The Longest Walk
One difficulty of living in China: lack of privacy. Sometimes in ways you'd never anticipate.
We had a disagreement in the middle of the very crowded, busy public square near my apartment; no yelling, but I was pretty upset. He asked if he could walk me home; the two kilometers to my apartment were passed in absolute silence. Oh, what I would have given for the privacy of a car at that moment! A car I could jump into and speed off and listen to the radio too loud to assuage my hurt feelings. A way to get the hell away from him right on the spot.
Near my apartment, we ran into American friends at the beer garden just outside my building. They beckoned us to join them, and as we sat down on our little playskool-sized plastic chairs, we had to pretend everything was fine. And a funny thing happened: everything became fine. After hanging out with them for a while, he and I went to my apartment; he cooked me some food, we talked, things were okay.
One of the hardest things about China was the inability to be alone when you wanted. But being forced to interact with people also taught me some good lessons about how to deal with others and face things head on; you often didn't really have a choice.
Maybe sometimes in America, it is too easy for us to be alone.
We had a disagreement in the middle of the very crowded, busy public square near my apartment; no yelling, but I was pretty upset. He asked if he could walk me home; the two kilometers to my apartment were passed in absolute silence. Oh, what I would have given for the privacy of a car at that moment! A car I could jump into and speed off and listen to the radio too loud to assuage my hurt feelings. A way to get the hell away from him right on the spot.
Near my apartment, we ran into American friends at the beer garden just outside my building. They beckoned us to join them, and as we sat down on our little playskool-sized plastic chairs, we had to pretend everything was fine. And a funny thing happened: everything became fine. After hanging out with them for a while, he and I went to my apartment; he cooked me some food, we talked, things were okay.
One of the hardest things about China was the inability to be alone when you wanted. But being forced to interact with people also taught me some good lessons about how to deal with others and face things head on; you often didn't really have a choice.
Maybe sometimes in America, it is too easy for us to be alone.
Comments
I'm glad you got things sorted out and yes, sometimes it is too easy for us to be alone here in this vast land of endless green spaces....
Thank god for the internet, eh? ;-)