I'm sure some of you live in a similar FT habitat as me = one of a dozen or less foreigners occupying a small, untouristed city, in the middle of China. This has many blessings, such as feeling like you really ARE living in another country, and not like you're living in Bakersfield, as a friend said of Chiangmai after living there for a couple years. I always need to speak Chinese, gesture and gesticulate, mime, and otherwise compromise my dignity and muddle through the simplest things (like returning a defective heat blanket yesterday).
It's all good, but then lately there's been a rise in that kind of borderline friendly/mocking attention I get when I so much as leave my apartment. Many people can't control themselves and must utter "Lao Wai" or "Wai guo ren" or "Ying guo ren" or "Mei guo ren" if they see me. Many are stopped in their tracks and must stare, even if I look back and they're unselfconsciously picking their noses. This is all normal. I'm more or less used to it.
But lately it's as if the locals have become more emboldened, and less friendly about it all. If there's a crowd of boys, and there are lots of them because there are schools everywhere here, I can be absolutely positive they will all start yelling, "HelloooOOoo. Hu-low. What's your name?" at me. But now these are more frequently being peppered with the attention-getting, "Fuck you," "fuck," "fuck me," or if they're really bold, "Fuck your mother!"
There's just no way around it, they're being rude. I know they just want my attention, to be cool amongst their friends, and for me to think they're cool. They want to impress me, because I'm a dude and Western. But, there are times when my skin is not so thick, like the other day when I was going to the print shop on campus to make copies for my classes, and some boys (think they might have been from a local hair salon) started in with the whole, "Hello-what's your name-where you from" banter, but then one made the mistake of adding, "Fuck you!"
For the first time in years, I actually lost my shit – maybe because I don't want to be a target on campus – turned tail, grabbed the guy by the shirt, and gave him an impromptu short lecture about not telling a teacher, "fuck you" in the university. I tried to make it unpleasant enough that it wouldn't actually be encouragement, via attention, for more of the same treatment.
Since that time I've been trying to NOT lose my shit again, because, well, my record was pretty good up until then, and who wants to backslide? Usually I'll make funny comments back, like, "Zhonguo ren" or "Wo bu shi wai guo ren, wo shi wai xing ren," or make silly faces which get them laughing. Whatever. But lately, maybe since the nationalist strings have been plucked with the discord with Japan, and the US VS. THEM mentality has been fueled, things have shaded from mildly irking to pretty damned annoying.
I've been in bigger cities like Kunming or Chengdu or Xi'an, and even smaller ones that actually get tourists, and the "lao wai" stuff there is so minimal it's nothing. But, my city, which is the epicenter of spitting in the known universe, is also the worse place I've even been for "lao wai" attention. That said it's been pretty bearable until recently.
I got two "fuck yous" in one day. Used to be less than one a month or two or three or more. And it was more than 6 fuck-related comments within a week, two on the university.
So now I've gone into aforementioned "ignoring people mode." It consists of not looking at people who are blatantly staring at me, taking pictures with their cell phones… I wear headphones so people can understand I can't hear jeers. If people are trying to look at me I look interested in something in the other direction, or at my cell phone.
Of course, if little girls in pig tails follow me screaming "Lao Wai," well, they can pretty much get away with anything.
Anyway, point is, while I'm pretty tolerant of really an abundance of "lao Wai" crap, lately it's reached a fever pitch and I've had to go into a defensive mode where I have to avoid being not only the object of attention, but an actual target for ridicule. Hopefully this will blow over so I can go back to being a bit more interactive and less a walking sculpture.