Reflections: Why I shouldn't give a damn (but still do)

In China no matter what I did, how I primped or what I said, I stood out, a lot.  Like an ugly duckling.  It was simultaneously freeing and infuriating.  I was stared at without pretense, and for the first year it drove me nuts. Men, women and babies would stare at me, mouths open, totally un-perturbed by my churlish glare.  I sometimes lashed out at them- screaming at them in English, knowing they couldn't understand, furious that they looked at me like I was some misshapen Frankenstein (or so it felt).

Visit to the Hanging Temple in the remote, moonscaped Shanxi Province

But at the same time, it was freeing to be so different.  It was so obvious that I was an outsider, that I didn't need to make any effort to fit in.  As a student Prague, where I studied abroad, I was mistaken for a Czech several times, which flattered my pride, and made me hesitant to come across as an American, if I could avoid it.   In China, despite the perfunctory compliments on my hair, it was obvious that I was a weirdo, and because there was nothing I could do about it, I was freed from any expectation of how I should act, what I should wear, what I should say, or how well I said it (it's also common for any foreigner speaking a word of Chinese to be deliciously and excessively praised for their masterful- true or not- grasp of the "foreign-proof" language).

Amazing self-massage exercise machines all over China

Over time, my striking strangeness released me in a way I had never experienced from the heavy expectations that I had for years unconsciously felt.  It's a self-consciousness that everyone feels at some point, the feeling that one must look or act a certain way, have certain desirable characteristics or possessions. Yet here I had no desire to look like the hip Chinese students around me, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't pull off their hair styles, or fit into their tiny clothes. So what was the point in trying to be something I wasn't? I was so clearly different, that I felt free to be 100% myself, to a degree I had never felt before.  I stopped wearing makeup, my sense of style went to hell (partly influenced by the lack of decent clothes).  I was influenced by the Chinese lack of political correctness, and I said whatever I felt, without worrying that it might offend someone.

Being a dinosaur with JR

There are people who have no self-consciousness about standing out from the crowd, and I have always admired those individuals.  Growing up I had a friend and a boyfriend who had strong, independent personalities, not afraid to be who they were in the face of a judging public, and I admired and wished to emulate their extroversion. But I am naturally shy and overly sensitive to the perceived thoughts and judgements of others. In China I was freed from that.


It was in this state of utter unpretension that I met JR.   I've always been against public displays of affection, but as our romance blossomed in this strange foreign country we were all over each other-- always with arms around each other, kissing in public constantly, even (almost) buying those hilarious matching t-shirts, "This is my girlfriend and I'm in love with her" that Chinese couples love to wear. We did not, however, ever consider wearing matching outfits, another popular style choice among young love-birds in China.

For several years, this socially-unconscious mindset stuck with me, until I started working full time at an institution where external impressions and appearances- physical and intellectual- matter a great deal.

Shielding our delicate pollution-ravaged skin from the Thai sun

  I'm building up my wardrobe of nice, professional clothing, I've started wearing makeup again, I even did my hair the other day! And on top of that I have to be conscious of what I say to whom, and how.  There are incredibly opaque rules regarding this in Chinese business, which I dabbled in at Media Soda (a small Chinese PR and consulting company), but I could always count on my foreignness giving me a free pass in case of a gaffe.  Now I have to build a professional image in a way I haven't had to before, and I feel my old self-consciousness creeping back.  Add to that the stresses of planning a wedding ..... I had a few minor meltdowns over that... and I find myself wishing I could run away again to China.

I got an email today from Angelina's ESL Cafe, the website that I originally used to find my teaching position in Yanjiao, and I was half-serious when I suggested to JR that we go back. Sometimes I want to run away from the expectations and pressures of our life at home.  That's when I get that traveler's itch.

But then I remind myself that these imperious expectations I judge myself by, whether they are internal or external, don't matter.

No one really judges us as much as we imagine they do, and if do they happen to judge us for who we are, because we don't wear fashionable clothes, or say the right things, or throw a certain kind of wedding, or like to spend our Friday night doing something like sleeping, or to get political, if we don't have the "right" religious convictions or sexual preferences-- then we would all do better to remember these wise words:

"It's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for what you are not"