If Jesus Had Had an Umbrella...

I was in China, studying, hell, three years ago, I think. It was my first time overseas, or even on an airplane. Unfortunately it wasn't the best time in the world, but that had nothing to do with the country or its people, just the group leaders of the class I was traveling with. But, I digress.

Being a minority kinda sucks. I think that, at least in most places in the US, no one is going to stare at you because of the color of your skin. Not true in China. Then again, it may simply be because in China it isn't a social faux pas to stare the way it is in the US. There were a lot of times while I was there that I felt very alone. There were times though, when Chinese people, almost all of whom I was just passing on the street, reached out and touched my life. A family had stopped me one time, just stopped me on the sidewalk, asking if I was an American, wanting to practice their English. It was so amazing to me, that I was interesting enough to them, that they would just start speaking to me, about where I was from and what I was doing there.

I wrote this next blurb about one experience in particular, while I was in China. It truly is one of my best memories, and one of a handful of experiences I came away from China with that will be with me the rest of my life. I think one thing that stuck with me, why I'm posting this here, was how different China was between those who are female and those who are male. I good friend of mine went to China (actually at the very same time I was there) but not as part of my group. When we shared experiences, they were radically different. I felt isolated, unable to find away to just interact in a social setting with Chinese people. He on the other hand, had wonderful times just 'shooting the shit' with Chinese men. The difference was one of gender, we've decided. In China, it simply wasn't acceptable for women to go to a bar, or any other kind of relaxed unstructured social type setting. Women just didn't do that. If you did, you were probably a whore (either as a profession, or just as a hobby). If you were white and female and in a bar, you were a Russian whore.

Basically the idea co-ed social groups is kind of new there. Girls spend most of their time with other girls. As an outsider, it created a problem, but from what I watched, and from the few brief times where I was treated as just a woman, as opposed to a white woman or an American, women in China were all sisters in a way American women aren't. As a woman in China, I struggled to adapt to the culture, but I wouldn't have changed the gender of this experience for anything.

Okay okay, here it is, one of the memories from China that I will have for the rest of my life:

It was raining, I had known that before I had stepped outside, but when I had left there had been a break in the weather. I thought it would last longer than it did, but of course, no one’s luck ever holds in these situations. I found myself just far enough away from my hotel that, press on or return to my room, I was going to get soaked.

China is a country full of umbrellas. Girls and women even use their umbrellas while biking. It’s a good idea, really, while in China I often wished I had my own portable patch of shade. I was never quite brave enough to purchase an umbrella to use for this purpose, plus sized white girl that I am, I stood out enough already. I didn’t want anyone to feel I was mocking the culture or trying to be something I wasn’t. My stubborn self consciousness over the purchase and use of an umbrella now seemed a bit in folly; as I stood on a street on the Laioning university campus in a down pour.

I had given up on the idea of staying dry; I could be waiting under a building overhang for an hour before there was another break in the weather. I resigned myself to my wet fate and turned to make my way back to the building we were residing in. My chagrin at being soaked due to my lack of foresight and self-consciousness was somewhat eased by the fact there was no one to witness it. Until I turned the corner onto the block that my building resided.

It was a side street and I had doubted there would be anyone on it, but there was, one Chinese girl. She was probably about the same age as I and was also caught out in the rain. She, however, was adequately prepared, her umbrella protecting her from the ‘liquid sunshine’. She looked at me oddly, walking with my American bravado through the rain, pretending like I had every intention of being soaked.

Feeling even more embarrassed, I tried to slow my pace. She was moving the same direction as I was, so I had hoped she would pass and I could again keep my folly private, but her pace slowed too. She called out to me in Chinese. I don’t know if she gave me the benefit of the doubt that I would understand her, or if she was talking for her own benefit as I often talk to my Deaf clients, knowing there is no understanding. I looked at her blankly, but she trotted over to me anyway, indicating she would share her umbrella with me. She walked me all the way to the door of my building, even though it was out of her way.

I thanked her in English and Chinese wishing I could tell her how her simple act of kindness had touched me. Tell her how sharing her umbrella had taken down all my defenses in its genuine caring and openness. But all I could say was thank you, and all she could say was ‘no problem’, but really, that’s all that needed to be said.

Can you imagine this happening on an American street? I can't. This wasn't the first time I'd walked in a downpour. The only time anyone else has ever offered to share an umbrella is people who are already friends, not strangers. This, I think, is a good example of the general sort of 'sisterhood' experienced by Chinese women (as far as I could tell anyway). I needed help, so she helped me, going out of her way to do so.

I just keep writing, trying to put into words this experience, to do justice to what was (for me) a very profound experience. Really, I just lack the words to really express myself, and I'll just have to put this out there, and hope others can somehow stand in my very damp shoes on that day three years ago.