Chocolate cabbage
It's amazing and absurd how many people scream "Heeeel-ooooh" at me wherever I go. Kids on bikes, I can always count on a chorus of Hellos. Kamikaze mini-bikers, about every third one who passes. Storekeepers, at least half. College students, especially in groups, always. I try to acknowledge every "Hello," although it's often difficult because of the prevalence of "Hello" snipers. Through copious practice, the Chinese have learned to disguise their "Hellos," so that they appear out of thin air, far away from any human voice. Perhaps it's ghosts, or just the villagers in my head, who shout it, but it's constant. And, dare I say, annoying? When I return to America, I'm going to scream "Neeeeeee-Hooooooow" at every Chinese I see. That'll show em.
At the end of one particularly enjoyable run, in which I reached the startling revelations that ten-ton dumptrucks may be dangerous and a chorus of villagers shouting "hello" may be annoying, a boy approached. He had a buzz cut, stood long and lean at about 5 feet tall, wore a filthy blue turtleneck and had a mud streak down the middle of his nose. He appeared at the campus gates, the end of my hour run.
"Hello, hello, hello," he screamed, running at me. Oh, boy, more fun, I thought. But he got close and put out his hand, said "nice to meet you, my name is Bee Yo Tan (exact Chinese spelling)," and had the most mischevious smile and raspy voice. I greeted him and we chatted for five minutes. I was immediately mesmerized by this kid. He smiled and told me he loves chocolate, said he was waiting to take the bus home so he could eat rice with his parents, announced that someday he wants to visit America, and was altogether pleasant and refreshingly uncondescending. He seemed genuinely interested in speaking English, not just in antagonizing the waigoren ("foreign devil"), which seems the motivation of most kids his age. In fact, many of them aren't subtle, shouting "Waigoren, waigoren, waigoren" as I pass. Old Bee Yo and I parted, and I had a good feeling about China again.
Well, today Bee Yo reappeared. I was walking on campus, felt someone jump onto my back, took a gander and there he was. His mother had scrubbed his face, buzzed his hair and cleaned his blue turtleneck since we first met. He looked adorable. I was with a few of my first-year students, and we all got to talking.
Bee Yo is the kind of guy that must be kidded. Anything to get him smiling and laughing in his giddy way. And so I told my students he likes chocolate. "Do you like chocolate bars?" Bee Yo smiled and nodded in agreement. "Chocolate ice cream?" Smile, nod. "Chocolate pie?" Smile, nod. "Chocolate broccoli?" Smile, nod. "Chocolate chicken?" Smile, nod. And on and on: chocolate duck, chocolate cabbage, chocolate bok choy, chocolate eggplant, chocolate pig's feet, and Bee Yo just kept smiling and nodding. And my students fell onto the floor laughing, and Bee Yo couldn't figure out what was so funny about liking chocolate everything. But he laughed because everyone else was laughing, and I loved China even more.
