SOCIALITE

My Chinese friends and I are growing even closer and it is lovely. My beloved colleague has clearly been talking me up to the department and everyone is now making a serious effort to get to know me. The hot “math” teacher must be the “main” teacher because he teaches English and is in my department. (Each class is divvied up into what their particular test strength is. So, class 1 of each grade tests well in English, class two is math and so on and so forth. Consequently, their homeroom teacher is from the department that they test best in.)
I’ve been hanging out in the middle school teacher’s room as much as possible and so they’ve been making an effort to talk to me. As it has been midterms week this past week (11/6-11/10) all the teachers in the department have been under enormous stress and have been leaning on each other for support. I’ve been around and doing my best to support them. After all, my job and salary don’t depend on the results of the students’ work while theirs do and the least I can do is show them that someone is pulling for them… even if the students are too overworked to give a damn. They have seen my support and have consequently tapped me for help with some of the exams, some planning and some emotional support.

It’s been nice to have the hot main teacher about too. We have a nice flirtation and there’s something about a man who makes his living speaking English who has yet to muster up the whatever to say a single word of English to me. The sum total of our entire relationship is comprised of our glances, gestures and my occasional, brief English monologue. Frankly, as I don’t know him personally, I am only able to observe the very general and the very specific about him. I must say, there’s something about him that is the essence of what I like about the masculine half of Chinese culture. Case in point: the English department had a meeting regarding the implementation of an oral exam. As the hot main teacher was talking (in Chinese) with great severity at length and depth about something about permission to create the exam (my Chinese is still rather weak so I only got the general idea), he was sitting at the desk of another (female) colleague; the desk next to my beloved colleague. On the desk was a yellow pen made up with the bobble head of a curly haired blonde girl and feet with a suction cup on the bottom. The whole time he was orating with gravitas, he was playing with the head of the pen and watching the curly blonde hair bounce. Not surprisingly, I was the only one who got the giggles.
As I stifled my laughter and the room erupted into conversation, he glanced at me. I looked at the doll and then at him and he smiled too, put the suction cup feet down and fluffed her hair. He shot me another look and made her head bounce again, making me laugh as the rest of the room continued with their fevered and serious conversation.

Then, the next time I saw him, I was sitting at the desk he had been sitting at. He took another seat to have a serious conversation with my beloved colleague. As they spoke, I saw the pen. I shot him a look out of the corner of my eye and, mid conversation, he shifted his gaze to me. I let him finish his end of the conversation and then offered him the bobble head pen. He smiled at my flirting and had to ask my beloved colleague to repeat himself.

Then on Thursday (11/9) I was alone in the office with an older female colleague with whom I’ve never really spoken, one-on-one. She opened up a conversation about the frustrations of having to work with and, ultimately, be dependent on students who are so overworked that they are rendered ambivalent about test taking. I did my best to offer her support. And then we talked about some ideas for new approaches.
My beloved colleague then showed up, spoke with her briefly in Chinese and somehow they brought up the strange idea that people who aren’t lovers or related hug in the West. It seemed a strange opener but I was more than willing to discuss the topic. I explained that in the US, I hug everyone I know socially and that it’s very strange for me to not be able to hug people here. My beloved colleague laughed and told me that I should never hug him because his wife would be utterly shocked and upset. He did the funniest pantomime of his wife’s shock at seeing me hug him. He opened his eyes wide, dropped his jaw and lurched forward, gasping and saying, “Oh no!” He had me on the floor, I was laughing so hard.

Once I collected myself, I also explained that when I’m living in Europe or with my European friends, I kiss them too. At this, he became a bit more serious and said that in China, “Kiss means love.” I thought it was a very sweet notion and so I didn’t bother to further explain.

We went to lunch and then I met up again with my beloved colleague, his darling daughter in tow, as I was heading back to my apartment (he and his daughter recently moved into a building near mine in the compound). He and his daughter escorted me back to my building and we talked some more about cultural differences. As we approached my building, he told me how much he admired me. He explained that he felt it was very brave of me to leave everything and everyone I knew to come to such a foreign place. I explained that China is not so foreign as it might seem and that the essence of youth is to do foolish, reckless things. Sometimes youth gets away with recklessness and sometimes does not but I feel that this time I had gotten away with it. He smiled at that and I suspect he dipped into the memory of a few of his own youthful follies.

