Yesterday I saw yet another strange side of Chinese culture while smoking hookah at a Turkish restaurant. I’d been chatting with one of the Chinese servers, telling him how much I enjoy Arabic food. I told him about the time I’d brought my parents to this restaurant when they were visiting Beijing, and how I thought it was one of the best places in the city to get authentic Turkish food (I’ll tell all of you as well, if you’re in Beijing, A Thousand and One Nights is a must for anybody who enjoys belly dancers, hookah and Turkish food). He asked me why I liked Arabic food so much if I’m an American, and when I’d told him some of my friends from home were Arabic, he seemed puzzled, asking me, “But I thought you were American?” Slightly confused now as well, I confirmed this again, and added that they’re also American. This didn’t really help to clear things up like I’d hoped; it only confused him even more. When I informed him that a lot of my family is French but that we’re all American, his face scrunched up in bafflement. He asked me, “So you’re French then?” and again, I had to repeat myself, “No, I am American.” He asked me if I could speak French, and seemed even more disturbed when I’d responded, “No, I can only speak some German.” He repeated himself, “But you’re French?” He seemed like he was starting to get frustrated, probably convinced that I was fucking with him, and I realized that he probably didn’t understand that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants. He looked like he finally got it after hearing this, though it was clear that even though he understood my meaning, this was still a strange concept for him to grasp. I told him that some Americans are 4th generation immigrants, while others are only 1st generation immigrants, but that every family in America was originally from somewhere else (Native Americans, please don’t hate me as you read this… he was confused enough at this point and I didn’t want to throw him anymore curve balls. By the way, sorry for our genocidal scumbag ancestors and Columbus Day). This was when I’d thought it clicked for him, as he began nodding and pointing, “Oh, oh, I know, I know.” Then he asked me if I was a Chinese phrase that I didn’t recognize. Expecting to see a word like multicultural or biracial, I was stunned into silence once I’d found its meaning on my phone’s dictionary; the phrase directly translated to ‘mixed blood’ and ‘half breed.’ I sat there in a stupor, contemplating whether or not I should be offended, as he continued on to tell me how all Chinese people are ‘pure bloods,’ and how proud he was to have such a strong culture. He smiled and thanked me before returning to his duties, telling me he’d never known that ‘all Americans mixed their bloods like that.’ And with those parting words he left me to sit there, wondering if I’d just been insulted or if the meaning of the phrase had been lost in translation or a cultural gap.
I thought about that phrase for the rest of my hookah session, and managed to came to three conclusions. First off, puggles are legit. They make awesome pets and are practically the half breed kings of the dog world. Second, Tiger Woods wrecks people in golf and he’s a Blazian in one of the whitest sports there is. Lastly, when it comes to the history of the world and China as a nation, their doors have been open to foreigners for barely a respective minute. The Chinese had only been having children with other Chinese people before this, and for the last several centuries up until the early 90’s, when Western people really began to start lives in China and mix into their communities, biracial dating was probably unheard of. Many Chinese families have incredibly strict values as well, and even though foreigners have been living in China for over 20 years, cross cultural relationships are still generally frowned upon. The majority of Chinese people, at the very least, dislike foreigner-Chinese relationships, and this probably isn’t going to stop for another 20 years. This xenophobia is especially strong within the older generations, though I’m not really sure if I could blame them for this; many had never seen a white man in real life until after the age of 50! They say ideas die with generations, but if the gender gap continues to widen and the shortage of women and wives in China keeps increasing, then angry young men will probably be more than happy to carry on the torch even after all of the elderly have passed. When you analyze China’s recent history and factor in the multiple social issues concerning ‘the mixing of blood,’ I guess it really isn’t all that weird when a twenty year old waiter who’s lived in Beijing his whole life has trouble understanding multiculturalism. I just hope I didn’t contribute to the next racial slur.

“God damn it! Those American Mud-Bloods are mixing again!”

