know. Both, I don’t care.” Pause.
Maybe it was a tiny cock of the head, or his smile drooping a tiny bit, or a furrowed brow. But I knew instantly; in a question with only right answers, I managed to get it wrong.
Rather than backtrack I went the explain-my-fault route. “Whichever one is cheaper.” Hey, this is a business class, right? And it’s true besides.
Good enough. “Hah! Okay! When I went to America I drink the Coke...” He starts in on an example of marketing product to local consumers. I drift back to the internet. He quizzed me three times over the course of the lecture. Before you say that’s not a lot, it was three times as much as the rest of the class combined.
Which brings me to the White Lightning-vs-Dancing Monkey problem. They are rooted in the same thing, i.e. skin pigmentation. The White Lightning is about receiving respect that I quite frankly don’t deserve, or perhaps haven’t merited. I haven’t been particularly brilliant in class, I don’t ask insightful questions, hell I barely talk. Yet there is an unmistakable sense of awe, even by people who are deemed educated. Then there is getting poked and prodded, told to go this way or dance that way. Sometimes literally. While passing another group studying in the hall of my dorm I was accosted and asked if I like to dance, if I could dance. The truth is grey (alcohol helps in both departments, but if I ever need to dance my way out of a political prison I will pop lock and drop it so fast Huey wouldn’t know what hit him) but I said no, because I wasn’t feeling in the mood for a public showing.
“All Americans can dance!” The guy proclaiming as such was from Vietnam.
I left no time for more groupmates to pile on: “Do you know kung-fu?”
“No! I’m from Vietnam!” He might have been offended.
“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, “All Asians know kung-fu.”
“No we don’t!” I don’t know who said it, but from the group makeup she must have been Indonesian, Mongolian, or Vietnamese.
“Same with Americans and dancing.” I continued on to my room and awaiting noodle dinner.
The constant attention can truly get annoying. When I go to 7-11 for a Coke and some crackers, I don’t want the world to stop, gawk, and gossip. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, not having a bunch of other Americans at my back means there is no way to deflect this, even if the reaction is the same as it ever was. So over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling like all the attention has made me paranoid and given me an undeserved superiority complex. Surely not everyone staring cares that much, or thinks I’m that awesome right? If only.
A few days ago I went to many of the side streets near campus, stalking restaurants for 餃子jiaozi aka 水餃shuijiao which is simplest to describe as potstickers, or at least an ancestor of them. I ordered two servings, paid, got my food, and moved over one shop to a tea stall. Purchased my coffee smoothie, and as usual charmed the pants off all the shopkeepers with such linguistic wonders as “Hello,” “Two, please,” and “How much money?” The typical meal protocol for new places, with typical compliment deflection. Happy with a 3 dollar meal-and drink combo reaching an 8.5 on the deliciousness scale, I wheeled and started toward the main boulevard that cuts through campus and leads to all the good-eats side streets. Not ten yards away was a couple of cute girls looking at me. Not uncommon. As I was getting at earlier, everybody looks; professor and student, girl and boy, dog and goldfish. I returned the look, but then something weird happened, or rather didn’t happen. They kept looking, making eye contact. Nobody here does that! How dare they! Wait a second, this means, uh oh…
You know those moments where you just know what’s coming next, but it’s already too late? Like when you’re leaning back in your chair, your center of gravity is too far over, and you reach for the desk to pull you back but your hands grasp air and for .2 seconds you achieve perfect clarity of thought, when your mind instantly and totally refocuses on the impending disaster? Yeah, that happened. I knew where this was heading.
One of them opened up. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Sure hit that one out of the park, Eric. The other grew tired of all the small talk, apparently.
“You are very handsome.”
“(stupid silence)” Even when the chair hits, you’re still stunned. And I definitely wasn’t expecting anything that blunt. After maybe a second: “Uh, thanks.” This would be the time to respond with something like “You’re very pretty,” or perhaps “That’s a pretty dress,” or even “Did you catch that Yankees-Rangers game!” Anything but blank staring.
The one that greeted me giggles. She is wearing jeans.
Pretty Dress is only getting started. “Do you have a girlfriend?” Jeans laughs again.
At this point I’ve more or less recovered, able to respond to her English questions in Chinese. “No.”
“Why not!? You-”
“I’ve only been here two weeks!” Admittedly, I’m flustered. Thankfully she reins it in a little, though I don’t think it was out of pity. She moves on to another question.
“Where are you from?”
“America.”
“Oh.” (Approving nod.) And if there is a god, he certainly shined his good graces down at that moment. A mother and little boy walked past. The mom was so pleased I spoke Chinese. She and Pretty Dress had a small conversation, blessed reprieve! The boy asked me in surprisingly clear English, “What is your name?”
