various variouses: linkies, picodiscussion, a week review, and a performance
Linkies first:
Beth Bernobich Interview
---- this interview makes me want to read this woman. She's got really good, cogent, and interesting answers to her questions, and seems to have her head on real straight. (I might, based on what the content of said books sound like, might recommend her to historicula since they sound pretty good and maybe like you'd enjoy 'em.)
Bad Advice Tumblr
---- a tumblr that dispenses bad advice to inane questions. You're welcome.
NASA Wants to Pay You $10K to Lie in Bed for Two Months
---- I know the common answer to this is "sign me up pls" but my own thoughts on it are more like "OH HELL NO". I would go nuts without walking or running or lifting or hiking or even just wandering. PS: ADD. Given the fact that I can't sit through a 2-hr movie without pausing it, getting up, and doing something, and then coming back to it? or that I can't watch more than an episode of show at a time without having to some SOMETHING ELSE? No no no.
Polymath
---- so there's a word for it other than "Rennaissance Man"? huh.
~:~
And: one link with a Pico-discussion about it:
Giving Warm Greetings and Farewells
This article's interestings and strange to me to read, for this reason: it's natural to me.
It is, quite literally, something I dind't realize other people don't do. In my family, it's normal, when someone gets home, for everyone to come up/down and say Hi, or come give a kiss or a hug, or at least call "hang on a sec!" and then the person who arrives comes up and greets them. Ditto to farewells - we always, even if we're going for errands, go around to the rooms in the house where someone is and say "hey guys, I'm home/just got back/hello!"
And it's strange, reading this article (and having been directed to it from this one, a la the tried-and-true method of "clicking on stuff til stuff appears") to figure out: "my god. People consider this strange?" or "people think this takes time?"
Because it's natural to us - both my own family and my hungarian family, and by extension to family friends.
I realize, looking back at my own friendships, that yeah, there's people who don't do that. People arrive or leave the house and, other than maybe a shout "hi!/bye!", no fuss is made. (historicula, this is one of those things about your household that, basically until reading this article, I just Didn't Get). It just seems to me such a removed way of a family - you greet and fare people well because ... well, you do. And not doing so - it makes them feel like strangers.
All of this makes me think about how I'm going to readjust when I get back to the States. And I don't have anymore to add, just formless thoughts, but I'll tell 'em to you guys when I form them.
~:~
In other news, work has been a pile of What Oh My God Lol.
Monday was those emails from Crazylady. (New name for :(J, because I have lost any nanogram of respect I may ever have had for her (which I never really did to begin with).) I think it's the consistent lack of logic or reason, combined with extreme spitefulness and superb hypocrisy, all mixed up with a potent brew of You're A Horrible Person, that really drove me off. I knew there'd be troubles with her from the start, because I knew from the start that she's crazy*, but I thought that, by politeness, allowing her to speak, and organization efforts, I could handle it. I was wrong. I can't. And I am neither going to hold myself responsible for her, nor am I going to put up with being vilified by her.
*(and let me note here: I do know crazy - I've got an unstable aunt, and have close experience with that, and it's really led me to understand in other people what signs point to Just Cannot Be Reasoned With. Because there's either 1) the kind of mental imbalance that people understand of themselves, and fight against, and that I applaud, or 2) there's the kind that either denies or revels in it, and either way blames the rest of the world, and that I abhor.)
In short, Monday was a bag-o-balls.
Tewsday, after 5 hours of sleep and desperate midnight preparations, I got up at 6 to go to the other campus and teach 8-12, two classes of Listening And Speaking. And I just wanna say: Thank you, Tuesday guys, you were a delight.
L&S is based on a really rather good textbook by National Geographic. it covers a good variety of subjects, and I've interspersed those textbook listenings, videos, and readings with my own activities and so on. Note that I'm big, in my teaching, on activities and Getting Up And Doing Things, so this class is perfect for me -- I have some textbook work (first time I've really taught from/with a text), but also a good deal of walkaround work, which makes this Gewd Stuff.
