26.12.09: on the other hand...

After that special experience yesterday, I was confused and full of goodwill towards everybody. My heart brimming with bonhomie, I stopped at the department store on the way home from work to find some cologne for Beau's Christmas gift. I'd done the homework and knew they were supposed to carry his brand, but I hadn't had any luck finding it the night before. I queued up at the information desk - I have no idea why there was a queue at the information desk - and a man jumped in line just ahead of me. That familiar cyclone of fury started whirling inside of me and when somebody's mom wearing a velour sweatsuit and too much makeup slid in front of me, I was ready to go off. "Do you mind?!" I snapped at her in English. She got the hint and moved behind me, but then proceeded to dry hump my ass while using her eight arms to try to get the clerk's attention. I ignored her antics but as soon as the clerk was free, she thrust her slip of paper between us and started barking at the clerk. In my first fully Chinese outburst, I shouted at her, "Do you see me here? I was here first! Do you have eyes?!" She looked positively wounded and pouty while the clerk snorted and covered her mouth. I just wanted to know if they carried Jean-Paul Gaultier, which they didn't, despite the information I found online.


I really think living here, living in Asia, maybe just living overseas can make you go crazy after a while. I have met some really lovely people over coffee or dinner only to take a walk with them outside and see them snap on the dumbass chirping "Hello! How are you!" at the passing foreigners or the oblivious jackass who plows into them without so much as a grunt. I have seen perfectly lovely people pound their fists on cars plowing through crosswalks or dig their shoulders into folks trying to force their way onto the train before others had disembarked. Foreigners lose their shit here after a while. Back home, we're taught to hold the door for people behind us, keep the elevator door open until everyone has gotten inside, stand to the side on the escalators if we aren't going to walk, wait until everyone has gotten off the train before we try to get on and stand in line when ordering food or making a purchase. And I'm all for cultural diversity, but if you're the minority in a people that are engaging in behavior that your mother beat your ass for because it was rude, you can't help but take it personally after a while.
I just read in Where East Eats West, a guide to doing business in China by Sam Goodman, the guy who started Beijing Sammi's, that if you're coming out here to start a business, you should factor in the cost of a vacation every two months as part of your start-up costs, because living and working here is just going to get to you and you are going to need an escape. It confirmed the experience of Mark Kitto, author of China Cuckoo, who recounted spontaneously sobbing in the streets of Shanghai because all the pressure was getting to him. Shortly thereafter, he retreated for a little R&R in England. I'm not a business mogul, but I've been in Asia for a long time, and it does something to you after a while. Only now I'm gonna go home and scream at someone who inadvertently runs into me with a shopping cart and it's going to result in an ugly throw down, not just a staring contest.

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