But [...]]]> The English office doesn’t have a printer. I’m not really sure how an entire school functions without ever printing anything out, but I’ve gotten used to it. I keep all my lesson plans and notes in digital files, or I scribble them out into a notebook. Saves trees and ink, I guess.

But for tomorrow’s plane flight, I figured I should first print the tickets that my…grandmother’s cousin’s daughter-in-law (an aunt, right?) emailed to me. Where to go? The first time I had ever needed something printed was when I got my wall decorations – a bunch of resized album covers – done up. I spent a lot of time cutting the blasted things out and precisely taping them together but they’re still up on my walls today, so not a bad investment of $250 RMB, I guess.

It had taken me a few tries to find a place that would do it. Mostly because the dictionary entry that I had looked up for “print” steered me in the wrong direction. The girl at the first shop looked at me like I was crazy when I used it to ask her about printing. I later found out that I had asked her if her shop did block engravings.

That time I had eventually found a place that helped me through it and didn’t mind my tortured Chinese. After a few miscommunications the shopkeeper had settled down with me at their computer benches. After he attempted a few questions with Mandarin that even I could tell was heavily accented and I replied in nonsense sentences that I didn’t understand him, he had good-naturedly pushed a bowl of soggy peanuts in my direction and invited me to eat them while the printing was going. I thought that maybe months later he would recognize me again, which would help the process along a lot. I wouldn’t have to do the I’m-Actually-A-Foreigner dance all over again.

But when I got there, the guy wasn’t working today. Instead there was another dude who glanced at me and asked what I wanted. “想把一张图片打印，” I said. He grunted and took my flash drive from me. He looked at me quizzically a few times, but probably just because I was speaking a little softly. That’s my usual tendency and I normally try not to do it, but this guy didn’t seem too friendly today. Which meant that he wasn’t going to be interested in prancing around in a “oh you’re foreign” conversation. I knew enough Chinese, I realized, to get through this transaction and get out of there without having to offer a “其实我的中文还很差” confession. I’ve found that in these scenarios, I unconsciously speak more quietly. I think it’s so that if the other person can’t understand me, they’ll assume it’s because I’m speaking quietly, and not because my Chinese sounds really foreign.

Sure enough, I was out of there in half a minute.

I walked away a little uncomfortable. While other expats would probably be excited that they could get through an entire conversation or transaction with only Chinese, every time I do it I feel like I’m flying blind. I’m always worried that the other person will start speaking at a level I can’t keep up with or comprehend, and then if they do then I’ll have to own up to being foreign – and every time that happens it feels like my cover’s been blown. It’s not so bad if the other person seems friendly (and most are) but the few times that they don’t seem interested I just feel foolish.

Maybe a personality profile is wiser to this than I am. When I was researching character types for my fiction writing, I looked into the enneagram business. Here’s what it says about a particular personality category:

Behind Fives’ relentless pursuit of knowledge are deep insecurities about their ability to function successfully in the world. Fives feel that they do not have an ability to do things as well as others. But rather than engage directly with activities that might bolster their confidence, Fives “take a step back” into their minds where they feel more capable. Their belief is that from the safety of their minds they will eventually figure out how to do things—and one day rejoin the world.

(From The Enneagram Institute.)

I’ve been thinking about this description’s relevance and, if it is, what the implications are.

Flight’s tomorrow. Fuzhou is a much different place from Shenzhen. I’ll deliver the whole spiel – historical and familial – another time.