I then told him how much I admired him for raising such a lovely girl. My own paternal drama makes me entirely over-sensitive to men who are good to young women so I felt it appropriate to tell him how I admire him for raising such a lovely daughter. He translated what I had said to his daughter and then he told her to thank me.

“Thank you,” she said in English just as I had taught her to do in class a few weeks back.

I smiled and said, “Don’t thank me. Thank your father.”

She demurred, smiled and shook her head.

We then parted ways as I went to have my siesta in the window seat in my bedroom. (Rough life, right? Well, someone’s gotta live it.)

The next day, I got to see my lunch mate. When I eat in the primary school, I usually eat with a lovely young woman of 22. She is another English teacher and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we usually have lunch together. However, she’s been getting to the cafeteria late and the students who are the children of the staff and administration (they are allowed to eat in our smaller cafeteria) have taken to sitting with me if I’m free. Fortunately on Friday, my table started to clear quickly as the kids wolfed down their food. So, by the time my lunch mate showed up, there was plenty of space for her to sit. We talked for a bit and she teased me about the fact that Alpha Hottie wasn’t at lunch. (Something that made me rather sad.)

As my singledom has been spread far and wide, everyone’s been on my case about finding a new boyfriend. What type of boy do I like? Who do I think is handsome as a beautiful woman like me needs a handsome man? (I’ve learned to stay far away from any generalized “looks” discussion as the Eastern and Western notions of “good looking” can be VERY different.) How many times a week do I see Western men? Are there potentials? Most of the people seem amazed that I might even consider a Chinese man and they all think that my parents would faint dead away if I brought home a Han. I’ve tried to explain that, ultimately, his race doesn’t matter to my mother, just so long as it’s a good match. No one seems to believe me. Then again, no one seems to believe me when I talk about the fact that Chinatown in New York is huge; I think that their perspective of China’s lack of power as a global player and presence is a bit skewed.

Nevertheless, my lunch mate is the only teacher who knows explicitly of my crush on Alpha Hottie and knows him as well. (My Chinese Angel has probably guessed but she doesn’t know him at all and had never seen him before I pointed him out.) She’s done a little reconnaissance for me (“I will help you!” “He’s shy”), declared herself a neutral party (“He’s not my cup of tea”) and has even offered to bridge the gap (“I will translate for you. I think his English is little. I will teach you some Chinese words so you can talk alone.”). I thanked her but told her I was very shy and certainly wouldn’t know how to approach him… which means a standstill.
In terms of dating, I unfortunately come from New York; the male to female numbers are ridiculously in favor of men (to say nothing of the percentage of the population the gay men take up) leaving the remaining single men a mixed bag of emotional landmines, narcissism and petty bullshit who have little talent for genuine company. (Not that I can throw stones but still, I’m the girl. I’m supposed to be the psychotic one.) Men in New York can discard women like tissues because there’s always eight more women lined up to take her place. I’m insecure to begin with and regularly going out on dates with men who can’t be bothered to pull their gaze from everyone else’s short skirt does nothing for the confidence. You can practically read the ticker on New York men’s foreheads “What else is out there?” And New York men never open the door for you. Wanting to be treated like a lady and while not being supermodel-hot in New York is a fantasy akin to wanting that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Not being one willing to work so hard for a situation that felt like settling, I gave up active dating by the time I was 25. A single conversation with a coworker who is a stunningly beautiful young woman from Philadelphia Mainline money and always has a boyfriend managed to kill what was left of my waning desire to date. I was complaining that the dating world felt like such a haze of smokey bars, massive tabs and the same tedious games via the same tedious conversation over the same deafening music when all I wanted was connection with a friend. She explained to me her mathematical approach to dating. She told me how many dates I needed to have in a week, how many different men I needed to be dating when I wasn’t interested in anyone versus how many men I needed to be dating when I was interested in someone (astronomically more, by the way), how many times he needed to call me before I called him and how, if either of us ever moves, I must simply cut all ties with him. I immediately gave up on dating as I realized I could either be single, miserable and in possession of some self-respect or single, miserable and in possession of no self-respect. All my relationships post that period were coincidental and primarily of his pursuit.

Forfeiting my dating life was a survival mechanism; I love New York more than anything but the only thing that rivals the brutality of the dating world in NYC is the real estate world of NYC. Consequently, it has left my talent for dating utterly atrophied and my nerves fried. To have to dive back into the nightmare of dating in front of my lunch mate while she translates for us is a notion beyond horrible. Granted, most of my dating hang-ups of, “What happens when he decides that I’m too.. whatever, tries to find the cowardly way to ditch me and then avoids me like the plague when I don’t get it” aren’t, per say, culturally relevant here but they cripple me nonetheless. Hell, rationally speaking, the numbers are all in my favor and his culture couldn’t be more accommodating or loving towards me but in my gut, I am assured that it’s going to be just like New York. Hence, “standstill” if the boy doesn’t know how to make a move.

