Looking back... first impressions

Well,  it’s pretty much the end of July and I can’t believe that we are a third of the way through our time here already. It seems that we have become accustomed to life here and that some changes have happened so gradually that I didn’t even notice. There are things that used to really stand out that now just blend in. Looking back at some scribblings of mine from the first few days here in China, I wanted to write about some of my first impressions of this country.

Leaving the airport, I felt relieved as I was efficiently packaged into a taxi and the English speaking airport official instructed the driver where to take me. One of the first things that struck me was that very suddenly, I became completely illiterate. The second thing I noticed was that apart from the happy but jet lagged face of my boyfriend, I didn’t see another non-Chinese face all day. 

I had expected Beijing to be a thriving multicultural metropolis, but it turns out that’s Shanghai. What was really noticeable was the weirdly high number of Western faces in adverts pasted all over the city. A white family, grinning and looking insanely healthy advertised a Chinese dental surgery. Emma Watson demonstrated the youthful effects of L’Oreal’s latest product all over the Beijing subway. A pretty but timid looking white woman recommended the local gynecological hospital. For a city that’s almost 100% Chinese, where are the happy, glowing Chinese faces?

Coupled with the prevalence of skin whitening products and apparent general fear of tanning, I started to wonder how the Chinese feel about being Chinese, or at least how the advertisers want them to feel about it. Starting my new job, one of my students spies my olive skin, tanned by the strong Beijing sunshine and wearing the kind of expression you might reserve for a bereaved friend, she says “You look tanned. I’m sorry.”