Vacationing and socializing

That's what i'm doing here, vacationing and socializing. I've been meeting up with different people this week, including a few ABC's (american-born chinese) who are working here, and a different group of Shanghainese dykes. These are two such different worlds. I got a glimpse of what the English-speaking Chinese American live here is like, and I'm really glad that I'm not living that. They teach English in international schools attended by spoiled, rich brats, interact with other expats, who are mostly obnoxious, ugly white business men with a fetish for Asian girls, and eat at/go out to crazy expensive places that are attended by mostly foreigners. In a way, I can't be so harsh cause I can only manage to do somewhat better if/when I go to a culture completely foreign to me. But it is shocking how sheltered you can be. They've built their own buildings with European cafes and lampposts, serving American food, with menus in English, etc.
It feels really inappropriate to go to those places.

I felt really Chinese, really authentic when I'm around these people, but around Chinese people, I start to feel like an outsider too. Like I'm desperately trying to blend in, but once the biographical facts come out, I have to unwillingly divulge the fact that I've been in the U.S. for 1/2 of my life, and I worry that they immediately see me as a kind of foreigner... I spent the afternoon in a KTV (karaoke) with these dykes, who are great fun. But I was embarassed that I couldn't sing, because I didn't know the current popular songs. I was only able to sing an English song and a couple of hella old Chinese songs, that were popular over a decade ago. Now I have to go home and studiously study the current songs.

I joined a wushu class today. It's been my childhood fantasy, but unfortunately it's not as sweet to realize it. I wanted to learn wushu so bad when i was little, but my mother made me take accordion (a concert instrument, its status similar to the violin) classes instead. The accordion class is in the same youth community center as the wushu class, and I'd walk by the courtyard where they practiced and watch with such longing. I vaguely remember this little girl my age who was really good, and did all these cool tumbles with a long spear, that impressed me so much. Maybe a first crush? Well, now I realize that wushu is really an art, for performance. It emphasizes form and isn't really fit for fighting. Today we started out with stretches and all kinds of crazy splits, which I can't do at all. It felt more a ballet class, standing in a row next to a bar and trying to reach my toes. But later on, when the kids that have been at it for years broke out the weapons, swords, knives, spears, I was totally into it again!