People Stories - John & Karen and other musings

We live in an area of Beijing where we see few foreigners compared to other parts of the city. One day after I arrived back in Beijing as we stocked up on groceries from the large grocery store in the mall, we met a man named John in the checkout line in front of us and started chatting with him. Because that day he happened to wear a university shirt given him by his daughter, Mark started the conversation about that university which quickly led to college football talk. Naturally. J We chatted for a bit and handed him our contact card. A few days later he emailed us, and we eventually caught dinner with him and his wife since they live not too far from us. What a fascinating couple! He had been doing business between China and the US for over 25 years, but now he teaches law and business courses to foreign and national university students. His wife Karen is just beginning a distinguished professorship in nursing in another section of the city. We delighted to hear their story, how they met, and how they ended up in Beijing.  We would love to continue conversations with them since they live close by.

Not long after our dinner with John and Karen, we met a man from New Zealand at a bus stop. As we talked, I noticed that he wore a T-shirt sporting the periodic table of elements. It turns out that he teaches chemistry at the same university as John.

It feels strange to talk about ‘foreigners’. I don’t think we would refer to a ‘foreigner’ in the US, but anyone not a native Chinese gets labeled ‘foreigner.’ Often we hear little children call out 为国人 (wèiguórén) as we walk by them. We have learned to play a little game with them. We respond in Chinese that we are not foreigners; we are American. It’s fun to see the shocked look on the kids’ faces and hear the adults chuckle that not only did we understand them, we responded in their language with a riddle. Although it seems strange, it actually makes it easy to spot foreigners and strike up conversations.

I read once that some people in the US get offended when asked where they are from as if they weren’t American. Here it’s a great conversation starter. Seeing a foreigner and asking where they are from breaks the ice since all we foreigners fall in the same situation here. We don’t belong. We know that. So we try to connect on those topics that bring us together, things that we have in common even if we hail from countries around the world.