Did you Ever Notice This in China…

Did you ever notice how funny the Chinese people are. I dont mean funny as in ‘haha’ but as in wtf? My current rant is about the ability of the Chinese to act odd in front of strangers or foreigners. Your typical Chinaman who happens to be lucky enough to own a car has outdone 96% of his peers, but when we foreigners see this, its a yawner, much to his chagrin. Your typical Chinaman driving his BMW is almost god-like to your locals who consider sating their appetite by sucking on some roots or tree bark to be normal, but once again to anyone who has lived in modern societies, its a non issue. So what I have noticed is that the local Chinese will go overboard to attract the attention of foreigners, or try to show that ‘no they are not backwoods ingnorant laborers and thus equal to those of us in the west who have had flush toilets since time immemorial…’ What I have seen that they do, and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, is to show that they actually possess many of the same goodies, ie electronics or ‘fashion’ purses as the rest of us. Perhaps a few examples will help to clarify. 1-while on the subway yesterday and ever day, it never seems to slay me how your typical chinaman will appear to be sleeping while standing, but as soon as a foreigner, any foreigner comes (white skinned is better to them,however) they change, they morph. Once the foreigner or foreigners arrive, the chinaman will brandish his/her Iphone and practically stick it in your face, they will peck at it, mess with the earbuds, the whole while loooking at you out of the corner of their eyes, its as if they are trying to appear confident, but somehow fail. A lady did that to me yesterday. She sat next to me and did almost everything humanly possible with her Iphone, pulled at it, pecked messages, toyed with it, tested every feature and such. I was going to tell her that its great she has such a wonderful phone, to spread the love as it were. But at that point she hacked up a tremendous lump of phlegm and spat it towards the subway door. After gagging, I merely wiped my eyes and pretended to be asleep. 2-On airplanes, in between taking off their shoes and socks and trouncing up and down the aisles, they will also do this. The other day while on a flight, a lady in her 30’s just had to play with her ipad, i swear the whole time she was watching me more, looking for my reaction it would appear. They brandish it when you walk by, actually tilt it towards you, probably want you to comment. I would really love to tell them how great it is that they can now enjoy an Ipad, Iphone or Kindle, and not have to lug around that little red ‘Mao’ book, like their brothers sister and parents had to. Tell them how freeing it is to not worry about the Red Guard savagely beating them for not loving Mao enough and forcing them into the kowtow position for hours… but I feel this may be politically incorrect and culturally unacceptable.. So I just blog… all this after hacking spit

China at Night

Another China Photo