Dear Chutzpanim,
I recently took a month long trip to China to visit my new bride, Baobei Funky Feng's family, and to tour a bit. In a previous post, I explored the most crazy and strange foods I ate while in China.
Overall Chinese reaction to me was disappointingly bland-- they treated me like normal, human being when all I wanted was to have some of the crazy interactions you hear about westerners while traveling in China, e.g. random people touching your hair. I even presented myself in full circumcised glory to other showering swimmers after the pool, expecting the precursory wonderment and awe, but not even receiving a lingered glance.
In Dali, Yunnan we ran into some Israeli travelers-- actually my wife poked me hard, whispering-- "Are they speaking Hebrew?" They were in front of us so I asked them "Slichah? (Excuse me?)" and two disheveled, young bearded Israelis turned around, asking us how we were in Hebrew. We went with them to a local pub (where incidentally an Israeli band was singing about Balagans in Hebrew). The two Israelis had recently finished their army service and were spending their severance. They told us about a time while hiking is Szechwan, where a shepherd saw them from afar, greeted them, grabbed one by the head with both hands, appearing to want to kiss him. Instead the shepherd rubbed his head thoroughly through the Israeli's beard and went on his way. After this story, I decided I needed to grow my beard out.
Since I'm blonde, my beard is hard to see until it's a little longer, but I did proudly receive a few Chinese tourists asking to take photos with me. Unfortunately, my beard did not contain sufficient sanctity to bless any shepherds. Until next trip...
There were a few funny times when my wife, Baobei Funky Feng overheard or discussed my foreignness with other Chinese people. The best was when a cab driver had some serious questions to ask BBFF about me. The driver exclaimed, "Oh he's a foreigner!" when he first spotted me in the rear view mirror. He got real surprised and said, "Oh his eyes are blue!" Then realizing the insanity of that possibility, he asked, "His eyes are blue?" The next stage was acceptance. "He has blue eyes!"he said. My wife kind of giggled and he asked her, "Can he see things clearly with those eyes, like us?" She explained that I could see quite well and he later said I looked like a German that he had seen before.
At the Beijing Garden Expo, a sort of arboretum where different Chinese provincial garden styles were presented, BBFF overheard a young lady exclaim, "Oh it's a foreigner!"
"It's not a foreigner, it's just an old man with grey hair!" her boyfriend corrected.
The woman was a little angry, "No it's blonde!" she cursed, crossing her arms.
The boyfriend didn't know quite when to give up. "Well, he clearly dyed it!" he insisted.
"Clearly only an idiot like you would think that someone would dye it that color! Look at his eyes; they're blue!"
Well, please share any great stories you have of encounters where people find your ethnicity strange, exciting or alarming!
Sauce
I recently took a month long trip to China to visit my new bride, Baobei Funky Feng's family, and to tour a bit. In a previous post, I explored the most crazy and strange foods I ate while in China.
Overall Chinese reaction to me was disappointingly bland-- they treated me like normal, human being when all I wanted was to have some of the crazy interactions you hear about westerners while traveling in China, e.g. random people touching your hair. I even presented myself in full circumcised glory to other showering swimmers after the pool, expecting the precursory wonderment and awe, but not even receiving a lingered glance.
In Dali, Yunnan we ran into some Israeli travelers-- actually my wife poked me hard, whispering-- "Are they speaking Hebrew?" They were in front of us so I asked them "Slichah? (Excuse me?)" and two disheveled, young bearded Israelis turned around, asking us how we were in Hebrew. We went with them to a local pub (where incidentally an Israeli band was singing about Balagans in Hebrew). The two Israelis had recently finished their army service and were spending their severance. They told us about a time while hiking is Szechwan, where a shepherd saw them from afar, greeted them, grabbed one by the head with both hands, appearing to want to kiss him. Instead the shepherd rubbed his head thoroughly through the Israeli's beard and went on his way. After this story, I decided I needed to grow my beard out.
Since I'm blonde, my beard is hard to see until it's a little longer, but I did proudly receive a few Chinese tourists asking to take photos with me. Unfortunately, my beard did not contain sufficient sanctity to bless any shepherds. Until next trip...
There were a few funny times when my wife, Baobei Funky Feng overheard or discussed my foreignness with other Chinese people. The best was when a cab driver had some serious questions to ask BBFF about me. The driver exclaimed, "Oh he's a foreigner!" when he first spotted me in the rear view mirror. He got real surprised and said, "Oh his eyes are blue!" Then realizing the insanity of that possibility, he asked, "His eyes are blue?" The next stage was acceptance. "He has blue eyes!"he said. My wife kind of giggled and he asked her, "Can he see things clearly with those eyes, like us?" She explained that I could see quite well and he later said I looked like a German that he had seen before.
Not a Chinese taxi
At the Beijing Garden Expo, a sort of arboretum where different Chinese provincial garden styles were presented, BBFF overheard a young lady exclaim, "Oh it's a foreigner!"
"It's not a foreigner, it's just an old man with grey hair!" her boyfriend corrected.
The woman was a little angry, "No it's blonde!" she cursed, crossing her arms.
The boyfriend didn't know quite when to give up. "Well, he clearly dyed it!" he insisted.
"Clearly only an idiot like you would think that someone would dye it that color! Look at his eyes; they're blue!"
A parade at the Beijing Garden Expo, where they thought I was strange!
Well, please share any great stories you have of encounters where people find your ethnicity strange, exciting or alarming!
Sauce
Evanek, I laughed out loud reading this! Great stories! (This is Ag, by the way)
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