May 01 2008
The foreigners in Beijing, in 2003 anyway
Coupe of stories about Beijing, as much as about China I would hate to tell. Here you have it, five years after the fact.
After long hiatus - 18 years to be exact, I found myself in my home town with my children in toe. Although I didn’t go back, but I thought I had kept in pace with it, reading everything I could find, well, mostly on the New York Times or the like. Sound pathetic, but you have to understand Beijing runs in my blood. So I knew what’s going on.
First day after we landed in the futuristic Beijing airport, I took my kids out and about in town. We stopped for an ice cream in the lower level in the Century shopping mall (or something thing) on ChangAn Jie. There came a girl was stepping onto the escalator clothed in a white jacket and short shorts that showed bottom half of her butt. My eyes brightened. Just few days ago in New York I read about short shorts was the trend of the year. So her jacket was unlined, and her legs weren’t so beautiful, so what? The short shorts was the in thing. For the moment, I totally thought Beijing had totally integrated and really up to date.
One night I decided to go to the American Chamber of Commerce’s promotional party. I called up Yishi and Yizang ,etc. Yishi frequently travels between the US and Australia for business and Yizang lived in the Europe for a while. But I forgot Yishi just quited her job at GM .. After round of wrangling and arm twisting, only Yizang agreed to go with me. It’s an outdoor event, nicely planned out with many round tables on the patio. Refreshment, wine, beer, soda were served. We took a table with few Yizang’s friends. Next to us was a group of Chinese girls (ok, women, they all looked over 30) with one Caucasian guy. He spoke fluent Mandarin and made the girls laugh so hard that their make ups were falling. Then came an additional girl. Their table was full without spare chair. So the white guy looked toward us. One of guys to my left just got up a moment ago. His wine was on the table and cigarette was still burning (ok, I normally would tell the smoker to stop, but that night I was begging for their company ..). The white guy got up, strolled to our table. Without asking, grabbed the chair to my left. And then muttered something in native English - it’s so low and curt I couldn’t make out the accent. I was mad. In all honesty, Boxer Rebellion flashed through my mind. I shout, “who said you can take it?”
He looked surprised said in English again, “I thought it’s empty.”
“Don’t you see the glass is till standing tall and the cigarette’s burning??” ?? ??
“Oh .. .” I didn’t remember if he ever said I’m sorry. He went back to his 3000+ concubines without harvest. His table became quiet and soon they all left.
I didn’t know what to think of it. Did I over react?? I indeed felt insulted. Do people act rude just because everyone else does or it’s his habit to frequently belittle the locals? In the west, no one would ever do such thing without a polite inquire. And we always reciprocate with “fine, go ahead, take it..”
Another one that even hurt more. Outside of the Aquarium, after we got off a boat ride, as we were stepping from the boat to the jetty, I forgot to zip up my handbag, hence dropped my card-thin Casio into the shallow water. Ok, I knew it would be no good even we fished it out. But I loved my little well-made toy, thought I could at least salvage the pictures we just took at Tiananmen Sq and the Forbidden City. I lingered there. A young security guard with a walkie talkie came to the rescue, asking if everything’s right. My kids were busy talking to each other about something, in English naturally. Quickly he radioed his boss.
“Manager Wang, pls send help. A customer lost her camera into the water.. ..” Stats of the radio frequencies.
“Into the water?” A loud male voice came over. “It’ll be no good ..”
The young guard fidgeted, said (this really got to me) “but .. they’re foreigners .. Manager Wang, send the scuba diver .. pls help them, they are f-o-r-e-i-g-n-e-r-s.” He stressed.
A moments later, a stocky man in his 50s walked briskly into my view. He stopped short after he surveyed the scene and saw us. Called out loud from his walkie talkie, “don’t bother .. nothing you can do about it ..” then took a 180 degree turn and left. I felt a slap over my face. Guess we weren’t foreign enough to warren the trouble of even putting up a show. Would he try should we were white?
When my friends heard the short shorts on the escalator, “Irene, are you sure she isn’t the working girl ?” They got me there too.