Weather, Expats, and the Long Weekend

The weather has fortunately finally warmed up, but a part of me is sad, as I had essentially missed out on Spring.  Nanjing weather has been odd to say the least, even the locals say so, but it is sad that it went from the low 40-50s and suddenly jumped into the high 80s.  I would have enjoyed having a few weeks of 70s weather, but now, it is just warm and muggy.  I enjoy the warm weather, but humidity has always been killer for me, and apparently is killing my giant appetite, which would do me some good, since I've gained a considerable amount of weight.

This last weekend was a 3-day weekend, a national holiday that everyone often takes the opportunity to travel.  I on the other hand, have grown much too burnt out with the hustle and bustle, and decided to stay at "home" in Nanjing.  It was nice to just chill, and really have no tasks to do.  It was mainly playing catch up on some much needed tasks, such as cleaning the apartment, sweeping, mopping floors, scrubbing the toilet and such. Probably more detail than anyone needs to know, but it was good to get something done.

On Monday night, Kamla and I went to Sculpting in Time to eat, and met an expat who was teaching as a professor at one of the local universities.  I don't mean to complain, but meeting this gentleman was a complete waste of time.  We had almost finished dinner and were preparing to go, when this total stranger next to us struck a conversation with us.  Having heard us converse in English, he knew that we were probably Americans.  Being polite, we thought that the conversation would end quickly, a few questions of where are you from, what are you doing here, and oh, I hope you enjoy your time, nice to meet you and "goodbye!"  Little did we know, this man managed to keep us there for an hour, just talking to us.

I found that this "professor" grated at my nerves in ways that I didn't appreciate, though there were some things that he said that were interestingly insightful and perhaps necessary for the average Chinese to know.  However, for us, it came off as lecturing, and I didn't appreciate his self-righteous tone as he berated us about not going to see the Great Wall of China, even though we were in Beijing for other business.  As my friendly smile turned into a grimace rather quickly, and Kamla and I exchanged frantic looks of how to escape the situation, there were a few things that struck me.  This gentleman, as it were, was blatantly lying to himself.  As he proudly informed Kamla and I that he had burned all his bridges in the US, and that he had no intention of going back having been in Nanjing for 2.5 years and now has a fiance in Beijing, his incessant talking merely proved to show that he was deprived.  He kept telling us that he avoided the expat and foreign community in China, so that he could continue practicing his Chinese, but the fact that he talked at us for an hour proved to show that he missed having an intellectual conversation with people who could not only understand him, but communicate and think for themselves.  I think his only justification for talking with us, was that we weren't "white" as it were, and by all means were Chinese to some degree as well.

Although this gentleman had lived in Nanjing for 2.5 years, he was extremely ignorant of the true China.  I let a lot of things slide, because there was no point in arguing with a stranger.  He had simply assumed it was easier for me as I was Chinese by descent.  Granted, I could sympathize with his difficulty of wanting to practice Chinese, but having everyone talk to him in English, I was frustrated with his liberal thinking.  He kept saying how relaxing it was to be in China, but China is anything but relaxing, at least for people in our generation in China.  However, those are details.  What bothered me the most was what he said about the Law.  He said: "I fight the Law."  For someone who came from the US, it was sad that he had zero appreciation for the enforcement of Law that the US instates, something that I have long missed in China.  Working in a law firm has given me a true insight into how things work in China, and it is a corrupt, corrupt system.  He on the other hand thought China was just fine, not as corrupt and controlled by foreign banks as the US was.  I was frustrated with this ignorant man, who so blindly loved China just because he was dissatisfied with how things in the US were run.  I suppose ignorance is bliss, and in this case, it truly was.

I guess this proves to show that even though we have lived in China for a mere 8 months, a majority of us from Flagship have a better grasp of the inner-workings of how China ticks, the culture, and just things that you can't really learn from a book.  Even though I was annoyed, it did shed some new light on something I have long forgotten, having become jaded in China.