A satirical play was performed live in Nanjing, during the month of May. Alleged to be the first cross-cultural and bilingual play ever performed on stage in the Yangtze Delta area. It consists of two main parts that overarches the theme of being forever an outsider in other cultures. Read all about it in Our Space on p28.
Act I opens with a typical China expat scene at a bar where, Lucy, the no-nonsense Chinese bartender, sells mediocre beer in a take-it-or-leave-it tone to an American expat and an inveterate drunk, who complains about warm beer being the norm in China. Later, as the plot proverbially thickens, more expats converge, each a satirical stereotype.
The conflict in Part I remains unsolved and is concluded with a heartfelt monologue, performed by an unexpected character, a stereotypical American cheerleader who confesses her disappointment with her China adventure. Running away from her problems at home, she came here looking for thrills, respect, and love, but all she got was womanizing creeps and a nasty boss.
Such disappointment is quite recognisable for expats who run away on the pretext of adventure. Running away myself from school bullies and the Chinese milieu to the UK at the age of 17, I could actually hear the aching beneath every sentence of the monologue and could relate to the frustration. But unlike our cheerleader who hangs out exclusively with white people and flaunts her American way of life, the disappointment with my own experience was quite different.
For the 7 years and 4 months I lived, laughed, and cried in the UK, I consciously cut off all my connections with other Chinese expats in order to integrate fully. I didn’t eat Chinese food unless
my British “friends” wanted takeout that was mainly chicken chunks drowning in grease, which they call “Chinese”. They would scowl a smile when I rumbled a begrudging “yum”.
I read and wrote only in English as I desperately tried to erase my Chinese-ness. I kept trying until the last moment when I was kicked out-of the country thanks to Teresa Dismay’s immigration policy, that ensures all student visas expire shortly after graduation.
As if that is not enough, the policy imposes on British companies a quota for the hiring of British citizens while the bulk of businesses maintain a firing spree. To hell with a Masters of Arts; I couldn’t even get an interview with Burger King! When I boarded my last flight home with my one-way ticket, it dawned on me that never has there been a day I was truly accepted; only moments of illusion, where I was probably remembered as the weird Chinese girl who wants to forget where she was from, but…c’mon, really?
But I guess the Chinese should take some of the blame too. It is us who take selfies of white laowai as if they are all Jonny Depp or Nicole Kidman. It is us who skip background checks and fool ourselves that a pretty face like that won’t lie. It is us who have created so unfair a system that it exploits each young Chinese member of the lower and middle classes, making them resort to marrying a mightier passport that facilitates their final escape.
Despite the nature we all share, the effectiveness of communication remains a joke. We learn about ethos, pathos, and logos from school and the art of persuasion but never how to listen. At the end of the day, the more we know, the more we refuse to know.
