Staring

At any given time when I am out and about, there are a number of people looking at me. The looking can come in several forms by all genders and ages (although I do think the old people are worse about it than the young people)- quick glances, surprised double takes, eye popping/jaw dropping stares, calm inches-from-my-face gazes, calm away-from- my-face gazes, sneaky peering, etc. I've been sitting on the bus before and had people analyze my face with both words and hand motions right in front of me. I especially find that people stare at me when I am daydreaming because I am not making eye contact with them and they can feel no shame in observing me. When I snap out of it, it's very obvious who has been staring at me because they look away quickly....or not. Some people just keep right on staring. It can be very uncomfortable but when I think about it I would probably stare at myself too if I was Chinese. In fact, whenever I see a foreigner or even a Chinese person who looks a little different than the rest I find myself stealing glances at them too...lol!

So today I was waiting at the bus stop, daydreaming of course, when all of a sudden I snapped out of it, looked up, and saw about 4 people staring at me from the back of a parked bus with big smiles on their faces. I was like are you guys for real. I looked back down in hopes that they would leave me alone. I looked back up a few seconds later and they were still at it so I decided you know what, if they're going to stare at me I'm going to have some fun too and take a picture of these clowns. So I got my camera out and snapped this picture as quick as I could. I don't know if you can see the faces that well but they're laughing really hard in the picture, I love it!

We both laughed together and I thought this would be the end of it but the next time I looked up I saw that they had opened a side window and were trying to talk to me. The girl kept shouting, "Good morning English teacher!" I think that must have been all she could remember from school. Well, I'm proud to say that I knew more Chinese than they knew English so our broken conversation was in Chinese. She forced her phone upon me so I could give her my number. I thought oh no am I going to have another person texting me non-stop in Chinese...but she hasn't texted me yet so maybe it's okay. Chinese people can be so friendly though!

I think my camera can be a good strategy for warding off unwanted stares...or possibly creating more commotion than I originally intended...I guess we'll see.