Bending an ear
We had a unique experience in the Kunming airport while we were waiting with our friends for our flight to Xishuangbanna. We were all sitting down, talking amongst ourselves when an American woman approached those of us sitting at the end of the row. She was very friendly and eager to talk. This was kind of weird, since the status quo in most airports seems to be "mind your own business". Seeing a white face out here is a bit of a novelty, but usually we follow the crowd and try to play it cool. This woman, however, was acting like we best buddies or something just because we were fellow foreigners. (Of course, I wonder if maybe that isn't the way we should act.)Anyway, the reason for her enthusiasm was that she was not a jaded expatriate. Rather she was on the way home from a wedding. Her brother-in-law had just married a Jingpo woman and the lady and her husband had flown over from Boston to attend the wedding out in the wilds of Yunnan. She was brimming over with details about their adventure and soon her husband joined in. Ga Dai, myself and another one of our colleagues listened as the recounted the entire event. It wasn't a burden, really, though sometimes we were nodding our heads and saying to ourselves, "Yeah, that's the way life is like here."
As we talked about it later, we recognized that the main reason we listened was not that we're kind, tolerant people, (well, I hope we are somewhat) but rather that we share that woman's need to tell about our experiences. We'd love to ramble on for hours about what we've lived here in China, but most folks are probably only interested in the first fifteen minutes. Of course, I suppose that would hold true for most people in any part of the world. We all have our passions in life, but not everyone is going to share those with us. We can talk, but who is going to listen? Ah, well, that's why God created blogs....
posted by John @ 11:56 PM
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