Afternoon class was AW, in which we did the overgoing of Critiquing Articles and such-all. One big thing about the Chinese Enducation System that no one can deny is that it does not feature critical thinking in any major way, and has a great tendency towards memorize-every-little-fact-for-the-tests. So a lot of my work in AW is showing ways to dissect information and give opinions and and critical reviews of it.
(This is, in fact, part of what crazylady was arguing at me about - she thinks "they need to know how to write an academic article so I am going to show them academic articles but their final assessment is a critical review of an academic article", and I have been teaching "in four weeks, your critical review of an academic article will be due: this is how you critique. now, this is how you critique an article. now, this is how you make that critique better." Call me crazy, but I think learn-through-doing is better than learn-by-osmosis-and-reading-the-teacher's-fickle-mind.)
Anyway, that was Tuesday. I must have collapsed or something after that.
Wodensday was le tired. Not tiring, jsut tired. Up 7.30, Chinese class at 8. Grammar, review of lesson. Off home, where tea made me strong and I watched the second half of Howl's Moving Castle again (and had thoughts I'll blahblah at you later. in short - beautiful movie! prefer other miyazaki plots though!). Classplanning**, then Crit Articles again for afternoon class.
** note: not actually classplanning: as crazylady's declared basically cessation-of-progress on me, I'm determined to prove myself to :)J by being Pic Prepared. I've realized that this is my way of handling adversity: Fuck You I'm Better, ie expressing my anger by being so aggressively prepared, capable, organized, and confident that even thinking about not agreeing would be silly.
it's sad, but i have to do this, sicne :)J showed a distressing tendency to shelter :(J. I have to go into that meeting superprepared, otherwise :)J is going to tell me that, since crazylady is my senior, I have to bow to her. And hell with that.
Wednesday evening, I went and met my Russian friend downtown. Friends, actually - her coworker's been joining us the last couple times we've had outings, and I find she's quite nice too, if a little shy. (S'okay, she has good thoughts.) Had wonderfully interesting discussions about how Russians act, what politeness is and isn't, and Russian language differences, before walking all about the town. Saw an old prison wall - what used to be Haerbin's prison in the old days (right by the river? downtown?) had been town down, but one single wall of it was left. So to see it, the three of us jsut wandered into a night-lit 小区 (apartment community) and looked - the wall was there, painted over with Confucian stories and terminating and a tall, heavy guard-tower.
Then we kept wandering - through the 小区, smelling the flowers, admiring the quiet, playing on the excercise equipment and the see-saws. We wandered down Tongjiang street, stopping to look at an old mosque and trying to peek past construction at the being-rennovated synagogue. Then we headed on down to the old Jewish soup kitchen and new synagogue, where, round 11.30, we called it a night. Cabs home, and I got to bed by midnight.
~:~
Which all brings us to yesterday: Thursday, the performance.
I'd gotten a call the other day from Bincai: "hey, Xiang Aike! We're having a student performance on Thursday! It's a celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival, and we wanted to know if you'd like to attend!" Sure, sure, time? date? details? "Can you sing? We'd really like people to sing and dance." well, I can't dance but I can sing. "Alright, see you then!"
In my mind's eye at this point: a classroom with a buffett of chinese snackies along the side, student milling aroudn and hanging out -- or maybe a little hall like in the 活动中心, students going up on stage individually and fumbling their way through cheerfully bad performances. Seen that before.
Fast-foward to Thursday. Thurs/Fri/Sat are the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, three days of chilling that I desperately, desperately needed. As could be predicted, I was tired as balls yesterday, so I slept til 9. Was awoken by a request to come and test-perform my song in the office at 10.
So I did. I went, and there's two middle-aged guys in there. They start by all the Standard Chinese-to-Foreigner Questions (howlonghaveyoubeeninchinawhatdoyoustudywhat'syourjobohyouteachdoyouhowmuchisyoursalarywheredoyoulivehowoldareyouetcetc), and finally come to the point - can you sing for us? I sing my songs (a remix of these two songs). They're kinda quiet and :| during the performance.
