quelquefois

My roommate and I arrive in Wuhan (Wuchang, specifically) and try to find a cheap place to stay that’s close to the train station (unfortunately we both ended up taking trains from the other train station on the other side of town, about a 40 minute drive away). We find this “hotel” (after seeing the bathrooms/showers at this place, though, I don’t know what to call it) that must not see many foreigners. Here is a conversation I had with employees at check-in:

Hotel staff (Chinese): May I have your 身份证 (shen1fen4zheng4, identity card)?
I hand over my passport.
Hotel staff: What is this? Where is the number?
Me: I don’t have a national identity card; that’s my passport. I’m an American citizen.
Hotel staff (to a co-worker): What do we do? Where’s the number? Where’s her name? What should we put?
Me: Can’t you just input my English name and passport number?
Hotel staff: You’re sure you’re not Chinese? Do you have any other form of identification? What’s your Chinese name?
I go on to show them my school ID from last semester, as well as my work ID, neither of which are acceptable. I have no idea what they ended up doing, but I have never seen anyone so confused to see an Asian wielding a foreign passport before.

On Tuesday, I had this conversation:
Woman at camera shop: Are you from (whispers) Xinjiang?
Me: No, I’m Chinese-American. You thought I was a Uyghur?
Man at camera shop: Uyghur women are very beautiful, you are very beautiful, that is why we asked you. 
Me: Ummm.

I don’t know what goes on in Chinese people’s minds when they get all wound up in determining someone’s ethnic background.  

From a NYTimes article titled China’s Financial Industry Recruits Abroad:

Despite the swelling number of unemployed financial service employees, those qualified to work for Chinese firms is extremely small. Mr. Leggett’s background in Chinese — he studied Mandarin for four years as an undergraduate student at Columbia — made his move feasible. He has shocked many recruiters with his Chinese ability: “They see a tall, white guy and they’ve got low expectations. When they find out I can say a lot more than ‘hello,’ in Chinese, they begin to take me seriously.”

Oh that’s great. But when they see an average-height Asian girl they have different expectations. Every time I speak to a Chinese person, they expect me to be completely fluent.  Here are five different circumstances I find myself in:

1. I tell them I am Chinese (or Chinese-American). Laughter. Okay, seriously, what am I? Proceed to point out certain superficial features that lend then to believe that I am of a different race.
Conclusion:  I speak Chinese, but I look Korean or Japanese. Therefore, I am Korean or Japanese.

2. I tell them I am Chinese-American. Disappointment. Believe that as a descendent of Chinese people, my Chinese should be fluent.
Conclusion: My Chinese is awful. I should be ashamed.  

3. I tell them I am an American. Disbelief. Succumb to the fact that I am American, but think I’m probably lying.
Conclusion: My Chinese is stellar (opinion may change upon finding out I am Chinese-American)

4. I do not tell them what I am, where I’m from. I speak Chinese. They ask what I am, where I’m from. They notice I’m not fluent, but still Asian. Korean? No. Japanese? No. Confusion. 
Conclusion: My Chinese is good…for a Korean.

5. I am completely ignored because I am standing with a non-Asian person. All interest and attention is paid to the amazing white man who speaks impeccable Chinese.

Sometimes I want to study harder and harder and become fluent, so that I can show them I  can be taken seriously. But at the same time I want to be happy with my own fluency, because in reality, my Chinese is much better than many Chinese-as-a-second-language learners. Sometimes their accusations are so piercing and offensive that I begin to question my own identity. I have neither found a way to cope with it, nor have I found the best way to avoid such questions/accusations.

Then, the same NYT article points out bilingual Chinese people who transition more easily into a Chinese lifestyle:

The transition is easier for bilingual overseas Chinese like Kenneth Chen, 29, who is studying for his M.B.A. at the New York University Stern School of Business. Mr. Chen said that if he was offered a job, the decision to move to China would be a no-brainer: “In this environment, I don’t need anyone to persuade me to go to Shanghai. I want to go.”

But I have a strong belief that that notion only applies to men. Women in Chinese society, especially in the business world, have a very low glass ceiling, despite the supposed 男女平等 (equality between the sexes). There are many, many unachievable standards and prejudices that keep women down, I guess you can call it a fusion of vestiges of Confucian society and Western misogyny. 

And that’s why it sucks to be a Chinese-American [woman] in China.

There is an interesting WSJ article profiling certain personality traits across states. Pretty interesting, and makes me wonder whether students who live in many different states are affected by their environments. And, how much of what that region’s environment sticks with them. Personally, I have definitely been affected by the cynicism and neuroticism of New England and New York, though I am still undoubtedly a Californian. My personality sporadically jumps from one to another: sometimes I am enraged by the amount of people on the streets and on public transportation, but at other times am completely unbothered and people watch. I micromanage, but I also just go with whatever comes my way. Whether or not this attests to different regional temperaments, I do not know. But the article is still worth a glance.