After my last class of the morning I decided to go exploring. Heck, it’s a nice sunny day and I need to get out.
An easy option was to look around the Sea World area, a few miles south of my neighborhood. As all Shenzhen expats know by now, our Sea World does not have dolphins or otters but instead bars and expats. It is also quixotically not by the sea, but instead does offer a grounded old Russian cruise liner, the insides of which have been gutted and converted into bars. Around this landlocked ship has sprouted a strange square of classy teppanyaki restaurants, assorted Western culinary sins like Dunkin Donuts and KFC, and much-too-obvious escorts hanging on the arms of white guys.
I’ve been a little wary of frequenting this place before, even though most of the other CTLC teachers seem to dig it. There’s something about how it works that makes me feel awkward. Like the time I went to one of its bars with some of my American friends here. I find it strange to see a mostly white clientele being served by a mostly Asian waitstaff – and a mostly female waitstaff in short skirts and go-go boots at that. Even the male guards who came in to break up the one bar fight that began while we were there (fun story in and of itself, that) were wearing stupid little sailor hats (it was a nautical-themed bar on the boat). And here I am, the only Asian face amongst Team White, feeling an odd mixture of guilt and disgust every time a Chinese attendant in a dumb costume brings me a drink laden with sycophantic servitude.
But at 1pm today it was a bright sunny day and most of the ridiculous antics of the night wouldn’t have begun yet, so I went to check it out. Besides, I’d been craving those Western culinary sins.
Now, a funny thing usually happens with me when I’m ordering food or drinks at a cafe. The clerk register will usually greet me in rapid Chinese, and I will usually try to go with it until my fluency erodes (my knowledge of the flavor spectrum for milk tea is improving, but give me a break). When it does, the clerk will become visibly confused and sometimes impatient, and there is not usually enough time for me to go into the whole “I’m foreign” spiel when there’s a line behind me. I’ve worked out the perfect method at Starbucks, though, where I come up to the counter and go “请来一杯green tea latte.” It’s polite to the clerks (”hey he’s trying”) and they know enough English (hey, it’s Starbucks) to hear from my own spoken English that I must be foreign after all. Things go smoothly after that.
Not being able to speak your first language gets old after a while, though. It’s like I’m always trying to pretend to be a native-born Chinese speaker (and always coming across as a retarded one). So it was with some relief that I could order my four-piece chicken meal with just a “你好” and the clerk, used to attending to ridiculous foreigners in the ridiculous Sea World, just smiled and went on as if it were perfectly normal to have a China boy not speak Chinese. Normality. Something I’ve been missing and was glad to find today, even if it were in such a ridiculous place.
After sampling coffees, teas, and donuts to the point where I realized I couldn’t leisurely sit around and read if it meant stuffing yet another blissfully sugary donut into my face, I picked up and left. Before the night came and again turns Sea World into a strange nocturnal zoo.