When I'm finished, they're "oh. well. Very professional. Don't you think it's professional? Oh, I think it's professional." and then finally come to the point, "Xiang Aike, don't you know anything a little more ... vivid?"
"Vivid?"
"Vivid. Yes."
"What do you mean, vivid?"
"Well, that second song ... that was more vivid."
"Why?"
And then they're out with it: "ah, well. This is a performance for children. And I don't think they'll appreciate such an artsy song - we want something more vivid."
In my mind's eye at this point: A double-handful of spoiled and apathetic little emperors, rolling around on the floor and banging their toys at each other and paying no attention whilst mommies talk loudly in the back on their cell phones or to each other, a couple in the front staring in awe at the Weird Foreigners, a couple more sniffishly critiquing our performance for their 宝宝儿; at the end, an insincere thanks for the performing monkeys. I've seen that before, too.
"Children?"
"Yes. And so we want something more vivid. That first song - we,, you understand, they jsut won't get it."
I think a bit. I stand up and sing a couple stanzas of Az A Szep. They liked that much better. But then they wanted to know:
"Can you dance?"
I grin. "No."
"Well, you see, we have people who can sing, but no one who can dance. Do you know any foreigners who can dance?"
And we want dancing foreign monkeys for our little emperors. "No, sorry."
"Really, are you sure? We really need someone who can dance, or even sing. We need more people who can sing."
Fuckit, I relent a bit. "Well, I know one guy who can sing."
"Where is he from?"
"Antigua."
"So ... he's black?" Frowny face at this.
"Yeah?"
"Well ..... okay."
I call him and let him know there's a thing. He's busy.
"So when is he coming?"
"He can't come. He's busy."
"Oh. Then do you know anyone else?"
"No."
"Do you have any American friends?"
"No."
"Do you have any friends who can dance?"
"No."
"Well then come here at three. It shouldn't take longer than an hour. Maybe you'll finish at 4:30."
Hmm. So I wander on home.
I come back at 3. 3:05, really, but it ain't no thing - I'm taken upstairs to an empty hall between the classroom. It's painted yellow, with yellow and orange chairs, and there's three other people: one black american guy, one white american guy, and one russian girl.
And then we sit there for thirty minutes.
Eventually a white english guy's brought to join us.
And we sit for a while longer.
Finally at 3.45, we get brought upstairs to the first classroom. It's a normal classroom, but it's got balloons and colored strings of lights and sparklies everywhere. The students in it are in their 16's, 17's, 18's. They are absolutely delighted to see us, and when the first two guys go to perform - oh, the cameras get brought out! There is not a student in that room who doesn't own a camera and isn't pointing it straight at us all!
Well, we perform. American dudes (one guitar one singing) perform a Kings of Leon song. Russian sings a Russian pop song. Britlander recites a chinese poem. I sing my Hungarian songs. the cameras are locked on us the whole time - the class is quiet, for a Chinese crowd - people whisper to each other, but one one's talking aloud nor cellphoning, and no one's off doing Important Other Things. We are it. This is it. This is The Big Attraction Of The Day.
I finish, and the lovefest begins.
The students have ostensibly arranged a performance for us - two out-of-tune young men trying hard to remember the words to pop songs - but that doesn't matter, because we get mobbed. Everyone wants to take photos with us, especially the girls. Thousands of girls! They don't care there's a performance on - walking around, talking, squealing, laughing, and taking hundreds of 自拍 with the foreigners. My cheeks got sore of smiling. Person after person'd come up, take one shot, and not even talk to me. I couldn't get a drink of water.
Finally the young men finished up, and there was bustle in the room. The middle-aged man who'd arranged our gig wandered around, giving instructions. He had us line up, and five students line up. Then the students presented us, bowingly, with notebooks. Then then grabbed us and took more photos, and then they arranged the whole class into a group photo.
