Suzhou BBQ
by chris
One of my favourite things about China is how open people are to meeting newcomers. Last night, Matt and I went to an outdoor barbecue to buy dinner around 10pm. I used to go to this kind of place and buy barbecued sticks of meat and bread (羊肉串儿，馒头，等等) in Beijing all the time; and I was thrilled to find there is one near our apartment.
So we bought food from three of the vendors. Vendors often make the food with their family: the first place we bought from was a husband and wife, the second a mother and son and the third two parents and their daughter. We got into conversations with all of them. The third group was doing the usual “you speak Chinese so well!” that we get from everyone (doesn’t really mean anything, since they’ve been saying that since I started learning), and the daughter said something about Americans being good at Chinese and I said in Chinese “we’re not Americans! Not all white people are American.”
It is so funny to talk to lower and middle class Chinese people. They are curious, which is great, but they don’t know much about the world. I can answer all their first five questions before I hear them: I am from Canada, not the United States or England; I am teaching English in China; yes, of course I like China; yes, of course I like Chinese food; thank you, thank you for the compliment on my Chinese.
Either way, the people we were talking to may have assumed we were American but they quickly learned. I’m glad to be among open minded people who I can teach, when so many people in the world are closed minded and think they know everything.
Tags: Canadian, China, Suzhou, teaching English
June 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Sounds almost the same as any conversation with somebody in Japan!!