Taxi!

The day is over and she is tired and she just wants to get home, have some tea, curl into a blanket and sleep. She waves down a taxi, gets in and says "Zhichun Lu". The taxi driver replies "qu nar"? She repeats. He repeats. She then says the larger area name, Zhongcunsun followed by Zhichun Lu. The driver still asks where. She is so frustrated. Then the taxi driver says the damndest thing. that he doesn't understand what she is talking about. At this point she decides he's flake and she gets out of the cab.

She thinks the driver is just being difficult because she is a foreigner. This happens from time to time. She's worked really hard on her Chinese and having the proper Beijing accent. Three years hard. One year in Australia and then each day for the two years she has been here. She knows her tones are good. Very good. But she still runs into people who don't understand her. Or refuse to. For example, if she is with a Chinese friend no one will speak to her in Chinese. Typical scene: She orders lunch for her and a Chinese friend in perfect Chinese. The waiter will then turn and read back their order to the Chinese friend. Sometimes she actually waves her arms in a "hello, hello, i'm right here" plea.

When she got to Beijing two years ago, she didn't know what to expect. She told herself she was running towards life, towards an adventure in culture. She would attend a Chinese university as any other Chinese student would. Total immersion. But in fact, she was running from something. Running from a lie, the truth too harsh to face. She enrolled in a school of no distinction and of affordable price. She taught English and was able to support herself most months. She had not made as many friends as she expected and of the three or four friends she regularly hung with, she didn't feel a strong connection. She told herself this was just the odds. On its surface, Beijing with 250,000 foreigners seems like a great place to bond with those of similar fate. But if you eliminate those over 25, and then those from non English speaking countries, and then most of the men, and then those from a similar cultural background, the pool is really small. She had thought she would have more Chinese girl friends and but most of them thought she was a slut and while it was true that she slept with a Chinese boy just to see what there was too it, she was far from a slut. Well, maybe if opportunity presented herself, but so far it hadn't. The Chinese boys just didn't do it for her despite the initial curiosity and the white guys where all chasing Chinese girls and appeared pretty damn successful at it. And for the most part, it was like revenge of the nerds version 16, but there was an occasional good catch that made her take a shallow breath or two.

She broke out of her daydream long enough to flag down another cab. She hops in and tells the driver to take her to Zhichun Lu. The driver shakes his head, says he doesn't understand. Tells her they are already at Zhichun Lu. Which is when she realizes she's been in Beijing too long.