You know you're in Asia when....

...you get stared at.  A lot.

So this isn't something that is new to us.  I mean, it shouldn't be by now.  Living in any Asian country gets you over the 'issue' of being stared at by the first week.

And just in case you were wondering, yes sometimes it is still a novelty.

Take today for example.

We were on Gulangyu getting some X-mas gifts for the niece and nephews.  We had to wait for them to be finished, so we decided to get an ice-cream and sit on a bench to people watch.

After a few minutes, a man hence known as City Worker (aka: job is a cleaner) comes up to us and stops right in front of us.  Thinking he wanted our ice-cream cups, we motioned to put them into his bag.  He stopped us and pointed to the trash bin not 5 feet away.  That was okay; that's what a trash bin is for. But we were left confused as to what he wanted. So we looked at him some more, said hello in Chinese, smiled, then went back to our conversation at the lack of his response.

City Worker decided that our attempts of interaction were not what he wanted, so he sat down on the bench directly in front of us.  And stared.   And stared some more.  He sat and looked for about 5 minutes.  Then he got up and walked away.  No good byes.  No thanks for letting me watch you talk and lick your ice-cream cups.  No you are beautiful.  No taking our cups when we were done licking them.  City Worker just left.

Both Ed and I were disappointed, not only because now we really had to throw away our own trash, but we didn't get any thing out of the 'exchange'.  Just endless curiosity, then slow realization that he just wanted to look at our beauty (and yes, that is still the reason why I think EVERYONE stares at me.  Angelina Jolie and I have it sooo hard; you have no idea).  But you know what.  It was okay.  We got a giggle out of it.  I'm obviously telling you about it now, so it didn't bother me or make me mad.  Its stuff like that that makes us realize that we are that much different here, despite the large number of foreigners.  Yeah, sure sometimes it is awkward.  Most of the time is funny. 

So the moral of this story:  Take a picture.  Which they do.  Secretly.  Which I hate.  So now I'm charging 5 RMB for every secret picture.  I think that's okay because I have this rule: if you ask to take my picture, it's free.  If you sneak it, it's going to cost you.  But that's another post.