On being "green"

It's ironic, in some ways, that it's I've wound up in China as a result, amongst other things, of having studied immigration in American literature, where a concept that comes up regularly is that of being "green" or a "greenhorn." There's an early 20th century Jewish novel where the protagonist hears comments of "here comes a green one."For Chinese Americans, it's sometimes referred to as being "fresh off the boat" or "f.ob." (does that make me a "fop", as in fresh off the plane?? not sure I want to be that...)

That's what I feel like, most of the time. I'm no stranger to culture shock, but paradoxically that makes me impatient to adapt. Sticking out as a Caucasian isn't much of an issue because as mentioned before, I feel invisible, a white ghost, it is the case to say. The lack of language frustrates me to no end, but hopefully I can start learning it soon. And it's other, smaller things. The non-heated spaceb(sorry I keep bringing this up but it hit me hard), the endless rains, for instance. I'm still waiting for this dramatic change in weather where yes, I shall be bound to kvetch endlessly about being too hot.

But, perhaps, there are little things that are moving me in the opposite direction towards what- a Chinese-tion of some kind? Maybe that's too much. Just plain old human adaptability? Meeting my neighbour, Tanya, who's from the Ukraine and speaks perfect Chinese (ok, admittedly I  can't judge if it's perfect but she's with no doubt extremely fluent-hey she's planning to read The Three Kingdoms in the original, it's taking me forever to read it in translation!) has meant that she's been acting like a filter between me and the rest of the world. I'm also dealing to the best of my abilities with the weather. My nice leather shoes from Clark's and Camper's were literally soaked, but investing in a pair of pale pink rubber boots for the equivalent of 7 dollars (guiltfree "Made in China"!) has made my daily life far easier. So has investing in a padded housecoat. It's bright red and I just hope not too many people drop by unannounced. So I'm slightly less freezing at home.

It's a process, I guess.