Being WaiGuoRen

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Here in China, my identity is reduced to a simple concept- "Wai Guo Ren", which translates into something like- Foreign Country Person. American, Senegalese, Mexican, it doesn matter. If you aren Han Chinese, then you are waiguoren. Its a name I hear a lot- kids shouting it in astonishment when I pass, shopkeepers laughing with their friends about the waiguoren attempting to buy tomatoes, etc.

Ive come to accept it... for the most part. I think its unfortunate that the Chinese people are so.. erhem.. racist.. but the bad side of their racism doesn affect me that much, so its easy to get used too. Some of my friends have it worse- such as mixed Chinese/White couples, like my friends Martin and Camilla who weren allowed to rent an apartment together because the landlord thought it would "look bad for the neighbors." Also, Camilla is half Chinese half Swedish, which is especially hard. People yell "Half Blood!" at her maliciously all the time... which is both awful and sort of funny when you consider that the average Chinese person probably didn even read the Harry Potter series..

Anyway. The reason that Im writing today is because a singular event happened to me this morning that deserved being reported. I had my second legitimate conversation with a Chinese person entirely in Chinese. It went like this: I woke up late on Sunday, went downstairs to buy muffins for breakfast from the bakery thats next door, while I was in the shop I had The Conversation. Ill write it in English:

I was looking at the prices on various baked goods, when I heard one lady in the shop say to another customer, "This waiguoren is very beautiful." I looked up at them and was so surprised that I understood her so perfectly that I blurted out "Thank you" without even thinking about it. She started laughing and said "Oh, I didn know you could understand what I said." I was still shocked by this new miraculous Chinese speaking skill, so I said "Yes, I understood. Thank you." She then asked "What country are you from? Are you German or American?" "Im American, I would like two of those muffins." I answered. She put them in a bag, and I asked "How much is it?" "6 yuan" She answered. I paid and left the shop grinning like an idiot.

It might not sound like much, but it was a victory in the life of my Chinese language learning. The first real conversation I had took place with a noodle vendor in which he asked me if I was a student, and I said that I was and that I study Chinese at Fudan. That was pretty impressive, but since weve practiced that conversation about a million times in my classes, I didn think it really counted.

To celebrate, I believe I will sweep and mop my room, do laundry, eat lunch, practice Chinese, and research border crossings/visas/train times of various countries in South East Asia. Huzzah.

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Comments

[Sarah Schmeltz]

Hey Meghan! I love reading your blog! Whats your email address? I wasn sure if you could still check your OU one