That Guy

Okay, so I flat out stole this post from my friend's blog... but considering part of it is my story too I felt justified in sharing it here.

Yahximusiz!", came the high-pitched greeting from the young woman walking toward us. I was walking with my former classmate. Since we studied in the same class several years ago, she has gone on to study Uyghur and opened a translation business here. After they exchanged the obligatory hug and kisses, they shared a few pleasantries and parted ways. "Who was that?", I asked as soon as we were out of ear shot. "I HAVE NO IDEA! But she asked why I haven't stopped by in so long and told me to come by soon." As it turns out, my friend is a bit of a celebrity. She has appeared on TV several times and met lots of people through studies, english corners, and her business. "I wouldn't know where to go even if I wanted to stop by", she said. She did feel a bit awkward for not knowing who the girl was but didn't have the heart to admit it in light of the very warm and excited greeting she received. She felt awkward. I felt relieved that it wasn't me.

Then, it happened. I ran into the convenience store outside the front gate of my school. Turning from the cash register to the door I came face to face with a big smile. "Jesse!", said the young man standing in front of me. "How are you! It's been a long time." There was a momentary blank stare. I have to confess that I have a rule in studying language: Fake it til you make it. If I don't understand, I just pretend and usually I can get the jist and move on without admitting defeat. Whether right or wrong my fake-it-til-you-make-it conditioning kicked in. "Hey you! How are you?", came out before I could even think. We exchanged a few pleasantries about being busy and classes and then I excused myself. Keeping with local custom I added an obligatory, "If you have free time, give me a call", thinking that would be the end of it. People often invite you to come by or call without always meaning it. Alas. He grabbed his phone and said, "Jesse, I don't have your number." I told him my number and he immediately called my phone. What could I do? I saved him in my contact list as 'That Guy'. He probably won't call anyway, I thought.

Just now my phone rang. 'That Guy' came up on the caller id. "Hey! You! Hello!", I said. By the end of the call we had a plan to have lunch. I'm debating whether I should just confess I don't know his name or play it cool and see how it goes. It seems there is an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry forgets the name of some woman he keeps running into. Maybe I should watch that for some ideas. Or maybe you have a better idea...?

Halloween

Someone mentioned to me that my last point sounded bitter and unlike me (Thanks for calling me on it guys). That was not my intention. To show you all that I am still happy, healthy and well adjusted I thought I could join the masses and post some Halloween pictures. This is my roommate’s favorite holiday (hence our birthday party last year). We had a simple night at home, decorating our front entrance, wearing our cool socks while watching “Nightmare before Christmas”, carving pumpkins and waiting for our two annual trick-or-treaters.

Hospitality is Selfishness

Hospitality as selfishness may seem a contradiction to many people’s views on manors and propriety, but there are some days I can’t help but think it is the reason why people really open their home and invite others to join them. Sure there are several stresses that go into the role of hostess, from planning a meal to making sure the house is clean. But these tasks can all be done from the quietness of home with soft relaxing music playing in the background enhancing the pleasure of the task.

The guest, however, must brave the outside world in order to fight their way to the predetermined location. At times these travels can seem arduous for all involved. You must find the right bus stop, stand and wait, run with the crowd to board the proper bus, push your way aboard, stand packed like sardines for more stops than you can count, listening to the garbled sound of the intercom system announcing each stop at a decibel that breaks the acceptable noise levels of public places, guard your belonging from pick-pockets and the like, walk in extreme temperatures from the place where the bus stops to where your friend actually lives, buy fruit or some sort of appropriate hostess gift by haggling over the price, toting said purchase of several kilos up numerous flights of stairs, all the while trying to look pleasant and put together in order to smile your greeting to the host.

The longer the visit lasts the more one’s mind becomes distracted with thoughts of returning home. Will the buses still be running? Will I be able to get a taxi? How many blocks will I have to walk before some form of transportation will become availed? This nervous preoccupation with the return journey can often start to sour the end of the evening.

The host merely puts on music, whips down the table, washes a few dishes and heads to bed, selfishly enjoying the fact that they never had to leave the comforts of their own home.

Okay, so today was the first snowfall of the year and I might be a little bitter at having had to go outside and face the snow and ice covered streets.

Wedding Crashers

Today was one of my old classmate’s birthday…his one wish was for a crazy dance party with all of his friends. In total our group was comprised of seven different nationalities. Planning a party for that many people takes way too much time and energy, so we decided to just crash a random wedding. Actually this is considered totally acceptable. Most weddings take place at huge restaurants and there are almost always empty tables around the edge of the party. If you are willing to eat the same food as the wedding guests you can buy a table of your own and join in the dancing.

Some of us went shopping and found good Uyghur party outfits. This season’s fashion expands beyond just sparkle and glimmer to include leopard and fishnet (it’s considered trendy not trashy – this year in Uyghur shopping leopard is ‘in’ for every age).

The scene that greeted us at the door was much like any wedding a man in a suite, a women in white, even the bridesmaid. But this was no wedding…

This time we crashed a circumcision party. In Uyghur culture boys are circumcised when they are about 7 or 8 years old. The party and the actual event take place several weeks apart, which means last night was more of a big overblown birthday party for this kid too (hence the reason Mickey and Mini mouse showed up part way through the evening).

At these parties the mom and dad dress up like it's their wedding, the kids stand around singing songs and playing little game, all the relatives eat until they are stuffed, and we foreigners awkwardly swing our arms around and call it Uyghur dancing. But I think both of the boys would tell you: "It was the best birthday ever!"

I've Seen that Look Before

This afternoon an expat came by our house to get advice on opening a business. Thankfully we had kept detailed notes last year throughout our painful process. We spelled out to her the need to first find an office, name your company, write a business proposal in a different language, apply for barcodes, wire in money, ect.ect.ect. We showed her sample documents of everything we got approved and stamped by the government. We told her stories about the officers who only wanted bribes and try to make your life harder so that you will pay them, we told her at what offices she might meet a helpful person. We filled her in on the rules that we know have already changed.

