I'm officially in Chinese culture now. Or at least I'm in somebody's scrapbook. Erin and I were walking towards the basketball courts on campus to play with some of her students when we noticed a man filming a woman on the big square near the main auditorium on campus. The woman pointed us out and the man turned around to film us instead. So we did the only thing that you can do in that situation - act ridiculous. Erin starts flailing her arms about and I wave in an exaggerated manner and the next thing we know, the man is asking in English on behalf of the woman if she can take a picture with us. It wasn't just one picture, but a slew of shots from various angles and positions. The woman eventually decided that she wanted to be Erin, taking her place and bag and starting to act like her. So now some random man and woman will have about ten pictures of Erin and I with the Iron Pagoda in the background.
I'm starting to grow accustomed to being stared at when I go places. We don't create massive crowds like those described in Rivertown by Peter Hessler, but there have been instances where people unabashedly crowd around us and stare. Like when we're at the grocery store trying to figure out what could possibly be shampoo. All of the employees seemed to have left their places and decided that the shampoo and surrounding aisles desperately needed looking after and within minutes we were the center of the grocery store.
There are also people who try to be suave and stare at you from the corner of their eyes, thinking that they're being polite. But my absolute favorite is the straight-up stare. People will stop talking or doing whatever it is they were in the middle of to focus their whole body on staring at you. Sometimes the stare is with a steely gaze, a mouth agape, a silly smile or pure shock. But it's at least honest and hilarious.
The other night we took some pijou and sat by the lakes surrounding the Dragon Pavilion to watch the sunset over the water. There was an elderly Chinese woman who started babbling at us and not understanding what she said, we did the obligatory smile, nod head, and chuckle until the woman caught on that we had no clue what she was saying. So we continued to sit on the edge of the water drinking our pijou. We heard a "Hullloooo Max!" as one of Max's students came up and starting talking to us. Everyone around us had been doing the sideways stare, but now that we were conversing with a Chinese person they all felt the need to fully whip their heads towards us. Once they focus their gaze on you, it's like moths to a flame and the Chinese are drawn to you by a power outside of themselves. We were suddenly surrounded by eight or nine people. After awhile, Max's student left, and people started to shift away but continued to stare.
"I honestly wonder what they think we are going to do that is going to be so amazing?" Erin asked. "I feel like a monkey."
Later that night, we saw two boys around 12 or 13 performing some fancy skating moves on the square. We moved closer to check them out and as we sat on the square taking videos of their sweet skate moves, an old woman on a wheelchair wheeled herself directly up to us and just stared for about fifteen to twenty minutes. So I decided to take a picture of her and her husband.
"You could maybe turn off your flash so it wouldn't be so obvious," said Erin.
"Why? They already know I'm taking the picture because they are staring directly at me," I answered.
And then we noticed an outer periphery of Kaifengers who were lined up by the row of parked sanlanchi staring at us from a distance.
There really is nothing you can do about the staring, except give them what we suspect they want - for us to do something ridiculous, and the three of us are pretty good at being odd anyway. Erin and I have taken to dancing in the streets and developing a small, but devoted base of fans, such as the bicycle repairman stationed on Minglun Jie. We were standing next to the suspected dog meat pita pocket vendor talking to Ben, another waiguoren (foreigner), when this store across the street started to play thumping Chinese techno music. Doing as we do, Erin and I started dancing to our hearts content before walking away. After discovering later that day that the meat pocket vendor was not selling dog, but pork, we decided to try it for dinner. When we stopped in front, the bicycle repairman saw us and started to clap, then mimed out dancing. So we danced again and he just started laughing and gave us the thumbs up. Now whenever he sees us, he smiles and waves. And Max is his own brand of ridiculousness, especially when it comes to perusing the many nightmarkets in Kaifeng. He's sort of like a little puppy that's been released. He trots from vendor to vendor, sniffing out and searching for possible things to eat, usually wearing a red flannel jacket to accompany his blond hair and red beard.
Along with the random dancing on the streets, which probably is legitimately funny, the waiguoren are just "big big time comedians." The Chinese people find such pleasure and happiness from shouting hello and, my personal favorite, "HULLLLLO" at us, that they are almost shocked into silence or another bout of laughter after we retaliate with an equally enthusiastic "NIHAOOO" at them. One of the first days I was here, the three of us were wandering around the hutongs (alleys), lost, hot, and confused as we tried to navigate our way through a city that doesn't believe in street signs. There was this woman sitting on her stool outside of her dilapidated house-turned-shop that kept saying "hello!" over and over again while giving us the thumbs up. I have never heard anyone laugh so hard. I thought she was about to fall off of her stool.
And my students are an entire story on a different level. Because I'm known to talk fast, especially when I'm nervous and/or excited about something (which pretty much means every single time I teach) I end up acting a lot of my words out so they understand what I'm saying. The other day when I was teaching them how to brainstorm, I called it "verbal vomit" and was met with a sea of confused stares. After assessing that they didn't know what "vomit" meant, I had to act it out and they thought my vomiting action was the funniest thing they've ever seen. And whenever I say any of their names in Chinese, or do anything other than stand behind the podium and teach, they just laugh, look shocked, and sometimes, clap. It's going to be really hard going back to the United States and adjusting to a land where everything I do isn't a major source of comedy.
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