When on vacation, you take every precaution and avoid putting yourself in situations where you might be a victim. But even the most experienced travelers still get robbed. In the four and a half years we’ve been traveling and living abroad, we’ve had stolen three cameras, three IPods, one computer, and three day packs in a total of six incidents. The good news is that we’ve never had our passports, credit cards or money taken, nor have we been victims of violence.

Recovering quickly

The toughest part about dealing with crime abroad isn’t handling the authorities but what it does to your morale. After you file a police report and contact all of your financial institutions – the next step is to forget about it. Easier said than done, I know, but that’s exactly what you have to do. It’s not the theft that will ruin your entire trip but your reaction to it.

As hard as it is to deal with on vacation, it’s worse when you’re living abroad because you can’t just leave and put it behind you. The love and attachment you’d been feeling for your adopted country may begin to waver. It may help you to remember that the same thing could happen at home and, for some of us, it’s much more likely to happen at home than in our new countries.

Our hosts sometimes react in wonderful ways that you could never have expected. At a recent dinner out with friends, one of the women realized her purse was gone. It had been taken while we were eating and chatting. The restaurant called the police who, from all of the information gathered, determined four men – professionals – had carried out the theft. One had been the look-out in front of the restaurant and three entered the establishment. They sat at the table next to ours, looked at the menu but didn’t order anything, and when they rose to leave one grabbed our friend’s bag.

The restaurant not only paid for our meal (for four people including drinks), it gave her an envelope containing all of the cash she had lost and a wrapped gift. She still has to go to Shanghai to get a new passport, needs to replace her cell phone and everything else in her purse (including the purse) but the kindness shown to her by the Indian restaurant was something none of us would expect to receive in our home countries.

Small comfort, perhaps, but comfort all the same.

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The residents here don’t see too many loawai (literally old foreigner) and so when they do, they tend to look very carefully as they may never see another. This is even more true of country folk who come to the big city to work. I encounter a disproportionate number of them in the mornings as they make their way to the market to sell their produce or to the construction sites littering this boom town.

The better-off residents drive cars, motorcycles and scooters while those of lesser means are on bicycles or pedicabs. Living here, you develop a sixth sense about people staring at you and you pay particular attention when you feel that they’re distracted from their driving. You always want to know where their wheels are pointing to make sure they don’t run you over with their vehicle as they’re busy staring.

A walking beauty

For some reason, I must have looked particularly beautiful one hour into my morning walk. Surely my hair was frizzed by the 80% humidity and I had sweat running down my face and back in the 90F. degree heat. Maybe it was my inner beauty shinning through. I must have been glowing. No, wait. That was sweat.

A man headed on a bicycle in the same direction I was walking felt compelled to turn to look at me as he passed me. He stared for such a long time that he was about to collide with a woman on a pedicab coming at us. The only thing that averted the crash was my pointing to him to watch where he was going.

The driver of the pedicab reprimanded him well saying, I imagine, things like: “Idiot, watch where you’re going. Haven’t you ever seen a laowai before?”

It didn’t stop the man from stealing another glance at me after he’d safely passed the woman and her pedicab to see me laughing.

[View with PicLens]

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I was walking on an isolated road in the northwestern part of the country enjoying the quiet country atmosphere. A truck passed by me lifting a cloud of the fine golden silt the road was made of. I held my breath as it trundled past and felt the warm exhaust mixed with the fine powder on my skin. The quiet returned and the dust soon resettled awaiting the next disturbance that may not come for hours.

A natural predator

A long bend in the road provided me with the luxurious feeling that I was alone in this wondrous natural setting with no one to disturb the peace enveloping me. I was enjoying the contrast provided between the reddish cliffs, the golden dust and the true blue sky.

It wasn’t until most of the bend had disappeared behind me that I realized the truck had stopped on the side of the road. Its driver was in the cab looking back, with his hand on the door handle. As I approached, the man began fumbling with the lock saying something unintelligible to me.

My mind raced back thirty years to my high school Spanish. My brain reeled with forgotten phrases as I approached the truck and its driver all the while saying in my painful excuse for his language that he need not disembark as I was fine. Little did I know of his intentions.

Jumping down from his truck, his dusty cowboy boots landing on the powdery sand with a thud, this giant of a Latino lover stood all of five feet tall. His western shirt bleached white by repeated washings provided a sharp contrast to his dark skin and darker hair. He smiled as he awaited my approach. White teeth shinning through parted lips, a pink tongue licking his chops.

I thought to myself: “How kind that he would stop to ensure I was alright, that I wasn’t lost.”

“No, no, Señor.” I assured him: “Todo esta bien.” He could see that I was fine but he wanted to chat.

“De donde estas?” The trucker asked me where I was from, where I was heading, and where was I living. To be polite, I told him Los Angeles, just walking, and at the Mission Inn. At that point, he was very quiet as though considering my responses. He had nothing else to say.

