Board of the Flies (Photographic Memories, Part 2)
Mar 1st, 2009 by Frank
The kid thrusts a finger at me, tugging at his father’s arm, begging him to look. We’re in a public square, not five feet from a few vendor selling deep-fried bird feet and the kid’s announcement turns a few heads. People look. More than a few of them openly stare. A few folks laugh and I keep walking, not yet here long enough to brush off the experience.
The whole reminds me of that scene in Planet of the Apes when Taylor evades capture from stormtrooper gorillas by hiding in the museum of taxidermically-challenged humans until a little chimpanzee kid sees him and shouts, “Look, mom! A human!”
It must have been just like that for that Chinese kid. He’s surrounded by non-Chinese people all the time, but they’re not real. They’re static faces in magazines and billboard ads. To suddenly see one walking among them — and without a leash — must have been quite the sight. He’ll be talking about it at school on Monday morning, no doubt. I swear, guys, I saw one! Right in the square and everything!
Back in the States, we take our diversity for granted. We’re constantly surrounded by people of every conceivable creed and color. We’re all Americans. No matter where our ancestors came from, most of us are native to that country. But here, in China, where trying to identify a mugger must be a nightmare, it’s a bit different. And I get that. But what surprises me every time is the stare.
There’s no sidelong glances. No furtive peeking from behind a menu. They see me and they just… stare. Right at me. No shame. No embarrassment. Just open astonishment that I’m there. I get it in restaurants, in cabs, walking down the street. It’s a part of my daily life. And I don’t think they’re trying to be rude, or even aware at how rude that kind of staring is. I’m just… different. I’m the hairless ape that got out of its cage and is walking down the street.
Life is different here in more ways than I can readily count.
A few days ago I was served a small bird that was the most tender and succulent fowl I’d ever tasted, but it was served with the head on the plate, propped up artfully so it became the centerpiece of the dish.
On the docks, the fish were caught and gutted, sliced thin and laid out on nets to dry in the afternoon sun. They were covered in flies. At first sight they looked like raisins. Nothing moved. There wasn’t any buzzing. The little black army had taken up residence on the food and it kind of made me wonder how long my little gosling had been sitting in a bucket in a hot kitchen before they threw it in the fryer.
I am reminded daily that I am the foreigner here. Not just in the way that people treat me, but in the ways my own perceptions separate me from them. I also spent a few days being shown exactly how bad my Mandarin really is and how far I have to go. It’s one thing to get around, to go into restaurants and order food or have short conversations with a store clerk, but to spend a few days with the same person, to share meal after meal with them, to spend a few hours in a car… you come up against the end of your vocabulary pretty damned quick.
Have I really only been here two weeks? It seems incredible to me.
Anyway. Enjoy the pictures, kids. Click on the photo at the top of the post or follow this link get to the gallery. There’s some pretty cool stuff this week and some great people. Now get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned dirty… well… you know.
Subscribe to LINGO in iTunes now!
Korea + Beijing, huh? As in, moving to each place, or going for work but keeping home set up in Shanghai?
Also, I have a small request. You, of course, can tell me where to stuff it but I thought I would ask
I love looking at your photographs, but I noticed when I clicked on the link it took me to the big ‘general’ Shanghai set…which is now twice as big as last week 
and sometimes I only have a few minutes, so I want to make sure to see the new stuff…do you think perhaps each week when you add a batch to the set, you could tag them so they are easier to find? For instande ‘week 1′, ‘week 2′, etc…or just something that each weeks’ batch has a similar tag to find those from the week…or I can just try to hunt and find them 
but I thought it doesn’t hurt to ask…hope you’re having fun!
Tara – No stuffing required, love. I went in and tagged them by week. I’ll make sure to do that from now on, too. Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll be talking about the Korea and Beijing trips in future posts, so stay tuned.
You may be the foreigner now, but give it a few months and you’ll amaze yourself with new your lingual ability! You won’t morph into anything like a Chinese superhero or become virtually hairless on your face and arms, like most of the men there, but you will eventually get them to smile and probably ask you why you are here and where you are from. Then you’ll end up like Norm at Cheers. Everyone will wave and yell your name. It may sound like ‘Flank’ or something almost like Frank, but you’ll get the jist. You’ll be one of them.
Jennifer – Unfortunately, I’ve got one of those names that gets transliterated into Chinese as “Fu lan ke.” Which is even less cool than my real name. So I decided that I’d wait at least a few months until one of my Chinese friends could help me decide on something fitting and cool.
As for the rest, I’m already a regular at a few local joints and we’ve got that friendly inquisitiveness going on already. I downloaded a portable dictionary onto my phone today and it’s really helping. In a year, I’ll be doing pretty well, I think.
I wish I could quote this more succinctly but I’ll have to paraphrase. In an episode of ‘This American Life’ titled “Plan B” originally aired 2/20/09 ( http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx ) one of the segments was on an American who lived for a while in China and for reasons better explained there he ended up learning to sing Chinese opera and was talked into the lead role. He said for years after when he traveled around that area he was semi-famous because he had sung the role and was always asked to sing it for people. The way the narrator described it the Chinese people love to see western people doing Chinese things. This was likened to seeing an exotic animal performing a stunt. The fascination wasn’t in how well the stunt was performed but in the fact that here was this exotic animal performing; it didn’t matter so much how good the performance was, just that the animal was performing.
Anyway, I encourage you to check out that show. I think you can stream it from there website http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx
Thinking of you, wishing you the best.
Todd, it’s so funny you should bring this up. At dinner last night I was talking about a friend of mine who’s been here for 20 years or more and how famous he is in this city. The person I was talking to likened him to an ape who knew sign language; that it was merely the novelty of his fluency which gave him his stardom. I suppose I should be glad I’m getting any attention at all here, eh?
aww, thanks!