Sketches 2020

and always got ugly faces and ugly
stares in its direction. My already riled
stomach threw a temper tantrum from
the taste of that glorified paint thinner
hitting my tongue. The remainder of
that evening is sadly a little hazy–good
going, tequila–along with many of the
other nights.
As days turned to weeks and then
to months, I was steadily joining my
newfound crew at our favorite little
foreigner bar or often just roaming
the streets with them, hunting down
new places to eat or gather around
for a good after-work chat. One
phenomenon we never ceased to love
was the stares we would get, never
in disgust but in a strange admiration.
The Chinese people would stop us in
our tracks and ask to take selfies with
us. We always got the majority of our
attention from those wide-eyed children
who never saw people like us. Those
kids would cry out, “ 老 外 !” (lao-why)
or sometimes “ 外 国 人 !” (why-gworen),
which both translate to “foreigner”
or “foreign person”. Picture me again,
I used to be some nerd who never
left home and fixed phones for a
living–now I am a superstar. People
want my photo, my name, my WeChat
number; they all want to know who this
fantastic foreigner is and where I come
from. Contrary to an outsider’s guess
that being called a “foreigner” was an
insult in China, it actually became a
badge of distinction and honor. My
friends and I, we were the foreigners, 老
外 (lao-why), the coolest people in town,
but it did not take long for someone to
taint the proverbial punch bowl.
Nearly a year crept by since I arrived
in China. It was early summer when
two new Americans were hired on to
our team of foreign teachers. The duo
had little in common with the rest of
us, and both frequently complained
about China’s food, culture, and people.
Like chucking a couple sunbaked trash
bags into a rosebush, their poor attitudes
did not belong. A day came when my
foreigner friends commented how
Americans ruined so much of the world
with their ignorance and biases. Being
the only American in my group, I would
have been the only person who could
testify against their claims; instead, I
agreed with them. All at once, my words
were sugar-sweet betrayal. I realized
my viewpoint as an American was
probably a bit rare; I accepted that I did
not fully understand other cultures, but
I respected them all the same, unlike
the other two American newcomers.
After much teaching and a handful
of vacations, Mid-Autumn Festival
break was upon us. Our crew, three
Welsh, a Namibian, and me—he
only American—all booked train
tickets and departed for a three-day
camp-out at an electronic music festival
in a forest. No sooner than the sun bid a
glaring farewell to China’s shores, the
music began to blast from DJ booths
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