WEST EGG

To be totally fair, I wouldn’t want to hang out with the vast majority of the foreign teachers in Xi’An. Just like the foreign students, they seem to come with a certain kind of opportunistic baggage in regards to the people here. Granted, the West Egg community is opportunistic as well but that is in regards to the resources here; the people are almost superfluous to their task at hand. Neither is ideal, but the West Egg community makes no bones about what they are whereas my peers do. We teachers seem to try to fool ourselves into thinking we’re saving the community from itself.

Regardless, West Egg has requested me back. Mere hours after the rather rude rejection email, I was called to go to Saturday brunch yesterday (11/25) with the West Egg community. I explained that I had received an email that requested I not attended functions as it would compromise the "integrity of the community" and I no longer felt welcome. A few phone calls were made and then I was called back explaining that it was not understood who I was and that there are "teachers and then there are teachers." Feeling nervous about it all but knowing there was no real way out of brunch without being rude, I accepted.

I went to the brunch with my Brazilian Angel and met up with the American/German couple in the lobby of a Shangri-la Hotel. Soon a lovely Englishman and his Taiwanese wife appeared. We wandered to the restaurant where the red carpet was rolled out and immediately we were swarmed by the chef, maitre-d’, hotel manager and countless other important hotel people eager to take care of our every whim. While we were busy being swarmed with complimentary this-that-and-the-other, the lovely Englishman pulled me aside and said, "I think it was you that I sent the rather rude email to."

"Yes, I think so," clear that the email I received was rude but aware that there has been more than one rude email on the planet and it was entirely possible he was speaking of another rude email.

"Yes, I’m sorry about that. You see, I receive many emails from all sorts of foreigners and the group had decided only to be businessmen in Xi’An." Yes, we were speaking of the same email. "If I had known it was you, if I had realized, well, you’re a special case. You’re not really… You’re already one of us." He businessman-sheepishly explained. And there it was again, the notion that has plagued/saved me my whole life; "the answer would be ‘NO!’ but you’re you." For whatever reason, I am always the exception to the rule. I don’t know why that is but it is. Most of the time, it is as fantastic as it might seem and on the whole I am infinitely grateful for it.

I shook my head and said, "Don’t worry about it." Frankly, if "you compromise our integrity" written by a completely anonymous stranger was even remotely close to the rudest thing ever been said to me, I’d be a lot thinner-skinned than I am.

The Englishman and I ended up sitting next to each other and having quite a good chat, though I should have asked him more questions about himself. We talked shop for a bit (he has a friend in film production and knows a staggering amount about the film industry in Xi'An) and then we talked about movies he’d seen recently. I then turned to talking with the women and he with the men and, at long last, we talked about all sorts of things besides shopping. Once we got off the topics where racism and colonialism could be injected, the ladies were a pleasure to speak with. They soon began to resemble the familiar, doting matriarchy I tend to socialize with in the US

We talked about art and life and politics and language. The women have all lived here longer than I and consequently are a wealth of information regarding access to things.

It was soon declared that I was the artist of the group and I gave the women taking painting classes the right to blow off the tedious "perspective" piece. I felt a bit like the "artist and her patrons" but that wasn’t a bad thing in this setting and I can most certainly pay my own way. We spoke in a multitude of languages and the men joked that I should work for the CIA with all the languages I can function in. I joked that, "Perhaps I already do."

We settled up the bill and headed out; me having turned a corner and starting to really like my foreigner friends.