And then we left, and went upstairs, and did it all over again.
It's the Rockstar Treatment every sufficiently-foreign-looking-foreigners notices in China, and I peg it on novelty value. You! You're foreign! You're new and exciting! No one's ever seen your kind before, not in the flesh, but now that they have, they're going to tell everyone all about it! "I met this foreign guy/girl this weekend, and his/her chinese was so good, and she/he was so handsome/beautiful!" And that's it. Your novelty contributes to building someone's rep. You're something new, so people who've "met" you are more special. Touched by your glamour. You're a rockstar. You're a commodity. You're a prop.
Funnily enough, I mind this far less now than I did in previous years. Years ago - or hell, even last year - it really got to wear on me. I got so damn sick of it, everyone, all the time, laowai, new, foreigner, waiguoren, etc etc etc.
But now, I'm sort of - whatever one step past "resigned" is. It ain't even a thing anymore. I accept it in the same way I accept the stares and then cheating. It's going to happen. It happens. It will always happen, or at least for my lifetime.
I ain't even mad.
It's not something I want to live with, obvs. I don't want to live long-term in a country where I'm always a laowai. But you know what? It's, as it's said in their own language, China's Special Characteristics (中国特色). It's a set of behaviors that, you come to China, you have to expect, because, well, China.
We finished our performances by 5.30, and then the middle-aged guy tried tying us down to do the same for Christmas, and then led us out the building and left us on the sidewalk. We stood about there for a few minutes, while the city traffic went by and a few people walked past staring at this Group Of Foreigners. Then we talked about it, and about other stuff, and about random stuff, and then slowly headed back to our own places.
~:~
So that way my yesterday.
Today I have a hundred million things I want to get done. Dishes (god why always dishes), general cleanup, sweeping, classplanning, study. Then 6pm I'm heading off to a Russki restaurant to eat Russki food with Russkis. It should be good stuff!
Bah, folks :D
Beth Bernobich Interview
---- this interview makes me want to read this woman. She's got really good, cogent, and interesting answers to her questions, and seems to have her head on real straight. (I might, based on what the content of said books sound like, might recommend her to historicula since they sound pretty good and maybe like you'd enjoy 'em.)
Bad Advice Tumblr
---- a tumblr that dispenses bad advice to inane questions. You're welcome.
NASA Wants to Pay You $10K to Lie in Bed for Two Months
---- I know the common answer to this is "sign me up pls" but my own thoughts on it are more like "OH HELL NO". I would go nuts without walking or running or lifting or hiking or even just wandering. PS: ADD. Given the fact that I can't sit through a 2-hr movie without pausing it, getting up, and doing something, and then coming back to it? or that I can't watch more than an episode of show at a time without having to some SOMETHING ELSE? No no no.
Polymath
---- so there's a word for it other than "Rennaissance Man"? huh.
~:~
And: one link with a Pico-discussion about it:
Giving Warm Greetings and Farewells
This article's interestings and strange to me to read, for this reason: it's natural to me.
It is, quite literally, something I dind't realize other people don't do. In my family, it's normal, when someone gets home, for everyone to come up/down and say Hi, or come give a kiss or a hug, or at least call "hang on a sec!" and then the person who arrives comes up and greets them. Ditto to farewells - we always, even if we're going for errands, go around to the rooms in the house where someone is and say "hey guys, I'm home/just got back/hello!"
And it's strange, reading this article (and having been directed to it from this one, a la the tried-and-true method of "clicking on stuff til stuff appears") to figure out: "my god. People consider this strange?" or "people think this takes time?"
Because it's natural to us - both my own family and my hungarian family, and by extension to family friends.
I realize, looking back at my own friendships, that yeah, there's people who don't do that. People arrive or leave the house and, other than maybe a shout "hi!/bye!", no fuss is made. (historicula, this is one of those things about your household that, basically until reading this article, I just Didn't Get). It just seems to me such a removed way of a family - you greet and fare people well because ... well, you do. And not doing so - it makes them feel like strangers.