When is polite too polite?

Ever the diplomat, I asked him: “De donde esta?” Where was he from and where was he living? His first response was an unfamiliar name and, in answer to my second question, he pointed to a two-storey yellow brick house on the hill.

Calling upon the deep recesses of my memory, I exclaimed: “Esta muy linda!” (it is very nice). The gusto with which I expressed my feelings was entirely for my surprising linguistic abilities but may have been misinterpreted by the trucker for an inordinate degree of interest in his home. I imagined him living there with his good Catholic wife and many sons and daughters, maybe even a few grandchildren.

“Vamos, Vamos.” Let’s go. Go where? Oh, he wanted me to follow him up to his house. Probably to meet the family, maybe have a cup of coffee, get to know each other. How nice.

He repeated his invitation: “Vamos, Vamos.” I looked up at his house and as I turned to look into his eyes to gauge the sincerity of his invitation for coffee, I caught him stealing a glance at my bra-less breasts. Shit.

My earlier decision to forego a bra – giving more consideration to comfort than propriety – was instantly regretted. The sweatshirt I had donned for warmth and coverage had been peeled off after an hour of sweaty walking. My instincts finally kicked in and I started walking away from his entreaties to follow him. Not entirely sure about his intentions, I laughingly responded: “No, gracias, no” and just kept walking with my back to him.

Whether it was to demonstrate my unflappable character or my untouched pride, I don’t know, but I continued in the same direction I had been walking rather than returning to town. I was just beginning to relax when I came upon a billboard facing the opposite direction. I turned around and saw the sign was for a motel – a yellow house – just a short way up the road promising a homey atmosphere for its guests.

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All of that changed recently when – after six weeks of over 100F. temperatures – we had a pizza delivered. I don’t want you to think I was a heroine in the league of Suzie Homemaker during the first month of this normal summer weather in this undeclared furnace of China. Jacob was ordering double meals at restaurants at lunchtime and bringing home the extra food for me so that I wouldn’t have to cook in our non-air-conditioned kitchen.

It always amazes me how you can have anything delivered here as there is no minimum that needs to be to be spent to qualify for “free delivery”. Think about it: what is the minimum you must spend to get your food delivered where you live? $10, $20, More? At a favorite Chinese (duh!) restaurant nearby you can get 10 dumplings for the equivalent of $1.50 delivered to your home. And they don’t expect tipping. Even for climbing seven flights of stair (we don’t have an elevator).

But first, you have to speak enough Chinese to order the food. Well, for your own survival the first words you learn in a new country usually involve: food, drink, bathroom – and not necessarily in that order.

Next you need to learn enough Chinese to be able to explain to the restaurant where you live. One way the expats have gotten around this is to have a local Chinese person write a text message into your phone with your address in Chinese. That way, when you order food over the phone, you can just text your address to the restaurant.

That’s the thing about being an expat: you always find a way to get things done.

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Four of Jacob’s adult students invited us to have dinner with them. The opportunity to meet them for the first time while picking up some Chinese etiquette was just too great to pass up. I expected that we would eat a little food, drink a cup or two of tea, and have some stilted Chinglish conversation. Boy was I wrong.

Food, Drink & Language

Everyone was shy at first so it was hard to gauge their English proficiency as they didn’t speak much. But not to worry: the tongue-loosening beer arrived almost immediately. A box containing a dozen large bottles was brought to our private room. Half of it warm the way the Chinese like to drink it and half of it cold as they know the loawai (foreigners) have it.

Jacob and I looked at each other and wondered “why would the waitress be bringing in so many?” It was a weeknight and there were only six of us – one of whom was driving and not drinking. I knew all about gambei – or toasting – I just didn’t know how often it happened. A lot. No, more than that. And it’s not just a toast and you take a little drink. You have to down your drink.

All the Seafood That’s Fit to Eat

There was no way of knowing what surprises we’d find in the food being served as everything was ordered before we arrived. The first dish was half a fish – the front half with the head still on, of course, and teeth that reminded me of the piranhas we ate in Brazil – that was absolutely delicious. And, sorry to disappoint you, but that was the weirdest thing served.

We had oysters – raw and cooked in a delicious sauce, crabs, shrimps cooked two different ways, scallops, rice cakes, and various vegetable dishes. Um, Um, Um! Oh, and lots of beer. I soon learned to only half fill my glass or I’d be drinking from under the table.

I realized at the dinner just how much I had already learned about Chinese food etiquette: they only serve warm drinking water as cold is considered bad for you; the dishes are place before the guest of honor; groups are seated in private dining rooms; the heads of food are always left on (as are the shells for shellfish); and that the hosts will pay the bill – they wouldn’t let us share the cost of the meal. Rather, we’ll reciprocate at a later date.

It was one of those expat experiences that we live for but can’t happen often enough.

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