This morning as I got out of the shower and began to towel myself off, banging on my apartment door and voices directly outside of it startled me. I yelled for them to hold on for a second, and when they heard my voice they opened my unlocked door. Having had no clue who they were or why they were entering my house at 8 in the morning, I grabbed a nearby shirt and modestly covered my junk, as I began to yell at the group of four men and a woman who had nonchalantly walked into my apartment. In a flurried, angry mix of Mandarin and English, the phrases “get the fuck out!,” “this is my house, not yours!,” “close my fucking door!,” and “do you live here?!” flew out of my mouth at them. Taken completely aback by my hostility, or maybe just that a naked tattooed man was rushing towards them pointing and shouting at them, they stumbled and backed out of my apartment. I grabbed the door handle, and tersely said “please wait” as I slammed it shut in their faces.
After dressing myself I reopened the door, but before letting them in I gave them a lecture on how I pay for this house, and they can only enter if I tell them they can. I even included some stern finger wagging to show them how serious I was, and only allowed them in after they’d said they understood. Once inside, the main guy with an official lanyard hanging from his neck gave me a lecture of his own, saying it was my responsibility to keep my door locked, and because it wasn’t then it was my fault they came inside. I decided it was too early for logic and let it go. I asked what they wanted, and he asked for me and my girlfriend who I live with to show him our passports. He wrote down all of our information, including our VISAs. The single woman stared at me the whole time, a look of neutral disapproval on her face. The men besides the main guy with the lanyard were all older, and were dressed the same as the elderly maintenance men who gambled and drank in my apartment complex during the day. None of them seemed too put off by my ability to be polite host, or an angry nudist, and the oldest of them even appeared to be amused the whole time.
I’ve consistently missed or forgotten all the appointments for getting my gas and water meters checked during the whole 7 months I’ve lived in this place, and throughout the whole fiasco assumed they were from Beijing’s gas and water company, having finally decided to drop in unexpectedly to collect from these irresponsible foreigners. I had also assumed they needed my passport information for registration and billing reasons. None of them looked official or professional in anyway, and except for their lanyard leader, they looked like the dudes who had unclogged my toilet a couple months ago. I’m sure you can imagine my surprise once they were finished writing down our passport details, when I offered to show them into my kitchen to check the meter, they said no and informed me they were with the Chinese government’s department of immigration. You know, the people that could boot my ass out of the country for any reason whatsoever. Good thing I only ran at them naked screaming get the fuck out.
I’m pretty sure they found it funny that I was surprised, and waved it off when I apologized multiple times for the incident earlier. They informed us again that we need to lock our doors, and left without saying anything else. Needless to say I was sketched out, not even because I’d insulted people who could very easily decide to give me a headache of migrational proportions, but because where I come from, authority figures dropping by your house is not a good sign.
After contacting three different friends who’ve had places in China for the past 3-5 years, asking them whether or not this is abnormal and if I should be worried or not, they each responded with about the same thing; “nah, that’s pretty normal, it’s China.” One even responded that it could have been because I live in an area with incredibly few foreigners, and somebody had dropped a dime on us because we seemed out of place or didn’t think we belonged there. I bet it was those damn Vibrams, always stirring shit up. But moral of the story, when the day comes and government officials barge into your home, remember that’s just China. Just try to be dressed when they do.

Being a fitness enthusiast, it’s only natural that I own a pair of Vibrams. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Vibrams, they are not a sex toy, they are shoes.

And they aren’t just super cool shoes, they’re also an item that strikes fear into the hearts of Chinese people everywhere. I’ve actually had to limit how much I wear them because of the reactions I’ve gotten. Every third person on the street will let out an unintelligible cry of distress when they see my footwear. Most will point as they do it too, alerting all others in the area to the possible danger of a man with separated digits being nearby. Wearing Vibrams is how I learned the Mandarin words for ‘insane’ and ‘madman/crazy person,’ when a man so perturbed by my footwear grabbed me in the street and informed me that I was, in fact, an insane crazy person. Ever since then I have heard these words at least once every time I’ve walked to my gym rocking the skeletoes. Some people passing by will avoid me on the street, giving my possibly dangerous ten visible toes a wide birth. Most people who notice will also stop and turn with me to stare as I walk past. Cars have slammed on their horns as they pass by me, and the best yet was the guy who had to swerve to keep from hitting the curb because he couldn’t take his eyes off my scandalously exposed toe curves. Joking aside, I have gotten some weird looks in America for wearing Vibrams, but nothing compared to here. I guess China just isn’t ready for the creep feet