All of this makes me think about how I'm going to readjust when I get back to the States. And I don't have anymore to add, just formless thoughts, but I'll tell 'em to you guys when I form them.
~:~
In other news, work has been a pile of What Oh My God Lol.
Monday was those emails from Crazylady. (New name for :(J, because I have lost any nanogram of respect I may ever have had for her (which I never really did to begin with).) I think it's the consistent lack of logic or reason, combined with extreme spitefulness and superb hypocrisy, all mixed up with a potent brew of You're A Horrible Person, that really drove me off. I knew there'd be troubles with her from the start, because I knew from the start that she's crazy*, but I thought that, by politeness, allowing her to speak, and organization efforts, I could handle it. I was wrong. I can't. And I am neither going to hold myself responsible for her, nor am I going to put up with being vilified by her.
*(and let me note here: I do know crazy - I've got an unstable aunt, and have close experience with that, and it's really led me to understand in other people what signs point to Just Cannot Be Reasoned With. Because there's either 1) the kind of mental imbalance that people understand of themselves, and fight against, and that I applaud, or 2) there's the kind that either denies or revels in it, and either way blames the rest of the world, and that I abhor.)
In short, Monday was a bag-o-balls.
Tewsday, after 5 hours of sleep and desperate midnight preparations, I got up at 6 to go to the other campus and teach 8-12, two classes of Listening And Speaking. And I just wanna say: Thank you, Tuesday guys, you were a delight.
L&S is based on a really rather good textbook by National Geographic. it covers a good variety of subjects, and I've interspersed those textbook listenings, videos, and readings with my own activities and so on. Note that I'm big, in my teaching, on activities and Getting Up And Doing Things, so this class is perfect for me -- I have some textbook work (first time I've really taught from/with a text), but also a good deal of walkaround work, which makes this Gewd Stuff.
Afternoon class was AW, in which we did the overgoing of Critiquing Articles and such-all. One big thing about the Chinese Enducation System that no one can deny is that it does not feature critical thinking in any major way, and has a great tendency towards memorize-every-little-fact-for-the-tests. So a lot of my work in AW is showing ways to dissect information and give opinions and and critical reviews of it.
(This is, in fact, part of what crazylady was arguing at me about - she thinks "they need to know how to write an academic article so I am going to show them academic articles but their final assessment is a critical review of an academic article", and I have been teaching "in four weeks, your critical review of an academic article will be due: this is how you critique. now, this is how you critique an article. now, this is how you make that critique better." Call me crazy, but I think learn-through-doing is better than learn-by-osmosis-and-reading-the-teacher's-fickle-mind.)
Anyway, that was Tuesday. I must have collapsed or something after that.
Wodensday was le tired. Not tiring, jsut tired. Up 7.30, Chinese class at 8. Grammar, review of lesson. Off home, where tea made me strong and I watched the second half of Howl's Moving Castle again (and had thoughts I'll blahblah at you later. in short - beautiful movie! prefer other miyazaki plots though!). Classplanning**, then Crit Articles again for afternoon class.
** note: not actually classplanning: as crazylady's declared basically cessation-of-progress on me, I'm determined to prove myself to :)J by being Pic Prepared. I've realized that this is my way of handling adversity: Fuck You I'm Better, ie expressing my anger by being so aggressively prepared, capable, organized, and confident that even thinking about not agreeing would be silly.
it's sad, but i have to do this, sicne :)J showed a distressing tendency to shelter :(J. I have to go into that meeting superprepared, otherwise :)J is going to tell me that, since crazylady is my senior, I have to bow to her. And hell with that.
