Pangzi Laowai

I will never be a local. When I am abroad, my multi-ethnic complexion safeguards me from being pegged a clear American, but I am also somewhat of a curiosity. In India, there are two ticket prices, one for citizens, and a substantially higher priced one for foreigners. I often brag about how I can "pass," and get away with paying for the cheap ticket, but I edit out the many times I've had to declare loudly in Tamil that I am indeed an Indian citizen from Nepal. Truth be told, locals always know how to spot a foreigner. I was reminded of this fact when I went to Chongwu this weekend, a seaside village about 50km north of Quanzhou. There are stone carvers living there now, and in addition, I hoped I might find something else old that I could compare my stuff to. I sat on a rickety bus for about two hours, calmly reading through my notes as we swerved through dodgy looking villages, the ticket collector periodically screaming out the window at droves of citizens at the side of the road, a steady stream of them entering and exiting the ever halting vehicle. I was the last one aboard when we finally got to Chongwu. As soon as I got off, I was accosted by leathery skinned men on motor bikes, asking if they could give me a lift. This is the budget taxi over here, though I didn't know it at the time. Instead, I opted for another taxi, which was a big mistake, as we drove for 5 minutes, and the driver then demanded 25 yuan. 3 bucks to Americans, but a big blow to my pride, as the fare should have been 6 at the highest . I argued with him for a while, at one point raising my voice and saying something along the lines of, "You no good man! Your little sister come America you want taxi driver do mean to her?!" Anyway. I got ripped off at lunch too--was persuaded to buy the big crab and a pot of noodles-50 yuan. And then I was trying to get to the other parts of the city (only reachable by motor bike) and there were a whole bunch of people demanding offensively high prices. I started to feel like I didn't want to be there anymore. I felt like a pangzi laowai, meaning "fatty foreigner," an enormous, stupid white cow mooing in the middle of Times Square.

As I was trying to calculate what my next step should be (I'd come so far, should I really just turn around and take the horrible bus ride back?), I ran into a family visiting for the day from nearby Fuzhou. I told them I was PhD student, how I liked to study Chinese (the normal butter em up shtick), and they kindly offered me a ride to the bus station. After I got into their car though, I learned they were going to Quanzhou to see the Kaiyuan temple (where some of the Indian sculptures are), hello, opportunity knocking! Nothing was worth enduring more pangzi laowai injustice, not even impressive pictures for ACSAA, and so I very adeptly invited myself along for the ride. We got to Quanzhou in the lightning quick time of about a half hour, and after a nice trip to the temple, they invited me out to dinner. Not wanting to be impolite, I agreed, and the rest of the story involves me spending the evening being peer pressured into drinking beer by middle aged Chinese business men who run a light fixture company. I am quite positive they kept on goading me because I am an American. At some point, when my vision became blurry, I started to refuse, and that's when they turned up the heat. "Oh, Qiao Mei (my Chinese Name)! Do you not like me? Why do you think you're better than me? Do you think that your friends could drink more than me? You'd better drive me around in your car and buy me beer when I come to California!" (Not included here are mortifying/slightly insulting questions about my boyfriends) I came home and have been thinking about how all my efforts to fit in are really ridiculous. In celebration of my outsiderness, I allowed myself to watch the crappy American film "Tokyo Drift," one of the few English broadcasts I've seen on Chinese TV. Now this, I thought to myself, is culture.