>Handy tip: poking someone you just met in the stomach and asking them if they’re pregnant probably isn’t the best way to start a friendship.

Unless they’re pregnant.

I met June and a couple students on the backstreet for lunch. While I was eating, I felt a sharp jab against my stomach. I look up and a girl asks me, “What is wrong with your belly? Are you pregnant?”

I did not know how to react. In China, it’s normal for people to comment on others’ appearances. Hey, you look fat! Okay, thanks for caring.

Keyword: caring. Compassion, if you will. They’ll tell you you’re an obese pig, but it’s only because they care. Don’t believe me? Still seeing this through an American lens? Then consider:

In January I helped a guy with his oral English test. Being from the countryside, his English was terrible, and I tried to help him satisfy this silly national requirement as best I could.

I had recently quit smoking and gained a little weight. On his way out, with no warning, he patted my stomach. “You are…” He paused. “I do not know the word.”

FAT!

I quietly showed him out. He capped off the whole experience with a most practical solution.

“You need to exercise.”

Xie xie.

>New batch of students today:

Boy: My English name is Welfare.

Me: You should change your name.

Boy: No. I wish to be different.



Girl: My English name is Sweetie.

Me: I’ll be using your Chinese name, okay?

>From a great article…a part about foreign teachers who brag about their “connections”:

The intent, obviously, is to aggressively or competitively show how they are more valued by the dominant group than any other member of their own group is. Every time I am in earshot of such pronouncements, I am reminded of scenes from Alex Haley’s book Roots in which he described how the slaves used to compete with each other over whose master had the more successful farm or biggest crops. Common sense dictates that no high-level government official in China is going to squander his guanxi, which is more valuable than money here, helping out some foreigner who is thought of (quite accurately in most cases) as just a transient worker.

>I missed the food festival last week, so I got to miss some guy utter the following:

“All the food in America is the same, everywhere you go, but in China, it’s different everywhere you go.”

What a load of shit. Of course, whether the guy above really believes this or not is irrelevant. What matters is that he’s only saying this because he believes it’s what the Chinese want to hear.

If you’re representing your country to interested students who trust you, then isn’t intentionally lying to them at an attempt to increase your own standing ethically wrong? Shouldn’t you acknowledge their trust by being truthful rather than abusing it?

>

Everyone stated the obvious about “Concentration Camp”, so they changed the name to this and, as you can see in the photo, created a mural for it.

Here’s my question: if no one had complained, would they have created a mural reading “Concentration Camp”? It may have been worth it just to see one.