DIGGING MY OWN GRAVE

"You're very Asian. With women," my new Belgian girlfriend broke the flow of the break-from-class conversation the group had with this. She was speaking to the Korean guy and, as our class is filled with Westerners (there is on retired Japanese gentleman but he's not interested in socializing with us) there was no question to whom she was speaking. While the half-Chinese, half-German is seen as Chinese in China, he's seen as European in our circle. Korea is firmly alone in his "Asian" roots among us.

I have spoken a fair bit with Korea and merely by his speech patterns, I already know (and it was confirmed later) that he learned the basics of English in Korea and then moved to Australia to immerse himself in the language during his teens or early twenties. I know this because his basic English vocabulary has an English accent and as the English teacher in Korea are primarily English and expensive, it's clear his parents were doing their best to provide him with a strong base. His conversational English and flow is clearly Australian. His physicality with women is clearly Australian. His grasp of English is incredibly high and he clearly wants to be seen as a Westerner from Korea as he made such a serious effort as to even learn humor in English. Most people, even if they become fluent in a language, don't understand the humor in each culture. Humor is the absolute last concept to come, as it is entirely cultural and has nothing to do with a classroom. My humor is very dry and cerebral. You must have a pretty good grasp of English to understand my whacked-out sense of humor. He gets it. He not only gets it, he can give as good as he gets. He has clearly adopted the idea of being a hybrid of cultures. And, well, it takes a cuckoo to see a cuckoo.

Now, one must understand the subtext of that comment from my Belgian friend to understand the true power of alienation behind it. We had all just spent two hours discussing sexual relationships and how they differ from China/Asia to the West. Everyone in class is in quite a lot of agreement that Asian cultures are incredibly chauvinistic and several women even said how horrible it must be to be a Chinese woman... to our female Chinese teacher.

Fortunately, Korea and I were doing most of the talking and we had a really interesting discussion fleshing out the word "like" in Chinese is used as we use the word "love" and the word "love" in Chinese is used like we use the phrase "the one." We then tried to explain how cohabitation is not unlike marriage for us.

"90% of men in China get married [only] because they want to have sex," our teacher explained trying to explain why it's bad to cohabitate without marriage.

"Horrible" I whispered in English under my breath so that she wouldn't hear me.

Korea was sitting in front of me and he turned around, shrugging sheepishly. "Well, it is a natural urge," he tried to defend the faultless idea of lust.

"It's natural to get married because you want to get laid? What sort of marriage is based on getting laid?" I asked, clarifying my "horrible" statement.

Korea went quiet for a moment and thought. "That is terrible. You're right." He thought some more. "That's really awful," he muttered, clearly disgusted.

She then asked what stopped men from cheating on women if they weren't married, because, as you well know, extramarital affairs don't happen in China.

"Living together isn't serious." She said.

I couldn't respond to that because I'm not a man and so my voice wouldn't hold much weight on this matter to her.

"You live together and he can go and have sex with anyone."

"No!" Korea answered reflexively, upset at the notion of infidelity. "No, if you live together it is serious."

"What a lovely, upstanding young man." I thought.

So, given two hours of this subtext to our conversation, to equate Korea with all men "Asian" when it comes to "women" is more than a little heartbreaking. As a consequence, when he finally understood what the words my Belgian friend had spoken, the normally loquacious boy went uncharacteristically quiet. He understood and was hurt.

In a circle of "We're on vacation!" kids and young adults, suddenly he was pointed out to be the freak. It's stunningly alienating to feel like you're part of a group and then suddenly have the curtain pulled back to reveal that you're the circus freak the group has been entertaining for its own enjoyment. And, in case he had any doubt what the women in the class think of "Asian" men, we had just spent two hours articulating just how freakish "we" find "them" to be. Though he clearly is on the "us" side of things, because of things he has nothing to do with, he was clearly being placed back with what "we" perceive to be the more antiquated side of things.

"Yeah!" all the other women followed suit and the men hung back as the girls laid out all the funny things he had done to be "so Asian." With each context-free anecdote, the girls giggled at how funny he was. What the girls didn't understand was that he didn't understand that chivalry is, primarily, dead in the West. From his perspective, it was clear that he had been perceived as silly, trite and probably offensive but I'm pretty sure he didn't quite know why.

I could see the great divide growing swiftly and so I decided to rephrase what had come across as a rather unpleasant notion.

"Yeah," I agreed. "You take care of women... of us." I explained quietly. That raised his defeated, ground-oriented gaze to my eyelevel, as he finally understood the divide. I had reached him through his alienation and offered him a little something, or so I like to think that naked look he gave me indicated.

I completely forgot myself in the look he gave me. "It's nice," I said far more earnestly than I thought I was capable of. I smiled honestly and the self-revelatory truth never felt easier.

He smiled and I literally felt his anxiety dissipate like mist.

When he opened his mouth and inhaled to speak, I realized that we were standing in the midst of a bunch of people and his words wouldn't be for me. We had said all that needed to be said. As reality settled around me, I tried to hide my gasp. My nudity was there for everyone to see and in my embarrassment I watched the ground.

The women picked up on my sentiment and started explaining the things like how Western men wouldn't even mention the car coming, much less guide you away from it.

And then the conversation bloomed. Korea understood the perspective from which we were speaking. We were not laughing at the trite, petty chauvinistic behavior he clearly thought we were discussing but rather our amazement that a man with no reason to, would take care of us.

"But your perspective on relationships is decidedly Western" I said, attempting to further clarify.

"Yeah, I guess I'm a hybrid of cultures," he tried to explain. "There are good things and bad things from Korea and there are good things and bad things..." he trailed off, losing his nerve and clearly a bit rattled by all of this.

"Yeah, there are good and bad things in every culture." I agreed trying to keep the conversation going. Everyone else simply watched him. There is nothing like dead air in a conversation you want to go away when you feel fucked up. "Except America," I joked. "Our contribution to the world has been McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut. We're just offensive."

Korea laughed at that and jumped on the idea but tried to consol me by telling me how much he likes Burger King.

"And you're forgetting the wondrous cultural gift that is Hollywood," I added as we headed inside, laughing, to continue our class.

We finished class and as I was leaving with Belgium, Korea spoke up.

"Bye," he said directly to me as we left the post-class chat circle.

"Bye," I said.

"Bye!" he yelled after my receding figure.

"Bye," I repeated myself.

"Bye," he said to me, once again but now making me laugh.

"Bye" I called out, laughing a bit harder at the silly back and forth.

"Bye!" he yelled out one last time as I turned around.

I let him have the final word but raised my hand to the air to wave behind my back.

I know he headed back to the hotel and he and the Italian girl he's fond of are staying at and I know that they're most likely together but that doesn't stop my godforsaken gut from wanting what it wants. My conscious brain has absolutely no desire for a man in my life and I loathe the idea of ever dating again but he's managed to splinter his way in and my reflexes certainly aren't stopping him. If I hadn't opened my mouth to clarify "Asian," I probably wouldn't have even occurred to him but now he really wants to make friends.

Bloody hell.