Notice You, Noticing Me

Friendly or otherwise, most countries have a word for their foreign visitors.  In Ghana, we were referred to as ‘obruni’, direct translation: white person.  In Thailand the person who looks like they could be of some kind/any kind of European descent (or just non-Asian) is a ‘farang’.  Here in China, laowai is the colloquially segregational term used to distinguish the difference. Tranliteratively, us laowai are ‘old or always outsider.’  And maybe we're not old, but we often struggle to blend in. 

I’m lucky in the fact that my hair is dark.  But I can’t hide my hips (ie. I have them), my feet (bigger than the average lady’s), my double eyelids (again, I have them), my lack of Mandarin (trying, honestly).  Less subtly, I can’t rock hair bows the same way a Chinese girl can and on a humid day, my hair does this curly frizz thing that no stylish, well-put-together Chinese girl’s does. You can't have it all.

In Shanghai, the hub of international business, our laowainess is largely ignored.  People are used to us here—we’re no freak show.  The odd tourist on The Bund may look fascinatedly at you and smile in your direction because they’re probably from the countryside.  But that’s it. 

So Xi’an and Chengdu were a bit of a surprise.  Between the five of us, as the shortest, darkest member of the group, I blended in the most.  But I was travelling with: Carla, the token ginger girl; Kimberley, the tall Canadian; Aine, the blonde Irish girl; Nathan, whose distinguishing feature was that he was a white man travelling with four white(ish) women.  There were stares, gawks, not-so-clandestine photos snap, snap, snapping away.

The sight of the white people eating, resting on the metro, having a conversation sent people all a flutter.   Note, not everyone.  But enough people to know that when you looked up, you’d often be staring into the eyes of an entire family scrutinizing your day’s fashion decisions, skin care regime.

 In Chengdu, a 50-something man took to following us through the central square.  In front of the world’s largest statue of Mao, he feigned a series of photos of the Chairman.  It was believable until we turned the opposite direction and his tripod followed.  And followed. And followed. 

And every time we turned to wag a finger in his direction, he turned like a puppy that thinks that if you can’t see him eat the rubbish out of the bin, then there’s no way he possibly did it.  There's  an acute lack of object permanance. Or maybe this country has no shame when it comes to photographs.


He finally took it one snap too far so I begun to wage war on this one-man paparazzi.  Iphone in hand, I stared our voyeur down and began snapping back. He smiled.  I smiled.  And I continued snapping.  He stopped, briefly.  And then in a venture of defeat, he sort of slinked away, tail between his legs, as such. 

Victorious, we ambled slowly away taking in the splendor of the square.

In our wake, a familiar snap, snap, snap returned.   Our friend was back, this time with more camera-wielding friends of his own.  Lesson learned: in China, some things are not worth the fight.