Knowing who to kick in the balls

Consider this advice, should you fancy moving to China: say what you actually mean. It sounds simple enough, I think. We’re not liars, are we? We don’t mutter ‘Not!’ under our breath when we compliment someone, or reply ‘NASA’s biscuit-testing laboratory’ when people ask us where we work. We don’t go around telling big fibs about anything and everything, our noses growing longer by the second, do we? I was born with this nose by the way, smart arse.

However, I’ve realised I say things like, ‘Let’s go for a drink sometime’ or ‘We should go out for dinner soon,’ which, while not exactly lies, aren’t always straightforward. Sometimes I really mean it, sometimes it’s a vague notion that spending more time with that person isn’t the worst idea in the world, sometimes it’s kneejerk politeness. Say one of those things in China and, in our experience, people reply, ‘When? Now? Tomorrow?’


It’s a language thing too, sure. When one of you has to communicate with a very limited vocabulary, there’s no room for flowery maybes, fussing around an answer hoping the other party will pick up on what you really mean. You say yes or no otherwise you start digging yourself an awkwardness hole.  This is something to file in my ‘pro’ column – less fannying about.

But situations like these set off my English Reserve (slash Awkwardness) alarm bell because it feels pushy, which I’m not used to. It’s interesting what I would consider rude at home just isn’t here, and I’m sure it works vice versa. The pushing and shoving anywhere near public transport. Not really saying please and thank you all that much in cafes and shops. Our Chinese teacher pronounces the constant Ps & Qs of westerners ‘fake’.

We’re asked when we're having babies, how much we earn here, how much we earned in the UK, how much can I drink before I fall over (if they spend long enough with me, they usually get a demonstration). Chinese friends have told us we shouldn’t worry about being equally straightforward back. We need to get over our fear of seeming impolite because it's much more important to be understood.

Speaking of getting to the point, making friends here is an extremely quick process. Within minutes of meeting someone, whether that’s at work, in our building, on the bus, on the street even, numbers and WeChat IDs are swapped, invites for beers, for homecooked meals, follow soon after. One friend took us for drinks and food the night after we met him, and refused to let us pay for a thing. When we tried, he would just shrug and say, ‘We’re friends now.’

I have had to make a real effort to find this kind of interaction acceptable. I recoil instinctively, but different isn’t wrong. It’s been like being back at university in a way, being open, being all yeah sure let’s try a drink with any of you, might find a friend in there.

It was this insta-friend context that unfortunately also allowed someone to take advantage of the situation. Or perhaps more accurately, our uncertainty over what constitutes a cultural difference and what is actually rude, inappropriate or threatening meant a situation went further than it would have ordinarily.

Someone we'd met briefly a handful of times seemed incredibly pushy and enthusiastic about spending time with us, which made us uncomfortable, but hell - it's how the rest of our friendships here have formed. He might not have thought it rude to turn up unannounced at 8am, or walk straight past me into the flat when I opened the door, or sit on our sofa for half an hour without invitation, we thought. We suppressed our instinct to find it strange when he arrived with gifts, and touched me too much. The uncertainty was compounded by a near-complete lack of verbal communication - he spoke not a word of English and our Chinese is embarrassingly terrible, even after five months. Maybe this was, like so many other things we have experienced, a 'thing' over here.

Following the 8am wakeup call, K and I had a conversation about the fact this person was, unintentionally or not, being rude and it had started to feel suffocating. We decided we should politely tell him to back off, but therein lay our mistake - we shouldn't have even considered being polite about it. We should have employed the same straightforward attitude our Chinese friends did in declaring themselves friends, and told him where to get off the first time he barged in and hugged me too hard. However we had time for neither approach, as our new pal turned up again that same day, having waited, it appears, for K to go to work, and suddenly it was a little too clear what he wanted to happen.

It's hard to assess someone's personality, their motivations, when you essentially can't hear them speak and you're getting little from the usual non-verbal indicators of facial expression (his was a permanent smile) or physicality in general (personal space boundaries here are rather different). I couldn't hear his turn of phrase or inflections. With Chinese tones obliterating the way I would usually identify the function of a sentence, I can barely tell if someone is asking a question or making a statement.

Thus, unable to gauge his interactions as I would were he English, and having accepted so much as those all-important cultural differences, I constantly questioned my rising panic and discomfort. I didn't have the vocabulary for 'What the fuck are you doing in my flat?' but I tried to make it clear that he should leave.

It wasn't until it was unequivocal what he thought he was getting from me that I flipped and got angry and got him out. Before that point, despite feeling with utter clarity that I wanted him to leave, I had stopped myself from kicking him in the balls to express it. Of course, I wish I had, but you know, hindsight's so often a useless cunt.

That wasn't a pleasant experience, but we're on a learning curve here. We're trying to strike a balance between our western sensibilities, our personalities in general and being open to new experiences. Offering my lighter to a bloke on the way home once resulted in plans for the three of us to go and play pool (after a short misunderstanding where we nearly ended up at ping pong). We go out with him regularly now and may spend Spring Festival with his family. I hate the person who made me feel vulnerable in my own living space, but I don't want to miss out on meeting more people like our pool friend. It is refreshing to find new friendships in a way you rarely do outside of Fresher's Week.

It will always feel rude to me when people charge onto the tube before I get off, and I won’t stop saying please and thank you, but we’re just about navigating our way through a culture that sometimes feels utterly alien, and every now and again, we might kick the wrong person in the balls. Getting there, though.