One of the things I wanted to try doing was sitting on campus with my kindle and some milk tea (really just an excuse to buy some milk tea) and seeing if anyone would come up and try to talk to me and maybe make a friend? Or something like that? I'm not sure what I expected or hoped would happen, but I think I was hoping a girl would walk up to me. So yesterday I got some tea and walked to a sitting area and say on a giant bench (it was truly an awesome bench) and started reading.
It took about three minutes before a guy came up to me and asked if I was comfortable (interesting way to start a conversation). He asked me if I attended the university. I should have said that Dan did (which he kind of does, it's a lot easier than trying to explain to someone who doesn't speak good English why we're here). I then got asked a lot of questions like why I'm here and what I do and why did we get married so young (because, you know, it takes away your freedom) and why we didn't have kids. The last question is actually really hard to explain to someone who doesn't quite understand what trying to get your PhD means and I somehow (although I tried to correct myself which didn't work) convinced him that we didn't have time or money for kids which also means my husband doesn't have time for me (also not true). I also got asked where I live, when I eat dinner, if our apartment can hold 5-6 people at once and if I could go to his place for dinner sometime (are you freaked out yet?). Oh, and he also commented multiple times that I looked sad (which he probably attibuted to my having a husband that doesn't have time for me when in actuality I just wanted to read my book).
Disclaimer: this interaction is basically normal, although his questions were a little strange. People think that having foreigners for friends is cool and they can be a little pushy. You are also very aware that there's no way to know how many foreigners each person has come into contact with and you don't want to give them a bad view of your country or the people in it by being rude.
What happened? I realized there was no way to get him to leave so after half an hour I told him that I had to leave to got o the store (which was actually true) to buy stuff for dinner and breakfast. He told me he knew of a place that was good and had cheap food and he could take me there but I correctly understood that to be a restaurant and then had to explain to him again that I just needed fruits and vegetables. He asked for my phone number (also normal) so I friended him on wechat (basically a facebook messenger type thing) and he walked me to the gate of the university where we were going in opposite directions and he insisted that I leave first so he could make sure that I left (???). Okay so that was pretty creepy. Dan doesn't think I should talk to him again and ignore his wechat messages but there's that part of me that feels bad for doing so. But I also don't want to get roped into feeling bad and agreeing to hang out with him again because he was a little creepy.
When we were in Beijing last time there were multiple instances where I met people on the bus and they wanted to practice their English and I gave them my number and never talked to them again. I think wechat makes me feel a whole lot worse for some reason.
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