Embarrassment

When I lived in Peru I was lucky enough to have Pedro and his wonderful family as my support blanket. Whenever I had any sort of problem, and I had many, they were there to take care of me and never judged me. As most of you know, I got really sick in Peru for at least three months and was in and out of hospital constantly getting IVs and drugs and anything you could think of. Pedro and his mother did all the talking and solved everything for me. Even when it came down to things like buying "womanly things" (I'll quote my mom on that one) or battling an extreme fever with bouts of vomiting from the horrific parastie that never left, I always had someone there to handle the hard parts for me. Even going out to the bars and meeting new people, Megan, my best friend from LA living in Peru, was always by my side and had perfect Spanish. By the end of my year there, I had learned to speak Spanish to a degree that I could get my own things done and therefore became somewhat self-sufficient again.

Here, in China, I am definitely without that security blanket. While I do have many friends here, they are all in the exact same boat as I am: not a single one of us knows Chinese. It is also a language that is not nearly as similar to English as Spanish was, and therefore virtually impossible to pick up without lessons. I've learned from Peru and especially from my first few weeks here that to be an expat in a foreign country where the primary language is not your own, you need to be prepared to be embarrassed. You then need to learn to NEVER be embarrased. While Emilie is still in the embarrassed stage (it is her first time living abroad), I think I have moved onto stage two. Some things that I have had to do in the last week that I no longer felt embarrassed over include, but are not limited to:

1. Opening a bank account: It took me less than twenty minutes to complete this, but it felt like over two hours. I had three staff members circling around me trying to debate different ways of explaining the form I needed to fill out. Both the Chinese and I are kings of Charades, and I was literally bouncing from foot to foot pointing from one end of the room to the other for at least 20 seconds trying to ask, "My school address or my home address?" in a completely full bank. People were heavily enjoying themselves, including the staff members, some young punk kids and a group of old, wrinkly grandmas. When I left the bank, they all clapped and I bowed to them, thanking them in English for enjoying my show. Not embarrassed.

2. Buying non-prescription drugs: My stomach has been killing me, but it is definitely only indegestion and NOT a parasite (I am an expert at distinguishing between the different types of stomach pains now). I also had this itchy rash part on my arm which I wasn't really that worried about. There was a pharmacy on the way back from my gym, so I thought I would give it a try. In China, everything is in Chinese with no English anywhere and therefore, everything is a guessing game. I went up to the pharmacist and held my lower stomach. She started playing charades with me too, rubbing it to act out circular pain, making an "ouch" face, etc. I stood there and just held my stomach and groaned. I then thought about my arm, and went oh! and started scratching my arm. She immediately had an idea and handed me a packet. We giggled a bit at each other's acting games before leaving. When I got home, I definitely did NOT have the right meds; I realized she had mistaked me holdng my lower abdomen and scratching to mean I had a yeast infection! As funny as it was, and as embarrassed as I should have been, I still went back and danced for another twenty minutes to get her to change it for this cream and some pepto bismol looking pills. Not embarrassed.

3. Yelling at people for rude behavior: In China, as is in many other parts of the world, the ideas they hold of hygiene are completely different than those held in the West. People spit everywhere, big loogies too! They fart and don't care. I will get into the atrocities of public manners later but I will tell you now that I HATE HATE HATE it when people pick their nose. I think it is the grossest thing a single human could do. Eating it returns you to the bottom of the food chain. Here, however, picking your nose is a social delight. In the beginning I was grossed out but indifferent; I mean, what could I do to change this habit? I now have taken it upon myself to rid the Chinese culture of nose picking forever! This began with a 17 year-old student in my class, who, after three days of picking his nose, I walked over to his desk and politely told him that if he ever does that again in my class, or ever again in his life, he will never be respected by me or another white person when he goes overseas to study. He stopped immediately. Ever since I have begun yelling at people to stop when I see them doing it on the street. In Chinese, "bu how" means "no good", and you will often find me shouting out to people, "oh BU HOW LADY BU FRIGGIN HOW!" Not embarrassed.

4. Speaking back in English: I have begun taking a sick joy in talking back to anyone who speaks to me in Chinese using English. There is a perverse joy that comes with knowing you can say whatever you want to the person you are associating with and they can do the same in return and nobody will be the wiser. I bet I've had full conversations with people selling me things where we are both swearing at each other constantly out of frustration while holding a polite smile on our face. Not embarrassed.

I really hope this not being embarrassed thing doesn't translate back to Canada, as I can't really get away with the same things that I am able to get away with here.