The Friendly Chinese People

I moved a bit further away from the place where I work, so if I ride my bike it takes about 20 minutes to get there. If I had a bike with regular size wheels it would take about 10 or 15 minutes, but that's not the purpose of this post.

Not five minutes after I left the house the other day, I was furiously pedaling away when a guy on an electric scooter slid up along side of me. His close proximity encouraged a disapproving glance from me. I was then treated to a typical, "HalloO!" which I ignored, hoping he would scooter away. He was not to be deterred, and tried again and again until I finally said hello back. Conversations with HalloOers usually stop here, but not this one. He continued to scooter along side of me then managed to get out, "You is speak Chinese?" with a horrible pronunciation, to which I replied, "No." I know, it was a lie, but I was not in the mood to be chattered away at by a random Chinese dude on my way to work in the morning. After another long pause he attempted, "You is study China?" to which I again replied, "No." Long pause. "You with me want be friend?" "No."

This awful conversation continued with incredibly long pauses in between while he tried to think of what to say and I prayed he would turn and go a different way. In his terrible English he asked if I worked here, what I did, and then, insisted again and again that I teach him English and be his friend. To which I used my well practiced, "No."

What?! How can I be so cruel? Tell someone to their face no, you don't want to be their friend? Have I no heart? In my defense I didn't want to teach him English because I don't have time, that is true. I also didn't want to teach him because his English is very bad. On the other hand, I didn't want to be his friend because I just didn't want to be his friend. How can we be friends? We're hardly be able to communicate. And more importantly, he only wanted to be my friend to show to his friends. Look-ah, look-ah! Laowai! A pretty foreign girl! I've been brought to enough dinners and KTVs as an object of interest and ornamentation.

He followed me all the way to work. To get rid of him and not give him my phone number I even took back my lie and spoke Chinese. Though everything I said was in an attempt to make him go away and not give him my phone number it was of no use. He was amazingly persistant. It seemed the only way to get him to stop pestering me was to give him my number. He immediately sent me two messages after we had parted. He sent me another message the next day. I never replied to any of them, and I haven't heard from him for over a week.

I know I am a representative of foreigners here in the little city of Changzhou, but there is only so much halloOing, impolite staring, and attempts to be friends for the novelty of having a foreign friend that I can take. Chinese people insist they are very friendly. And I can not argue that most of the time they are very friendly. But at the point of forcing your friendship upon someone, I no longer find it friendly. Yes, those who approach foreigners on the street are quite bold, especially compared to my meek and silent university students. However, they don't seem to take into consideration the foreigner's needs or desires, even when the foreigner is quite clear about how they feel. It is fantastic that these people are exposed to non-Chinese people riding bikes, taking the bus, and working among them, but they need to realize that we are also people - not animals at a zoo, novelty props, or free English lessons.