Wednesday evening, I went and met my Russian friend downtown. Friends, actually - her coworker's been joining us the last couple times we've had outings, and I find she's quite nice too, if a little shy. (S'okay, she has good thoughts.) Had wonderfully interesting discussions about how Russians act, what politeness is and isn't, and Russian language differences, before walking all about the town. Saw an old prison wall - what used to be Haerbin's prison in the old days (right by the river? downtown?) had been town down, but one single wall of it was left. So to see it, the three of us jsut wandered into a night-lit 小区 (apartment community) and looked - the wall was there, painted over with Confucian stories and terminating and a tall, heavy guard-tower.
Then we kept wandering - through the 小区, smelling the flowers, admiring the quiet, playing on the excercise equipment and the see-saws. We wandered down Tongjiang street, stopping to look at an old mosque and trying to peek past construction at the being-rennovated synagogue. Then we headed on down to the old Jewish soup kitchen and new synagogue, where, round 11.30, we called it a night. Cabs home, and I got to bed by midnight.
~:~
Which all brings us to yesterday: Thursday, the performance.
I'd gotten a call the other day from Bincai: "hey, Xiang Aike! We're having a student performance on Thursday! It's a celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival, and we wanted to know if you'd like to attend!" Sure, sure, time? date? details? "Can you sing? We'd really like people to sing and dance." well, I can't dance but I can sing. "Alright, see you then!"
In my mind's eye at this point: a classroom with a buffett of chinese snackies along the side, student milling aroudn and hanging out -- or maybe a little hall like in the 活动中心, students going up on stage individually and fumbling their way through cheerfully bad performances. Seen that before.
Fast-foward to Thursday. Thurs/Fri/Sat are the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, three days of chilling that I desperately, desperately needed. As could be predicted, I was tired as balls yesterday, so I slept til 9. Was awoken by a request to come and test-perform my song in the office at 10.
So I did. I went, and there's two middle-aged guys in there. They start by all the Standard Chinese-to-Foreigner Questions (howlonghaveyoubeeninchinawhatdoyoustudywhat'syourjobohyouteachdoyouhowmuchisyoursalarywheredoyoulivehowoldareyouetcetc), and finally come to the point - can you sing for us? I sing my songs (a remix of these two songs). They're kinda quiet and :| during the performance.
When I'm finished, they're "oh. well. Very professional. Don't you think it's professional? Oh, I think it's professional." and then finally come to the point, "Xiang Aike, don't you know anything a little more ... vivid?"
"Vivid?"
"Vivid. Yes."
"What do you mean, vivid?"
"Well, that second song ... that was more vivid."
"Why?"
And then they're out with it: "ah, well. This is a performance for children. And I don't think they'll appreciate such an artsy song - we want something more vivid."
In my mind's eye at this point: A double-handful of spoiled and apathetic little emperors, rolling around on the floor and banging their toys at each other and paying no attention whilst mommies talk loudly in the back on their cell phones or to each other, a couple in the front staring in awe at the Weird Foreigners, a couple more sniffishly critiquing our performance for their 宝宝儿; at the end, an insincere thanks for the performing monkeys. I've seen that before, too.
"Children?"
"Yes. And so we want something more vivid. That first song - we,, you understand, they jsut won't get it."
I think a bit. I stand up and sing a couple stanzas of Az A Szep. They liked that much better. But then they wanted to know:
"Can you dance?"
I grin. "No."
"Well, you see, we have people who can sing, but no one who can dance. Do you know any foreigners who can dance?"
And we want dancing foreign monkeys for our little emperors. "No, sorry."
"Really, are you sure? We really need someone who can dance, or even sing. We need more people who can sing."
Fuckit, I relent a bit. "Well, I know one guy who can sing."
"Where is he from?"
"Antigua."
"So ... he's black?" Frowny face at this.
"Yeah?"
"Well ..... okay."
I call him and let him know there's a thing. He's busy.
"So when is he coming?"
"He can't come. He's busy."
"Oh. Then do you know anyone else?"
"No."
"Do you have any American friends?"
"No."
"Do you have any friends who can dance?"