Alas, Alpha Hottie did not show up in the lunchroom at all on Friday but that did leave my lunch mate and I free to talk about men. My Brazilian Angel had clued me in to the fact that Chinese women are always on the pull (for those of you not familiar with the British slang term “pull” it means to be on the active hunt for a wo/man; if you’re “pulling,” you’re doing the flirt dance that leads to hooking up) however, I was not viscerally abreast of this situation until I spoke with my lunch mate.

My lunch mate has a boyfriend she loves very much but her parents want her to find someone with a better job. Consequently, she’s looking for a more suitable boyfriend. She figures, if she finds a guy she likes more than her current boyfriend and he makes more money with a more stable job, she’ll try dating him for a while before jumping ship with the other guy. My lunch mate is sweet and kind and in the West, not the “type” of woman who would ever actively look to cheat on a boyfriend she loves. Considering the relative comfort with which she looks for a new boyfriend, I can only image what the less scrupulous women about are up to. Frankly, it seems remarkably old world to me. Granted, I’ve never understood the whole, “Either marry for love or marry for money” debate as “money” and “love” don’t seem mutually exclusive or inclusive to me and I don’t really see what one has to do with the other. Then again, maybe that’s why I’m single without a prospect in sight.
Nevertheless, being single and without prospect has not hurt my (platonic) social life. Today, (11/11) I spent in the company of my Chinese Angel. She is a lovely woman in her late thirties, perhaps early forties. We’re good friends and her English is so superb that I am often caught off guard when she speaks Chinese. I tend to forget that her native tongue is not English.

We spent the day wandering around my new favorite part of the old city; a rebuilt market area nestled in the Southeast corner inside the old city wall. The buildings, instead of the newfangled monstrosities of the center of the old city, are rebuilt to look like an old city. It’s beautiful and quiet as the streets are blockaded off and no one is allowed to drive down them. Granted, it’s a bit of the Disney version of China with its disingenuous recreation-for-money faÁade but is the Chinese-Disney version of Disney; cleansed of anything remotely unpleasant to Westerners and yet very subdued.

I took it upon myself to wrap my arm around her arm as Chinese female friends do when they walk about and so we spent most of the day arm in arm. I really like her and I want her to know that our friendship is truly precious to me. I figured the best way to do that was to treat her the way that the Chinese treat good friends. It was truly quite lovely and amongst the Chinese, it was presumed that we spoke Chinese first and English second. As we walked along the stalls lined up in the middle of the vehicle-free street, we perused the wares. Puppets carved out of thin sheets of velum hung in window store shops, cut paper silhouettes lined the stalls and every peddler there sold jade trinkets. I managed to find several birthday presents and a special something for my new niece Isabella. My Chinese Angel managed to negotiate the prices down enough that we all felt comfortable with the purchase.

While we were strolling about, we came upon one of thousands of peddlers peddling sweets on a stick. Essentially, several pieces of fruit (all approximately the size of globe grapes) are kebobed onto very sharp wooden skewers and then glazed with caramelized sugar. While it’s almost like caramelized apples, the sugar coating isn’t chewy but rather very brittle and it shatters very easily. My Chinese Angel pushed me to try one of the sticks with globe grapes (my favorite fruit ever) and I obliged. It was very strange to have warm globe grapes that were very sweet and yet still more bitter than the other item I was eating. Usually, I have the sweet of the grape to cut the savory flavor of the other item I’m eating, so it was a brief and pleasant trip to opposite world.

We then strolled up to the Muslim quarter to poke around. We had some dinner at one of the fantastic kebab places. Frankly, I could live on the kebab meat, it is so damned good.

Satiated from dinner and one of the best leisurely afternoons I’ve had here, my Chinese Angel insisted upon walking me back to my bus and on the way back to the bus, I discovered truly what a whore I am.

Starbucks is coming to Xi’An. I just about wet myself I was so excited. I jumped up and down, clapped and squealed a little “Yay!” My Chinese Angel, bless her, was elated for my pleasure and made a point to remember the name of “Starbucks.”

Truly, there is a god, her name is “Starbuck” and she likes me.