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I get all sorts of reactions from people here interested in my non-Chinese-ness.

Generally I can laugh about it, on a bad day I am irritated by it, but sometimes people leave me smiling for the rest of the day.

Patrick and I went into a small store the other day to buy a drink. The owner of the store was so friendly I assumed she must have been an old friend of Patrick’s.

She asked all the usual questions… “Where is she from?”, “Can she speak Chinese”, “Does she like Chinese food?” all the while smiling at me and looking interested in the answers.

Patrick gets grilled wherever we go with the same questions, although often the questions are asked as if I am a completely deaf and very strange circus act. People generally study me with a slightly amused but fascinated look on their face as they ask Patrick all about this odd being in front of them.

Our friend at the drink store was being genuine and friendly, so when she worked up the courage to say “Ni Hao” I replied. She nearly fell off her chair in excitement as she squealed “She can say ‘Ni Hao!”

She then ordered her assistant to bring us food and invited us to sit and chat. Unfortunately we were in a rush so couldn’t stay, but I was left in a good mood for the rest of the day.

I had to laugh again when we were in a taxi on the way to dinner and Patrick had the following conversation with the taxi driver:

“Why is she foreign?”

“… I’m not sure, why do you think?”

“I am watching her mouth while she talks, it’s very funny”

“Please watch the road”

“Oh, ok haha.”

I could see in the rear vision mirror the driver decided watching me speak was far more interesting than the road ahead. Patrick and I are still unsure what exactly she was thinking… Why am I foreign?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 7:31 pm and is filed under china. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.