This afternoon a Chinese-looking guy gave me a leaflet at the library. It turned out that indeed he was Chinese, but I’ll tell you about this later. There was an Eastern girl walking in front of me. Of course she got her leaflet before me. I must confess that I was surprised when the guy gave me a copy, not only that, I was surprised that he even spoke to me. That’s sad! Why did I just assume in less than a few seconds that he wouldn’t talk to me? Chinese people only speak with other Chinese people and I am not one of them. This idea was comfortably sitting in my brain as an irrefutable truth. Why? Well, there’s a reason for this. In the town where I live there’s a high percentage of Chinese student population. One of the things I liked the most about this university before joining it was its international atmosphere. I could picture myself speaking different languages tasting different foods making friends from many different countries... Nothing could go further from the actual situation. I mean, I have friends from many different countries only all of them Western, that’s the point. Someone said once that East and West will never touch. That’s sadly true here. They’ve learnt to share the same places, the same streets... But let’s not say “share”. They’re like rivers that can run along the same path without ever mixing their waters. Even more, while on the same path, they've become thousands of tiny streams. All in the same place but never together. Anyone would say that there are two halves in the world. But while we seem to share a common currency "on our side", the other half insists on separating in further segments: Japanese with Japanese, Chinese with Chinese, Koreans with Koreans. It seems so absurd to me!
In my first months I continuously tried to talk with my Chinese colleagues, but little by little I stopped trying till I finally gave up completely. They are polite and nice I have no complaint whatsoever about this, however it seems that they don’t have the least intention of interacting with the "Western" (yes, we are Western, I had never thought about myself this way). At first I thought they didn’t speak with me because their English is not very good, but very soon I felt that they just don’t "need" me at all. Why would they talk to anyone outside their group? They’re not fluent in English, ok, so it isn’t easy for them to talk but also they’re not fluent BECAUSE they never talk, they never practice so their English never improves. They don’t need me, true. Their community is so large that they can do it all among themselves: make friends, have parties, find a partner. Once their time here is over they go back to China with two important things in their bags: a qualification to get a good job and a husband or a wife. We all need friends, that’s a shared concept, only I never expected it to be "you have your friends and I have mine."
But let's talk about the leaflet. It was a five or six pages photocopied text by the Chinese guy. It started by telling how its author lost most of his Chinese friends when he expressed his ideas. Basically it is a pleading for equality and communication, it is a very beautiful text. It explains how this guy felt discriminated and ignored by others until he realized that it was a two-way process. The others didn’t have a clue about him and his culture, but he didn’t have a clue about others either. The others showed no interest in understanding him, an at the same time, he and his Chinese friends weren’t interested in the others. What can we do about this huge lack of communication? I know, open up. That would seem simple, however, the boy ... Oh, let's stop calling him "boy" and use his name! Li Sheng. Li Sheng’s smart call to his countrymen is this: in order for things to change, both sides have to open up. I found particularly interesting the pages where Li talks about Western girls and their way of treating Easter guys. He says that Easter guys usually find Western girls very attractive, but –he feels- for us they are virtually invisible. "You see some Eastern girl with a Western guy, but the opposite is never seen," he says. He blames it largely on American films which have created the image of the "asexual kung fu freak," the Chinese man who shows no interest in women at all. The guys in these films have no sex drive because in their world there’s nothing but kung fu. According to Li, that’s why a girl here won’t even look in a Chinese guy’s direction. I do not know, maybe these films don’t help but the way Li Sheng portrays the situation seems exaggerated to me. Ok, the question anyone would as me now is: do YOU find them attractive? Well, I can say that in my time here I’ve already been invisible for Chinese guys twice. So, what do you want? After being doubly ignored the easiest way –or maybe the smartest- is not to try a third time. So, please don’t call it discrimination if I tend to keep my eyes within Western lands.
There’s certainly something that I’m learning well by living here: “otherness” shines equally on both sides of the mirror. Sad, I know. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to see that at heart we share more than we think. It sounds like idealism as Li Sheng says. Anyway, I still can have some hope.