“Ma Ai Rui.” He laughed a little bit and ran around. Pretty Dress picked him under the shoulders in a Simba grab and said something pretty fast. Then Jeans spoke again.
“Do you have MSN?”
“Ehhh… uhhh.” I do, but I hate using it because it sucks. Not a problem though! Everybody has Facebook, and that was her next question. I exchanged my email address for Pretty Dress’ real name in characters and Jeans’ Facebook username.
“Okay! Bye-bye!”
And then I just walked away, replaying the conversation in my head and wondering endlessly. Being so popular is truly an embarrassment of riches. It’s annoying, and hard to deal with. Being upfront and aggressive is one thing, and I can definitely understand that. If she knows what she wants and goes for it, kudos to her. The problem is my lack of information. I don’t know her. I do know that she doesn’t know me, which means I have been selected solely due to my whiteness. Is it a ploy to anger her parents? Is she looking for a foreign boyfriend because she thinks white guys are here only for girls and I’m an easy mark; or perhaps it’s because she thinks that as a Westerner I’ll play by some different set of dating rules? If she thinks I’m super attractive, am I even going to get the opportunity to show her my personality and find hers or is that not even on the radar? I know this all may sound like spoiled whining and don’t get me wrong I’d much rather be in this situation than being regarded as hideous or invisible. Still it’s important to realize that while being white in this highly homogenized place can make you seem like a C or D list celebrity, it cuts both ways.
Adding to the list of differences, the international students on my floor don’t seem to knock. Bathroom door closed? No problem, just go ahead and open it! Don’t knock, don’t say anything, don’t knock and wait two seconds, just walk in like you own the place! I know this is a cultural thing and we all need to learn to respect differences, etc… but I must disagree on the grounds that when you throw a bunch of people together, everyone’s reaction should be to be as cautious and accommodating as possible. If it makes me insensitive for thinking everyone else should be sensitive, then I guess I’m just a cultural imperialist. Related: the Vietnamese guys come into my room and touch my stuff. Oh is this a metal die on your desk yes I’ll just pick this up and throw it to myself while chatting with you. And don’t mind me while I help myself to your Coke Zero as I ‘ask’ while it’s already in the air flowing down into my mouth. Also I’m going to help myself to a couple of these empty water bottles on your desk. I don’t really care about any of those things in the slightest, and if they asked or even mentioned it I’d be pleased to say yes. But I haven’t known them for a decade much less a month, so it’s not typical American behavior. Builds some sort of understanding I guess, and I can forgive it. I just hope whatever terrible faux pas I commit are likewise excused.
While we’re on the subject of things that irk me, a Vietnamese guy (not the Mr. David Tran who went to Taichung with me) was correcting my tones just earlier today. Now, being brutally honest is great when it comes from a native speaker or someone who has studied it for a long time. It’s the only way to learn and correct entrenched mistakes. When he has been studying for a month or two, has obvious pronunciation deficiencies of his own, and doesn’t even know the correct order of the tones, my reaction is not just neutral, it’s outright disdain. Funny karma: his employer called while we were talking and he started speaking in Chinese but had to repeat several phrases five times before dropping it entirely and moving on. I’m no savant at this whole Mandarin thing but I’m a Buckeye fan before I let him give me sass.
Things that don’t irk me are the baozi at 7-11. Seriously, they sell steamed pork buns in a convenience store. They aren’t exactly the most authentic thing around, but they work in a pinch and are totally adequate. Their hot dogs are actually pretty tasty too.
I also started my tutoring at the English Corner this past week. I am one of two native speakers they have, and if the rest of this post hasn’t given you an idea, the time I’m there it’s often quite crowded. Thankfully one of my three hours is during prime class time so I can rest a little then. Mostly I just talked about mundane subjects, the usual name/age/major/city and then go from there. Some people are very talkative and others sit back and do not respond to any attempts to get them involved. Their choice, not mine. In some of that downtime I was able to chat with the Mongolians who were seated with me. One, an MBA classmate, was officially a tutor as well, but all of them knew pretty good English. The other two I discovered were sixteen. They knew more Chinese than me, spoke pretty damn fine English, and really I mean they’re sixteen. I feel like it’s too early for me to start saying this, but when I was their age I played Magic Cards and World of Warcraft. So I sat there for a little while tossing that around in my head but before I could inquire further some students came in looking for conversation so we had to start conversing with them.
That’s pretty much how this last week has shaken out, or at least the highlights. The shuijiao I discovered really taste great, they’re deep-fried and come with some sort of plum sauce and fries. I also found another mom and pop restaurant with solid fried rice. The food’s getting tastier which only makes everything better. And sorry for no pictures, just didn’t happen this week.
再見
P.S. I tried to friend Pretty Dress on Facebook but Facebook thinks I’m spamming unknown people so blocked it, Jeans’ profile seems not to exist, and I haven’t received an email.
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