Translate my date

May 27, 2012

Yesterday, I got a phone call from my friend Grace. “What are you doing tomorrow? Are you free for lunch?” The lunch will be with a high up government man. She tells me that he is doing a presentation and wants to have lunch after with a foreigner. Seems weird to me, but I agree. She tells me I have her best foreign friend, so of course, it would be me she thinks of first for it. Grace knows a lot of people who actually bothered to learn to Chinese and I think would be far more suitable. We met up for dinner as a usual Saturday night thing and I grilled her for more answers. She rolled her eyes when she said it was a high up government official. Her final words on it were “look pretty”. I decided to take that as look professional and not casual. I told some of the teachers here that I was having lunch with a government official after a presentation, and they agreed – maybe he wants an opinion on his presentation. Grace asks me to meet her at 11:30 at her school on Sunday morning. As I am preparing for this time, she asks if I can come earlier as we have to take a taxi a long way. I say I can only really do better if she meets me at the centre of town instead of her campus. When we finally meet up, we get in a taxi and go a couple blocks (long way?). She tells me we will meet up with the man after we pick up her friend. When we get to the girl’s house, I realize we have met before – and she works for the government doing something. Alright, that makes a little sense right? She tells me we will meet her uncle in half an hour (good thing we rushed about). She tells me that her very handsome uncle wanted to have lunch with a pretty foreigner. Whoa, wait a minute! That sounds a little like a date! I brush it off, but she keeps going. Her uncle is afraid he won’t have enough English skills to talk to a pretty foreigner for a meal, so Grace has to come along to translate. Grace had stressed she would be there the whole time with me when I agreed to go. Finally, we go back to the road to meet the uncle. When he pulls up, I get into the backseat, moving over to let Grace sit beside me, but she shuts the door. I have a moment of panic that it is a date and that I am going alone. Thankfully, Grace gets in the front seat, and the girl goes away. Apparently she was never coming with us. Yesterday Grace told me that the man had hired the best chef in the city to cook for us. Today, she tells me we are going to the Old Brewery, which serves Western food. He and Grace talk a lot and there are times I can tell it is about me – but that is natural right? The man tells Grace that we will have set meals (goodbye salad I was eagerly eyeing up!). All the set meals have fish in them, so Grace picks the one that has a fish and steak option – she takes my fish and I take her steak. The man doesn’t order a set meal. Our soup comes and we wait, thinking he will also get a starter. Finally we start to eat and his steak comes. The waitress says our steak won’t come until we finish our soup…. so really, it is all messed up. He barely eats, while Grace and I have soup, steak (fish) and then dessert. The whole situation for me never left the awkward stage. Every now and then Grace would ask me a question or translate for me, or he would ask Grace how to say something and then would ask me. Everything I said got translated back for him. He asks about my hobbies, what I do in the evenings, if I like going to the cinema. Although they sound like normal questions, they also sound suspiciously like date questions to me. He tells me that he goes to the cinema once a week. Grace asks me if I would like to watch a movie this afternoon. I tell her I have things to do back at the school – pretty sure that is a date. He tells me that next time (there is a next time?) we will drive to the country side and go fishing. I say I would like that, because I have no idea what else to say. This lunch has turned out not the way I expected at all, and I have no idea what my role is in it. This makes me uncomfortable – I like knowing if I am just a pretty face, a white face, or, apparently, a date face! The man drives us back to the centre of town because Grace and I had to pick up a dress I ordered there. He says goodbye like lunch was nothing – it was nice to meet you, goodbye. I thank him again for lunch and get out of the car.

Our international men often have girls hanging around with them – and if you ask them if they are their girlfriends the men often say “I’m not sure” – I always thought that was a weird answer, but today, as I sit here pondering my lunch experience, I wonder if I went on a date, or if a Chinese man thinks I am his girlfriend, and I just don’t know. Klaas told me that he had a girl propose to him, and then follow him back to Yangzhou from 800 KMS away. That was bizarre too – but at least he knew what she thought he was to her! I am afraid to ask Grace what lunch was about – both because I am afraid of the answer, and embarrassed that I don’t know. I think a lot of it is a cultural difference – all my other Chinese friends I know are just looking for friends – people to hang out with and practice English with. What does a government official want from me!?

Other than my bizarre adventure today, life around here has been pretty routine. I bought a chi-pow (that’s how I say it anyways) which is a traditional Chinese dress. It’s red and fancy. I like it – and it doesn’t even really show how fat I have gotten! Grace had told me it was supposed to be really tight and I was relieved to see it wasn’t when I tried it on today. We ordered it on Monday and it was ready on Friday, just hours too late for my photo shoot. I have wanted a photo shoot for a couple months but with the weather being nice, it is wedding season and all the photographers were too busy. Finally Grace found a friend of hers with time when I had time, and we did it on Friday afternoon. I just wore a dress from home and Grace did my makeup. I haven’t seen them yet, I feel nervous about it though. At any rate, it was a fun afternoon. Immediately after we finished taking pictures, Grace and I headed to yoga before we would go to Gloria Jeans. Grace had asked Elaine to bring us something to eat to yoga as we didn’t have time to eat. We shoved the last of some chicken burgers in our mouths as we pulled our dresses over our heads. I ran into the room only to discover that we were going to HOT YOGA. Dehydrated, having not really eaten, and into a sauna! Grace ended up quitting early because it was so hot, I finished but had a massive headache after. I guess I should have known better too!

I have turned Chinese. I sat in Gloria Jeans, holding Elaine’s hand, with my hand on Sunshine’s knee and Sunshine lying on my shoulder. I am not sure when I became so okay to hold hands with my girlfriends, but there I am. I actually found myself reaching for one of their hands when we were walking somewhere because they hadn’t reached for mine. Weird. I have found a couple of people who will cry when I leave in 29 days… that makes me both happy and sad. China had been so lonely for me for so long and now I have so many good friends that it is a little bitter sweet to leave them. Too bad I hadn’t found them all earlier in the term, it could have made the long winter easier on me.

Around the school you can tell the year is wrapping up. I have two weeks of teaching left and the school is already asking how we want our final pay delivered. We have had some evaluations for our end of semester bonus and our flights are due in for reimbursement. It’s hard for me to believe that we have made it to this point – three months ago when I was quitting (again) seems to have passed so quickly.

All good on the Eastern front!