Looking Asian in Asia.

I can’t decide whether this is a good or bad thing.

The Pros:

1. You get the local prices for goods (or at least the more local price). For example, the starting price of a tee-shirt might be 40 kuai instead of the ridiculous 90 kuai. Either way though you can bargain it down to 15 kuai.

2. You don’t get the shop owners all tugging at your sleeve, waving pictures of bags and shoving shoes in your face trying to get you to buy it for prices I consider unreasonable even in America.

The Cons:

1. You don’t get the attention one deserves as a foreigner. This sounds bad, but as a foreigner, a visitor to this country, I expect to be treated somehow differently than the local people, as other Americans are treated. Case in point, when I go out with some white friends to eat, the owners always speak slower, and try to help them out more or less. Me on the other hand, I’m supposed to be able to keep up with their Chinese speaking speed (which is about 10 times faster than mine).

2. When I tell someone I’m from America, I always get, “No, you can’t be America.” – Um, excuse me, I think I know what I am, and yes I am indeed American. So I’ve decided for most occasions, I am not American, but rather Hong Kong-nian. This has suited me rather well, for the most part; expect that I’m often mistaken for Korean. Nothing new I guess. The other day I went to a store that was owned by a Korean guy, and I asked the price of something in Chinese. He responded in Korean, which of course resulted in me giving him a very confused look and a “huhhh??” He should figure I don’t speak Korean, but he proceeds with all these words… which leave me even more confused, as I can only say ‘i’m hungry’, ‘I’m full’, ‘thank you’, and ‘that guy is cute’ in Korean. Finally another girl in the store tells him, “I think you should speak Chinese.” – That’s the story for the day.

Two Pros to Two Cons. I can’t decide.

One more story – The other night I went clubbing and was trying to explain to the taxi driver where we needed to be. In Taiwan, clubs are called 夜店. (meaning night shop, I guess) I figured they should be called the same thing here. The taxi driver sort of paused, gave me a shocked look. I realized he must have thought we wanted to go to brothel. Shoot. So I quickly said nonono. I mean we want to go to the place you dance. Opps.

I made a one-hour trip today to this café called “the Bookworm”. Back in San Diego, as most of you are probably aware, I had a little obsession with coffee shops and just sitting, studying, reading, journaling, etc. there. It’s taken me almost a month to find time to do that. But this weekend, I’ve decided after three weeks of doing touristy things in Beijing, traveling around, studying Chinese, and successfully finding an internship, it’s time for me to simply breathe and do things I miss doing back in America. Hm. I guess this might be homesickness kicking in. Although I must say, I’m not necessarily homesick (this not to mean I don’t miss friends from home), just a bit exhausted, and feeling a tad introverted. 

This café is rather cute; it’s a restaurant/library/bookstore/event hall – reminds me of everything America minus the all Chinese staff.

This doesn’t really constitute as an update on life here in Beijing- Just a ramble of thoughts and such. Next time, I’ll put up a mass of pictures. But for now, much, much love.