The Peripatetic.

What is it like to submerge yourself as completely as possible in the middle of China, with three Chinese roommates and Chinese classes where the only language you can speak with other students is Chinese?

Foreign bedroom, foreign haven

I enrolled full-time at Shaanxi Normal University’s classes for foreign students: four hours a day, five days a week plus tutoring after class.

All Chinese, all day, every day but one, where I would shut myself in my room, call family and friends abroad and read whatever newspapers I could access online.  If I did not take that day off, I would not make it through the week.

More than just studying, it was the experience of being constantly in the spotlight — after living in New York, a city of constant anonymity — that was draining . . .  before I learned to appreciate the openness and sincerity of those who had put me there.

Adapted from an email sent October 15, 2006, impressions after a month and a half on the Mainland:

I was starting to empathize with Hollywood stars.  I was one of what?  Maybe ten non-Asian girls on a campus of over 20,000 students.  When I first arrived, I noticed that while I was walking in a park with another foreign friend, a stranger started following me with his camera.  Later, that would become too common place to write home about.

Every time I met someone they would say, “Oh, I’ve seen you around!  I think you’re beautiful!”

When I was tired and still reeling from culture shock, I wanted to reply, “Really?  How could you notice me?  I’m only a foot taller than 95% of the students here, one of three people with green eyes and yes, my eyes are big, but that can’t be your only standard of beauty!”

In general, though, people were often too nervous to talk to me, and really giddy when they finally mustered up the courage to do so.  Then, they would ask the same questions.  I began a litany of automatic replies:

Foreign student ladies on a field trip

Yes, I can use chopsticks.

No, I don’t want a Chinese boyfriend, thank you for offering to hook me up, though.  Yes, I like Chinese food.  Yes, I like Xi’an.  No, I have not visited “many places of cultural interest.”

Yes, I can write a little Chinese.  No, I did not study Chinese in the States.  Why thank you, but my Chinese really isn’t good and you’ve only heard me speak two words.

Yes, we can be friends; but no, sorry, I cannot give you my phone number. I know you want to learn English, but I didn’t leave my mom and my favorite city to be an English teacher.

Yes, I miss my mom.  Yes, she misses me, even though she let me come here.

What are my hobbies? Um, studying Chinese? Travel?

No, I can’t tell you what I think about Osama Bin Laden right now; I’ve never met him.

Yes, I like Japanese food.  Yes, I know, you hate Japan, all Japanese, and all Japanese food.

After a week or two, I started to have fun, because you know exactly what people will ask after fielding those questions at least three times a day.  I started to play with my answers.

Walking on campus, two Thai students and the freshman year mandatory army training

Thank you, but you know your body is just a bunch of dust and I’ll be old an uglier some day, so what’s more important is the heart.

I love China, and I want to be a journalist because I think there is so much to learn here and most Americans — including me — don’t understand. I want to tell them.  I think journalists should be a mirror for the world, but many of them only write what people want to hear.

Yes, I like Chinese food, and yes I can cook.  But I don’t just cook American food — it’s food from every where around the world because every country has something delicious to offer.  America is not the only country in the world.

Yellow River field trip with Korean classmates

Yes, I like Japanese food and I think there is a difference between how governments act and how people act.  I can’t talk about the governments, but people are people no matter if they’re Chinese or Japanese.  We’re all made from the same dust.  The heart is the most important, and I think there are many Japanese people with good hearts; it would be sad if you didn’t take time to know them because you decided you hate them.

No, I am not Christian.

In October, I answered with zeal, eager to find the most creative replies possible

By December, I was back to the short, automatic responses.  As the hours of study slowly started bearing fruits, I could take conversations further.  October was just the acme of responses in English; life was better when I learned a little more Chinese.

People usually complement any foreign-looking individual able to say “Ni hao” or “Hello.” (If you’re Chinese-American, even if you were born and raised in the U.S., it’s a different story. Expectations are much, much higher.)

After a year, my response to comments like, “Your Chinese is so good!” was often, “Wow, your Chinese is better!”
“But I am Chinese!” They would reply and laugh.  Once, a man replied by declaring he was from “the land of the dragon” and extolled the virtues of the Chinese.  That was the best reaction to date.