On discovering that it's nice to be nice
“Hello!!” called J, waving happily through the windscreen. The Security Guard’s formal salute never faltered as our black Buick swept through the gate, but the grin on his face was from ear to ear.
Our boxes are all here and unpacked, all our worldly goods are with us again, and this house in Shanghai is now truly home. To think we have only been here for a little over two months is quite amazing. We have all settled into a life so different from the life we knew in England, this new life of living in a city with 14 million other people, hardly any of whom speak our language, a life of mosquito nets and bottled water and air conditioning in the house, of live turtles in the supermarket and no cake and no bacon sandwiches, and an Ayi to take care of tedious chores and a driver to drive us everywhere in a car with blacked out windows, a daily occurrence of fireworks and chopsticks and elevated roads and neon, a life of constant Chinese lessons and miming and 35 degrees through the day and 28 degrees through the night, of Chinese cooking lessons and skiing lessons and no chips and no television and being stared at wherever we go – I don’t think life could be much more different.
S and D were playing 5-a-side football. I was at home in the study, air conditioning on full blast, working on my TEFL course. J was in the study with me, reading her book. And I thought, all our lives have changed – but hers – her life has changed the most. I have been home-schooling her for a month now. When we lived in England, I doubt I spent more than a couple of hours with her in a day, but now we spend just about every waking moment together. She is stared at absolutely wherever she goes, whether she is walking down the street or playing in the park or shopping in the supermarket or eating a meal – people nudge each other and turn and stop and stare and point and lean out of car windows and encourage each other to come out from wherever they were and have a look – they even come up to her and hug her and take her photo and chatter to her excitedly in Chinese. In the beginning, she usually accepted all this attention quite willingly, smiling patiently. As she got more used to it she went through a phase of just ignoring it, but a few weeks ago she discovered something new. If she responded, or initiated even the most basic conversation, such as saying hello, people were absolutely delighted. The happier they were, the happier she was. “Ne hao”, she calls, waving and smiling to everyone who stares. Momentarily people are confused, but then invariably they are thrilled, waving and smiling delightedly in return. Charley the driver was initially horrified at this ‘making eye contact’, but now, amazed by the reactions of his fellow Shanghainese, he’s as delighted as the recipients of one of J’s waves. I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea of how most Shanghainese must perceive the Westerners that arrive in Shanghai. J, with her sudden discovery of friendliness and good humour, must be turning all those perceptions on their head.
Our boxes are all here and unpacked, all our worldly goods are with us again, and this house in Shanghai is now truly home. To think we have only been here for a little over two months is quite amazing. We have all settled into a life so different from the life we knew in England, this new life of living in a city with 14 million other people, hardly any of whom speak our language, a life of mosquito nets and bottled water and air conditioning in the house, of live turtles in the supermarket and no cake and no bacon sandwiches, and an Ayi to take care of tedious chores and a driver to drive us everywhere in a car with blacked out windows, a daily occurrence of fireworks and chopsticks and elevated roads and neon, a life of constant Chinese lessons and miming and 35 degrees through the day and 28 degrees through the night, of Chinese cooking lessons and skiing lessons and no chips and no television and being stared at wherever we go – I don’t think life could be much more different.
S and D were playing 5-a-side football. I was at home in the study, air conditioning on full blast, working on my TEFL course. J was in the study with me, reading her book. And I thought, all our lives have changed – but hers – her life has changed the most. I have been home-schooling her for a month now. When we lived in England, I doubt I spent more than a couple of hours with her in a day, but now we spend just about every waking moment together. She is stared at absolutely wherever she goes, whether she is walking down the street or playing in the park or shopping in the supermarket or eating a meal – people nudge each other and turn and stop and stare and point and lean out of car windows and encourage each other to come out from wherever they were and have a look – they even come up to her and hug her and take her photo and chatter to her excitedly in Chinese. In the beginning, she usually accepted all this attention quite willingly, smiling patiently. As she got more used to it she went through a phase of just ignoring it, but a few weeks ago she discovered something new. If she responded, or initiated even the most basic conversation, such as saying hello, people were absolutely delighted. The happier they were, the happier she was. “Ne hao”, she calls, waving and smiling to everyone who stares. Momentarily people are confused, but then invariably they are thrilled, waving and smiling delightedly in return. Charley the driver was initially horrified at this ‘making eye contact’, but now, amazed by the reactions of his fellow Shanghainese, he’s as delighted as the recipients of one of J’s waves. I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea of how most Shanghainese must perceive the Westerners that arrive in Shanghai. J, with her sudden discovery of friendliness and good humour, must be turning all those perceptions on their head.
posted by Linda at 12:08 AM
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