shopping and waiguoren

while touring the village with oliver, our teacher liason, we bumped into another waiguoren (foreigner) by the name of Rob. This was his third year teaching in chengdu in four years (think pats and the superbowl), and he was excited about being western in an asian country. he spoke loudly and profanely, and a european might have misidentified him as american. but no, there were boats in his abouts, and the goofy demeanor that only our northern brethren can pull off. he invited us to a cookout in october, and made us feel a bit uneasy.

so that was my first sketchball northern american meeting.

i realize here, that i need to explain the area. Chengdu Foreign Language School is situated in lovely downtown High Tech Zone (West). This is a suburb of chengdu, and was non existent five years ago. then a man who spent two years in jail, who despite his challenges became a great and respectable, not to mention wealthy businessman built CFLS. It is an amazing story of the work-ethic and strength of a Chinese person. Then he built another school. then he built a university. so a village formed and is now a thriving college town. all the schools focus on learning about the outside world, so foreign teachers abound.

the next day, while shopping in an electronics store near the center of the expat universe, carrefour (a french supermarket), there was another. an extremely bearded fellow, oliver said hello, instead of ni hao. now in chengdu, if someone says hello, or for that matter shouts hello at you, they think you're a foreigner. i think this bearded fellow took offense to this, because he said something quickly in chinese that i didn't understand, and moved away. it was like someone had accused him of being an alien or something. i know, i know, it works on almost too many levels.

it turned out he was from pittsburgh.

rimshot please