"No."
"Well then come here at three. It shouldn't take longer than an hour. Maybe you'll finish at 4:30."
Hmm. So I wander on home.
I come back at 3. 3:05, really, but it ain't no thing - I'm taken upstairs to an empty hall between the classroom. It's painted yellow, with yellow and orange chairs, and there's three other people: one black american guy, one white american guy, and one russian girl.
And then we sit there for thirty minutes.
Eventually a white english guy's brought to join us.
And we sit for a while longer.
Finally at 3.45, we get brought upstairs to the first classroom. It's a normal classroom, but it's got balloons and colored strings of lights and sparklies everywhere. The students in it are in their 16's, 17's, 18's. They are absolutely delighted to see us, and when the first two guys go to perform - oh, the cameras get brought out! There is not a student in that room who doesn't own a camera and isn't pointing it straight at us all!
Well, we perform. American dudes (one guitar one singing) perform a Kings of Leon song. Russian sings a Russian pop song. Britlander recites a chinese poem. I sing my Hungarian songs. the cameras are locked on us the whole time - the class is quiet, for a Chinese crowd - people whisper to each other, but one one's talking aloud nor cellphoning, and no one's off doing Important Other Things. We are it. This is it. This is The Big Attraction Of The Day.
I finish, and the lovefest begins.
The students have ostensibly arranged a performance for us - two out-of-tune young men trying hard to remember the words to pop songs - but that doesn't matter, because we get mobbed. Everyone wants to take photos with us, especially the girls. Thousands of girls! They don't care there's a performance on - walking around, talking, squealing, laughing, and taking hundreds of 自拍 with the foreigners. My cheeks got sore of smiling. Person after person'd come up, take one shot, and not even talk to me. I couldn't get a drink of water.
Finally the young men finished up, and there was bustle in the room. The middle-aged man who'd arranged our gig wandered around, giving instructions. He had us line up, and five students line up. Then the students presented us, bowingly, with notebooks. Then then grabbed us and took more photos, and then they arranged the whole class into a group photo.
And then we left, and went upstairs, and did it all over again.
It's the Rockstar Treatment every sufficiently-foreign-looking-foreigners notices in China, and I peg it on novelty value. You! You're foreign! You're new and exciting! No one's ever seen your kind before, not in the flesh, but now that they have, they're going to tell everyone all about it! "I met this foreign guy/girl this weekend, and his/her chinese was so good, and she/he was so handsome/beautiful!" And that's it. Your novelty contributes to building someone's rep. You're something new, so people who've "met" you are more special. Touched by your glamour. You're a rockstar. You're a commodity. You're a prop.
Funnily enough, I mind this far less now than I did in previous years. Years ago - or hell, even last year - it really got to wear on me. I got so damn sick of it, everyone, all the time, laowai, new, foreigner, waiguoren, etc etc etc.
But now, I'm sort of - whatever one step past "resigned" is. It ain't even a thing anymore. I accept it in the same way I accept the stares and then cheating. It's going to happen. It happens. It will always happen, or at least for my lifetime.
I ain't even mad.
It's not something I want to live with, obvs. I don't want to live long-term in a country where I'm always a laowai. But you know what? It's, as it's said in their own language, China's Special Characteristics (中国特色). It's a set of behaviors that, you come to China, you have to expect, because, well, China.
We finished our performances by 5.30, and then the middle-aged guy tried tying us down to do the same for Christmas, and then led us out the building and left us on the sidewalk. We stood about there for a few minutes, while the city traffic went by and a few people walked past staring at this Group Of Foreigners. Then we talked about it, and about other stuff, and about random stuff, and then slowly headed back to our own places.
~:~
So that way my yesterday.
Today I have a hundred million things I want to get done. Dishes (god why always dishes), general cleanup, sweeping, classplanning, study. Then 6pm I'm heading off to a Russki restaurant to eat Russki food with Russkis. It should be good stuff!
Bah, folks :D