[ Zoom Map ]

Anji, China
30° 38' N 119° 41' E
Sep 12, 2006 15:00
Distance 63km

Choose another map, showing:

• China
• Asia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Anji

idylls of china life

Text written in: English

it's been a few months now. actually, it's been 4 months and 2 days since i arrived. this being not my first time to china, nor my first experience learning about the culture, i'm feeling more and more accustomed to being here. i rarely notice when people stare at me anymore, even though it still happens at least 12 times per day. i have stopped caring that i hear people talking about me when i walk down the street - most particularly when i hear them saying "mei guo ren!" (i love when they ASSUME white = american) or "ta ting bu dong" (she doesn't understand chinese). for awhile, i got kicks turning around when this happened, breaking their face and making them giggle with embarrassment that i do, in fact, ting dong le. sometimes the bus can be trying. people are curious... you are the only laowai (foreigner) on the bus, and they think it's strange you're taking a bus. you're a laowai... don't you people run around in private jets and have wardrobes bigger than my entire home? they stare a lot on the bus. at first, it's like, 'what's in my grocery bags isn't your concern." but the truth is, i've been here so long that, if i saw another foreigner on the bus, i'd be looking at what was in their grocery bags, too.


one day, awhile ago, i decided i could make "soup" using my rice cooker. the only ingredients i had were 1)noodles 2)water 3)soy sauce 4)albuquerque tricentennial green chile salsa in a jar i brought with me and hadn't opened since may, and 5)some weird vegetables that, i THINK were actually just... GRASS. so i just put them all in the rice cooker together. waaaay too much water. so afterward, i had to add another ounce of soy sauce... and more green chile, but then it was good. quite tasty, actually. except for the grass, which i picked out and put in the trash bag. so basically it was just green chile soy sauce noodle soup. i'm not sure why i bought the grass in the first place. i just got scared in the grocery store and grabbed the first vegetable i saw. why would i get scared, you say?

well, i was wandering around the vegetables too much, and for too long a time. you see, they have "attendants" all 'round the store. literally, in almost every aisle. and if you look too purposeless, the "attendants" come to "aid" you. this gets me confused. so i was definitely looking a little purposeless in the vegetable aisle that day, and i could see them eyeing me. so, i just picked up the nearest small bunch of green crap i saw and had them weigh it. a similar incident occurred the other day in the soap aisle. i went for the dove body wash (excited to see DOVE products), and the "attendant" saw me making a HUGE mistake going for that dove. she kindly escorted me away from the dove and brought me over to something called "shower lotion" in a blue bottle... the industrial size with a pump spout. so i was all "OOOOH!!! DUI!!!! XIE XIE" (oh! yes! thank you!) and took it and then put it on a shelf in another area when THOSE attendants weren't looking. i went back for the dove later.


but life in china is not without its rewards. i often find myself feeling that enjoying a beer whilst chatting online with someone in another part of china is not, in fact, drinking alone. actually, this activity has been the breadth of quite a few lively social friday evenings for me. i also find myself unabashedly talking to strange foreigners, which really kinda creeps out the expats who are living in bigger cities and are used to seeing other expats. i, however, am from podunk china, which means i get excited if i'm walking around anji and spot a woman with dyed blonde hair. i will even walk or bike faster to catch up with her, just to make sure she is, in fact, chinese (which she *always* is).

i will also now eat anything with reckless abandon, and feel slightly offended inside when chinese people think it's amazing that i can actually use chopsticks. for christ's sake! "look at that laowai using chopsticks. how is she doing it?" I HAVE FINGERS DON'T I?! yes, this is quite offensive, as i have been living here so long that, truthfully, i cannot weild a fork and knife anymore. i had the extreme displeasure of eating in a small pizza/italian joint in hangzhou several weeks ago, and actually had to *request* chopsticks to eat my pesto spaghetti. after one round with the fork, i had pesto splatters down my front and the fork had gone flying out of my hand and onto the table, landing in a haphazard pile of stainless steel, pasta, and green bits.

the good news is... well, *i* am the good news. because anji daily (or whatever the local paper is called here) is publishing an ARTICLE about me! in fact, just two days ago, i was plucked from a comfortable afternoon at home, out into the drizzle and back to school, having been told that the news wanted to write an article about me. wow. i tried on three shirts before deciding what to wear, and checked my unwashed hair in the mirror to make sure that any flyaways were smoothed down with tap water. yes, i was looking the part of a major local star. i arrived to school 15 minutes later by citybus, which the assistant principle, my translator, and the newsmen seemed very impressed by. i know this article is going to be a big hit, because the two newsmen, who looked to be about 28, were very interested in me - they asked me one question - "what do you think of anji?" i answered that anji is the most beautiful city in china, the anji environment is the best and most clean, and that anji people are the friendliest people in the whole country. i guess this answer satisfied them well enough, because they had no further questions - i'm sure the in-depth article will be at least one paragraph long. they also snapped several realistic shots of me and 8 of my students in the "library," and i was glad the newsmen came, because i'd never actually SEEN the library before then. this hard-hitting article will, no doubt, prove to reveal the real megan laoshi at her most candid.