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Published: January 29th 2007
This is a really hard country for a straight-forward person. Because no one can live here being straight-forward. When I was working for Rockies Cat and Russell used to talk about the fake smile that made their mouth hurt to wear all day long. I'm not a big huge smile person. Never have been. When I started working for Rockies Joan used to tell me I scared my students by not smiling. I never changed my smile but people got used to me and realized that I was good inside and then they liked me. Same at my new school where my first English Corner didn't go well because I didn't smile enough and scared them off but now they've become more adapt to me. When I went to Japan I learned how to smile as a greeting to everyone and now I do it at the Salon all the time and I think people like me there more. Today I gave a demonstration class to new clients coming to our school and I think it went really well because I made my best effort to smile and include them in the majority of it, although part of it was lecture styled which I definitely don't like very much. I think I've been improving a lot but maybe not. Cam told me tonight I have to play stupid monkey to get him to like me physically - not touch him at all but he can touch me. I also have to do my best to pretend I'm perfectly happy and content when I'm bored shitless or not feeling too great inside. We went to the KTV tonight. I hate KTVs, always have. You go into a room with your friends and spend all your time staring at a scrreen while someone sings to the words on it. I know maybe 7 songs the entire night, can't read the words so try to mime them sometimes, don't understand any of the songs and am trying to watch them sing to learn characters while I'm bored. There's nothing to do but drink which I've recently learned not to do much of and there's nothing else to do. I thought we were going to a bar or club, if I'd known it was KTV I wouldn't have gone. So we get there, I'm bored shiitless so decide to call Liz cause I know it'll lift my spirits. After our talk I went back and Hui actually convinced me to sing some songs! I sang along with some of the ones I knew, cheered people on, talked with some people, laughed, danced a bit, talked to a complete stranger in the US who was a friend of theirs, had Eason leaning on me and tapped the rhythm to the music on his arm, drank some and had a great time. Afterwards what did Cam tell me? They were all wondering why I was so unhappy. And every day the Salon boys think I'm "ok" but still not in a great mood. What the frell do you need to do around here to convince people you are happy if they don't believe you are happy when you really are? This is an extremely frustrating thing to me and means I'm going to have to adopt the fake smile that Cat and Russell perfected a whole lot more. It's going to make me so glad when I can relax around other foreigners it's not even funny. It's no wonder people around here tend to hang out with their significant other and foreigners. I've spent a year here already trying to perfect the culture and it's going to take me another 3 to get this damn fakeness and physical subservience perfected. You wonder why 3 of every 7 days of the week I end up at home crying at the end of the day.
One tiny good thing although I'm not sure it's true. Cam said when I first asked him if he liked me his answer was a flat no but now since I've changed some he does like me. I've got a long way to go before I perfect the Chinese woman he wants me to be though. He keeps telling me "When I go to the US you can tell me what to do and I'll do it but while you're here you've got to listen to me."
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anonymous
non-member comment
Hahaha, are you going to hold him to that last sentence? It may be sooner than you think.