Happiness is a Vampire
15 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Traveling Tags: business, entrepreneurship, vampires
Every day I discover other worlds so unlike the one I once called home. The possibilities seem boundless. I even fantasize about coming to America to become a Wal Mart door greeter or an assistant manager at McDonald’s. If I work hard for a couple years and save money, then I could return to paradise and buy a home and still have enough left over to start a business.
Sometimes when I hang out with other expats we cannot stop saying, “I can’t believe this,” and we pinch ourselves to see if we are in a dream. It is as if we all had met Morpheus in our pre-expat lives and took the red pill. We tell ourselves this cannot really be happening. We have it too good here. And if China becomes untenable we can always relocate to Vietnam or Thailand or Bali or any other country where good old fashioned pioneer spirit and a liberal arts education are valuable commodities.
Dinner with the Yu Family
17 Sep 2009 1 Comment
in Traveling Tags: art, blood, cultural infiltration, fried duck feet, hospitality, kindness, Twilight, vampires
One late summer evening before the sun went down, I was at dinner and had what appeared to be a glass of Chinese wine at an open air restaurant from across the campus. Children surrounded me. It was cooler now and all the neighborhood children were playing. One by one they came by my table pretending to ignore me. Once they realized that I didn’t bite, they made eye contact with me and squealed in surprise.
A university student saw that congress had formed at my table and we were all chatting amiably. I was trying to teach the children English and the children were trying to teach me Chinese. The student introduced herself and offered to translate for the children. Her name was Lucy and she was chemical engineering student at a university in Shanghai. Through Lucy, a little girl named Chi-Chi, asked me why my eyes were so blue.
I told Chi-Chi that my eyes were blue because of my beautiful mother. This made all the children laugh and my translator blush.
