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Published: November 18th 2009
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Taking photos after English Corners, basically a gathering of students who want to practice their English I had been warned by many friends who had been to China that I would get stared at all the time, especially being 6'3" (1.91 m). (By the way, because many people have asked: no, I don't constantly feel like a giant here; rather, I did much more in Mexico, partly because doors and street vendors' awnings are all much lower there.) Anyway, given the warnings, I was actually surprised how little I got stared at when I first got here, both on campus and in the city. The freshmen arrived my second week, though, and the staring increased quite a bit. (It's hard for Americans, especially New Yorkers, to comprehend, but so many people have told me that I'm the first foreigner they've ever spoken to. I mean, odds are there was a foreigner in the hospital room where I was born!)
I thought that the students would eventually get used to seeing me around campus and would lose their interest in me, but the reverse has happened. I've been getting stared and and whispered about more as time has gone on; I think I've become a bit of a rumor to some of the 14,750 students who I
don't teach, and it is such a big school that there may still be students who are seeing me for the first time. A few weeks ago, I was walking to the volleyball courts and I passed a group of five girls walking in the same direction but slower. On my second step past them, as I came into view, all five yelped a startled yelp. All I could do was turn around with a smile of feigned embarrassment and say, "I'm sorry; did I scare you?" Every now and then at the cafeteria I'll notice someone a few tables away whose cell phone is facing suspiciously upright with its camera lens pointing suspiciously in my direction, who upon seeing me looking suspiciously yanks it in another direction and darts her eyes at her friend.
That I understand and don't mind, and again, it's nothing compared to what I was warned about. But depending on my mood, it can range from amusing to mildly irritating. In Tongli, I was eating at a table right over an urban canal through which tourist canoes passed a-la-Venice. At their slow pace, they had a solid 60 seconds approaching me, and after the
second Chinese tourist aimed a camera at me, I decided I'd have some fun and I readied my camera to aim back at the next lǎowài gawker -- a taste of your own paparazzo medicine! Predictably, like the rain's inverse relationship to my umbrella preparedness, none of the subsequent tourists gave me the opportunity to execute my comedic brilliance.
For Halloween this year I had no choice but to dress as Edward Cullen. The big Halloween event in Changzhou, which many of my students attended, was at Dinosaur Park. Four or five separate times, people started lining up to take photos with me. One teenage girl asked me "Are you real??" I replied, "Did you like my movie?"
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Jonky
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Ben, You look scarily similar to Robert Pattinson. Wow. -jk