"None of my Chinese friends like you"

What's that China Wife?  You mean your friends?

You mean the ones that have lived here forever and can’t speak more than a few sentences of English?  

Or are you referring to the group that doesn’t know what American food tastes like?  You know the types….

Maybe you are referring to those living behind those tall, forbidding, high gates that “are in business”?

Wait!  Perhaps you are simply thinking of those from “Bei Da” or QingHua” right?  The smug looks on their faces when they see our daughters competing against theirs.   Those with the knowing nod that communicates  something like,

“Those bastard children can’t keep up with ours”, followed by that all so discernible scoff and condescending glint in the eye that only Satan would love.

I’m confused….

Oh but I bet I’m missing someone else aren’t I?  Is it that vast, wide swath of female friends of yours, bored and full of instant innuendo whenever something remotely “interesting” takes place amongst their other bored friends?  The same group that in one collective voice can only gasp out to the “poor lady” whose Man has gone off to China 你要小心点!

You see, China Wife..it’s like this:  Your friends can’t “wow” me with tales of the Middle Kingdom.   

They can’t mesmerize me with the Mystery that is China.   So they just ignore me.    And you know what?  That’s ok.   Because your friends are all heathenly ugly, uber conservative, boring as all hell to talk to, or….just not my type.

I remember once in grad school when I finally met the nice, chubby husband of a buxom Beijing classmate.   I invited him once to come out and play football with us.   Of course he didn’t know what that was, but before he could even answer his wife simply said “no”. 

Well, me being me, I simply shot back, “that’s his decision not yours”.

And she just as quickly returned her own volley with, “he does whatever I tell him, too”.    And with a smug look on her face followed up with a simple “don’t talk to him anymore”.

So yeah, I guess I kinda know why some Chinese in America just don’t seem to like me very much.  Funny thing though, all those in China seem to love me!  And wouldn’t you know it, none of them speak English!

Am I to blame for your dearth of dinner party invitations from all your Chinese Christian friends?   

Yeah.  I probably am.  After all, it’s awkward for you when I’m the only one bringing a bottle of Cabernet to celebrate Jesus, isn’t it?  (And I’m the only one drinking it!) But sinner that I know I am, I’ve already got one foot in Hell, and that’s ok.  

But hey, you can go by yourself can’t you?  Pray to Jesus for my soul.  Something like that.

So I guess I don’t care if your friends don’t dig me.   I don’t.  You see, I’m more than comfortable in my own skin while being surrounded by others who are not.

Not my job to be everyone’s best friend.  I have a distinct talent for not giving one second’s thought as to whether I’m liked or not.  I stopped trying to win popularity contests in the 6th grade.  So don’t try and play mind games if you please.  Don’t try and “shame me”.   That’s so crude you know. Move on.

By the way, my attitude towards your Chinese friends does come with experience.

I don’t like being invited to dinner parties where all they have to drink is water.

I don’t like being invited to dinner parties where everyone forms a big circle and breaks out the bible and talks about how Jesus has changed their lives.   Or something like that.    I’d rather sleep in the basement, which I did once, than have to put up with a bunch of folks that drive leased German cars and own $800,000 houses with one eye towards keeping up with the Jones’.

Quite often at your “dinner parties”….their more like “chat parties”, I feel like I’m nothing more than the damn driver.  Or I’m simply the designated “talk to the old folks over 70” dude.   While the women eat “瓜子“ I’m stuck in the living room drinking bottled water on a Saturday Night endlessly stuck in the rut of polite conversation.

One should see the Old Folks when laowai breaks out the Mandarin.  Like a quarterback for whom the game has slowed, I can see the facial expressions as their brain processes a barbarian speaking their tongue.   I watch the phases….the blank look followed by the wrinkled forehead and finally by the glint in the eye climaxed with a smile spreading across their face as they realize they understand what I’m saying.

So maybe your hate needs a bit of context.

In your world you consider being liked by people as the basis for all life….I just don’t.  Sorry.

Am I sociable towards your friends?  I am.   Am I a sucker for polite conversation?  Nope.   And maybe, just maybe, that’s the rub?  You want me to sit there nodding for three hours with a bottled water in my hand, and I just can’t do it……!     After all, these are people that have chosen to move to America to pursue a better life, raise their kids here and….learn fuck all about American culture.  

So maybe because I already know all of this BEFORE the first word is spoken doesn’t help much, does it?

Maybe they’d simply be better off if your husband was Chinese?  Or maybe they’d be better off if your laogong did not speak Chinese?  Or never lived in China?  You get the picture?  A blank slate they could mold as they see fit.  Someone whose life experience hasn’t already altered his view of China, for better or for worse.  Like the manager I had when viewing thatmassive billboard of Deng Xiaoping in China simply pointed and asked, “Who’s that?”

Maybe that’s who they want me to be?  Another ignorant laowai they can talk to.  One with no burnished preconceptions of China.  I hear they’re out there！  I hear they exist!

I’m just not one of them.