The more we shared of our rather painful experience the better we felt about our ability to thrive out here in many awkward situations. The more crazy stories she heard the more the colour drained from her cheeks and the more she took on this rather freaked out facial expression. I’ve seen that face before, in fact I think my roommate/business partner reflected it back at each other for months last year. Scared, intimidated, overwhelmed, drowning, ready to run, or throw-up, or throw in the towel, or forget the whole plan ( a face can really reflect all of those negative emotions in a few seconds).

Reviewing the process made me so thankful to be where we are today.

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

A newly arrived American couple invited us over for dinner to show off their apartment and update my roommate and I on how they were doing at settling in. The wife had been at our home earlier in the week learning all the ropes of hosting and being hosted in a local Uyghur family. We taught her the rules of what to say at the door, how to pour the tea, when and where to wear slippers the hints to watch for about when it’s time to leave, and how to accompany someone out. She spent time trying on our headscarves and tying them in different and trending ways.

We told her our visit wasn’t meant to be a test on what we had taught, it was just an informal time to hang out. Even in light of our telling her to relax, we could see the wheels in her head spinning as she tried to remember which seat was the one of honor and who should be the furthest from the door.

As the evening wore on we took our bowls of ice cream into the living room and kept chatting. Once everyone had used their spoons to scrap the bottom of the bowls clean, her husband stood and started to clear the dishes and take them back into the kitchen. My roommate and I got the hint at once and both figured it must be time to go… we casually checked our watches and started rubbing our hands together while looking at the other person for confirmation. As we were still going over our pre-leaving ritual, the husband returned from his task in kitchen, threw a cushion on the floor, and flopped down to join in the conversation with a story of his own. My roommate and I were confused by the clearly contrasting cultural signs…’should we stay or should we go?’. We glanced and each other briefly and could tell we were sharing a mutually awkward moment of forgetting how to be a guest in our own culture. It suddenly clicked that the clearing of the dishes was a kindhearted act of servanthood on the part of the husband and not a bold hint saying “get out of my house”.

I burst out laughing at our mutual misunderstanding… but as many of you know, my laugh is not one of those subtle easy to hide behind your hand or disguise as a cough type of laughs. When I laugh people start making hyena comparisons… others grab their cell phone and offer to call 911. This poor couple had no idea what had hit them.

Body Language

My roommate has been teaching English part time at t local Middle School (The school’s English slogan, which is printed on every student’s school jacket is: swifter, higher, stranger). Despite the misprint on their clothing, she was pleasantly surprised to find how high of a language level they really have.

One day in class she was doing a warm up activity with them. Yelling out things like “Stand up if you are an only child”. “Stand up if you have ever traveled to another country” “Stand up if ….”

One of her question was “Stand up if you can speak three or more languages”. Three students jumped out of their chairs. She decided to inquire further. Looking at the first student she asked “What three languages do you speak?”

“Uyghur, English, …” then he proceeded to name some other local language that is rather popular out here.

The second student was able to sit down with a simple “The same three”

Turning to the last student, “and you?” she asked.

“I speak English, Uyghur, and…” with a smug, smarty pants look on his face “body language” he said in an elaborate voice.

The class burst into giggles and my roommate groaned inwardly, 'that's they type of day it is going to be.'

Why You Have Stomach Issues

As I have mentioned many times… living here overseas means living with stomach issues, namely diarrhea. Our local friends have a lot of reasons to explain away our discomfort. My top two I heard recounted from fellow expats this week are:

1. You drink cold water from the fridge – no wonder you have diarrhea, drinking cold things will make you sick.

2. Your underwear is too low. If you wore ones that were higher cut they would keep your stomach warm and you wouldn’t have this problem.

Sound logic on their part since they would never do either of these things and don’t seem to have the same problem, but they forget that I spent more than 20 year of my life in Canada drinking ice water and not wearing granny panties tucked up under my armpits. Sadly I have learned there is no point in arguing with their statements of concern… instead I say “Thank you, I will have to try that next time, maybe it will help.”

Long Distant Dating

My roommate is dating a guy back in the states which equals a lot of phone calls, Skype chats and such, but they are also trying to be creative in their dates. This weekend my roommate's best friend, who use to live out here and is now back in the states put together a scavenger hunt for them do simultaneously from both sides of the world. They were allowed to work in teams of three and had two hours to take pictures of as many things on the list as they could. In the end I think I got more together time with my roommate out of the activity than her boyfriend did, but we had fun running around the city making fools of ourselves.

Speaking Spanish to random strangers – We kept asking these cute little Uyghur girls were their shoes were. The poor moms had no idea what was going on, but since we seemed nice and unthreatening they assumed we weren’t casting some type of evil curse and let us keep talking to the kids.

We spoke over a loud speaker as my roommate tried to help the ladies dressed in bright yellow stretch clothing sell their Jasmine ice tea drink, by yelling out in the local language that "American’s like drinking it too".

With a desperate look on her face, and no words my roommate tried to ask where the bathroom was (it’s harder than you think playing the dumb foreigner card, when you understand exactly what they are saying to you).

We rode animals,

Drank coffee,

And squished as many people as we could on a park bench.

Our opposing team had more fun re-interpreting the instruction and not taking things as literally as we did.

Us- eating street food

Them- eating street food

Us- Writing a message in the sand

Them writing a message in the sand

Us- a couple on a date

Them- A couple on a date (it is an old picture of my roommate riding a donkey cart down south, with her boyfriend’s face imposed over the drive)

Fun times guys. Thanks for including me on your long distance dating.