Yeah, yeah, you came here to be all spiritual because Oriental people are so in tune and don’t care about money. Never mind that you’re a chubby little white boy with poor social skills (or the alternate model, the tall skinny white boy with far too many imaginary friends) you hope that by speaking Chinese fluently you can get a waitress in a Chinese restaurant back in the States to make out with you. Once you plug her, you discover the only source of power you’re ever gonna have: it’s not your manly bits, it’s the promise of a green card. Oh, yeah. Citizenship. It’s an aphrodisiac!
Of course, being the star that you are, you think it’s your superior lingual skills that are bringing all the women to you in droves. Mmm, ever stop to wonder why they only women you have dated in the US are Asian exchange students? And not the super cute ones who have wealthy Indonesian boyfriends—you’re hangin’ with the unattached babes. One suggests you visit her cousin in Shanghai and you book a flight for summer Va-Kay. You didn’t just visit, you LIVED there, man, for 19 whole days! Let’s call it three weeks. Hell, let’s call it a month. Hell, no, let’s call it THE WHOLE SUMMER because you almost made it with a babe over there.
Lesser men than you have traveled greater distances with fewer advantages in the hopes of getting a leg over. You move to China as soon as you graduate. You land a job. You may even take some time off to study Chinese at one of the local universities. You read Lu Xin. You write rap in Chinese. You think about gettin’ some. You do.
Other people—friends, really—point out that you have one girlfriend after another. They’re all the same: tiny little things who are not from Beijing who twit you incessantly about your errors in Chinese while sipping Diet Coke from a straw in front of you—then wolf down steak and cheese in private. When you take the latest Love of Your Life to meet the circle of acquaintances who have, against their better judgment, let you share some small corner of their lives, they shake their heads in disgust. You think it’s admiration: after all, during your dinner together, during which your girlfriend proved her ultimate femininity by eating a single grain of corn, she managed to impress everyone deeply with her intense concentration in sending and receiving a steady stream of text messages to people who were not at the table. Her little fingers flew like birds skimming across a freshly planted field of rice, oblivious to the presence of strangers. Twice she leaves the table to puke up something she ate in 1997.
“Isn’t she something?” you say proudly as her wizened figure recedes towards the pit toilet behind the restaurant.
“Oh, yeah, she’s somethin’ all right,” one of the crowd replies lamely. The rest of the table exchange knowing looks. Damn, he’s dating another one of Those. How many more weeks until it blows up in his face and he spends the weekend alternately sobbing on the sofa and sweating all over the sheets? How many more Fritos do his friends have to shove down his throat until he gets the message?
Years pass. The friends struggle on. You meet and marry your Dream Girl, who comes with not only a bucket of money, but a Dream Job. You’re now more famous than that old crowd of friends who let you hang with them occasionally. You meet in the street: as Old Friend hands you her card and says something lame and insincere like “Keep in touch” she notices your wife flick it out of your hand into a garbage bin. Well, Old Friend thinks, at least this one isn’t a litterbug.
Of course, being the star that you are, you think it’s your superior lingual skills that are bringing all the women to you in droves. Mmm, ever stop to wonder why they only women you have dated in the US are Asian exchange students? And not the super cute ones who have wealthy Indonesian boyfriends—you’re hangin’ with the unattached babes. One suggests you visit her cousin in Shanghai and you book a flight for summer Va-Kay. You didn’t just visit, you LIVED there, man, for 19 whole days! Let’s call it three weeks. Hell, let’s call it a month. Hell, no, let’s call it THE WHOLE SUMMER because you almost made it with a babe over there.
Lesser men than you have traveled greater distances with fewer advantages in the hopes of getting a leg over. You move to China as soon as you graduate. You land a job. You may even take some time off to study Chinese at one of the local universities. You read Lu Xin. You write rap in Chinese. You think about gettin’ some. You do.
Other people—friends, really—point out that you have one girlfriend after another. They’re all the same: tiny little things who are not from Beijing who twit you incessantly about your errors in Chinese while sipping Diet Coke from a straw in front of you—then wolf down steak and cheese in private. When you take the latest Love of Your Life to meet the circle of acquaintances who have, against their better judgment, let you share some small corner of their lives, they shake their heads in disgust. You think it’s admiration: after all, during your dinner together, during which your girlfriend proved her ultimate femininity by eating a single grain of corn, she managed to impress everyone deeply with her intense concentration in sending and receiving a steady stream of text messages to people who were not at the table. Her little fingers flew like birds skimming across a freshly planted field of rice, oblivious to the presence of strangers. Twice she leaves the table to puke up something she ate in 1997.
“Isn’t she something?” you say proudly as her wizened figure recedes towards the pit toilet behind the restaurant.
“Oh, yeah, she’s somethin’ all right,” one of the crowd replies lamely. The rest of the table exchange knowing looks. Damn, he’s dating another one of Those. How many more weeks until it blows up in his face and he spends the weekend alternately sobbing on the sofa and sweating all over the sheets? How many more Fritos do his friends have to shove down his throat until he gets the message?
Years pass. The friends struggle on. You meet and marry your Dream Girl, who comes with not only a bucket of money, but a Dream Job. You’re now more famous than that old crowd of friends who let you hang with them occasionally. You meet in the street: as Old Friend hands you her card and says something lame and insincere like “Keep in touch” she notices your wife flick it out of your hand into a garbage bin. Well, Old Friend thinks, at least this one isn’t a litterbug.
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