Julie's Journey to China

I have a feeling. A big part of my writing in China is not going to be about the trip itself. It would be about me witnessing my friend Julie's Chinese experience in China. She came to Canada when she was only 16, married a Caucasian and raised 4 beautiful mixed children. She calls herself not Chinese, not Canadian. As she is gearing up for the trip, she is eager to learn how to be Chinese and to interact with other Chinese in a purely Chinese environment. Today she dragged me to the Chinese Consulate for the visa application. "Please don't leave everything to the last minute. I am taking this trip very seriously, you know."

There we went lining up, she said to me, "You have to teach me a lot of things. So when I am in China, anybody ever be rude to me or spit on me, I would just smile back?" "No, so not. Julie. A Chinese would go, 'hey, what did you do to me? Get lost and drop dead. Huh!'"

We were first on the line but had to get a new photo taken in the next room. The girl said we didn't need to start the line again. While we came back to approach the window, Julie excused everybody on the line explaining that she was already in the line before. I said, "Julie, Julie, calm down. That's again not a Chinese thing to do. A Chinese would go straight ahead, unapologetically. Now be that Chinese, go to the window and show your face..."

It's so much more refreshing to tell somebody to be bad than to tell her to be good.