Wednesday August 27, 2000 part 2

An interesting evening. I met with the girls from the street yesterday. I was buying my tea and they asked if I was a liuxuesheng [international student]. We chatted and decided to meet tonite. I was bringing my dinner to the garden to eat and read. While I was waiting for one girl to return from her dinner the pakistani boy leaned out his window and asked if I was busy. I said no, and he came out. He's so nervous, quickly bursting out with all his information - his family is full of doctors and he has to be a doctor, no choice. I tell him I study linguistics and he doesn't know this field, merely says, "oh, you have all sorts of studies over there, in pakistan you are a doctor or an engineer."

I realize he's homesick and still adjusting, so very nervous! I listen to him, let him relax some more, calming myself down so that he will feel more comfortable. While we are talking my chinese friend returns. She too is extremely nervous, put off because I think she expected me alone.

But I translate for both of them and she talks chinese to him, he not understanding a thing, and he continues a separate conversation with me, telling me more about himself. I am amused by all this because I am translating and my chinese is so limited, my vocabulary too small. man man lai, it comes slowly.

So another pakistani joins us and then some other chinese students, and we are all having these circular conversations, I'm speaking both chinese and english, happy to be with people.

Somehow while we are talking the chinese girl - Wang Zhu, says Indu, wondering if he is from India. He is offended (though no grudge) saying - do I look like a Hindu? no no. And then politics comes in, the Pakistanis talking about a group of people fighting for their freedom in India. I do not know anything about this, wondering what to say, how to react. and the pakistanis are quite adament, wanting to talk about it, explain and for me to translate. I don't know these words, so I can't explain. It is dropped. Only to then bring up the topic of the respect women are given in pakistan, that they don't have to work, they get to live at home. When they came to china and saw a woman bus driver they were shocked and felt terrible, seeing women work so hard. but his mother is a doctor, I should ask about that.

The pakistani boys leave and I stay talking with the chinese girls. oh the girls in china! it's so easy to be a girl here, to talk about adorable animals and boyfriends and getting married. Wang Zhu is homesick, cried for her family. I realize how independent I am, americans are. It allows me to do a great deal, but there is also a great value in the interdependence and reliance on family-oriented cultures. so many new choices are available to me, ways to live my life, mostly family-wise.