getting sold, french concessions

so i am currently unable to view the blog.

this is a problem.

other problems include: the fact that i had to bust out the french skills for the first time in about three years- and it sucked. even sadder is that this situation also involved mega asian fetishes.

random european man: hi i'm sebastien. what's your name?
me: um. i'm rosie.
sebastien: are you from shanghai? i don't speak english or chinese. (in french)
me: no. i live in the us. (in awful french)
sebastien: oh. (is disappointed)
me: yeah.
sebastien: no probleme. (accent grave)

so apparently your stock is lower if you're not chinese chinese? more proof that asian fetishes are rooted primarily in some form of disturbing cultural imagination, as opposed to physical preference. although in the end, i suppose it doesn't matter that much. more or less every white male expat in shanghai has one.

swiss man: tell your friend she is beautiful woman.
me: adrienne, he thinks you are beautiful woman.
swiss man: here is my girlfriend.
(pulls out tiny asian girl with bangs and pigtails)

keep in mind that the swiss man had definitely left 30 behind a while ago. if you are dating someone over the age of 12, there is no reason in your life why you should be wearing pigtails in public. also, isn't it kind of creepy to date a chinese girl when you can't even speak her language? although i suppose it's the same situation with a lot of guys at yale, because i am only mildly proficient in the language of douchebag manslut. but oh wait, we are in china, where rules of sane behaviour no longer apply.

case in point: our saturday activities.

every saturday and sunday afternoon, hundred of chinese parents and grandparents gather in people's square for what i shall call the marriage market. in less polite terms, it could also be called the pan-china conference of asian parents to embarrass their nation and ruin their childrens' lives and reputations. people come with flyers, on which they write their son's or daughter's statistics, educational/professional information, etc etc in order to find their apparently relationship inept children a future mate.

reasons why this cannot work: if my parents picked a boyfriend for me, i would currently be dating a chinese (as in, from china, not abc or banana) electrical engineering ph.d student who is practical and expects to marry when we're 25 and have children when we're 27.

if my grandparents picked a boyfriend for me, i would be dating a chinese electrical engineering ph.d student who is practical and hideous and expects me to arrange flowers, make tea, and marry upon graduation and pop out 5 billion children, 90% percent of which are sons.

either way, bitches would get cut.

so kids decided that they should sell me, because they are malicious and awful people. it was decided: bing and i would sell jeff and jeff would sell me, to answer the ultimate question of who was more desirable: a normal white man who speaks chinese, or a bitter asian girl who hates everyone.

jeff's stats:
25 year old yale ph.d student in chemical engineering, has an american passport, is tall (182 cm), and drives a european car.

things they liked: the yale business got play, as did the engineering part. unfortunately, bing fucked up and told them he was an east asian studies major in his undergrad years, and of course asian parents railed on that for a while. a bunch of them asked if he was going to take his new girlfriend to the states. excitedly.

creepy.

also, this conversation:

lady 1: is he a man looking for a woman, or a man looking for another man?
lady 2: of course it's a man looking for a woman! gays don't come here! gays find their own boyfriends!

john, i guess this means you're on your own.

my stats: 29 years old, american passport, yale grad, employed, 165 cm, 48 kg, very cute! will love you! anime drawing!

all i got: "um. that character is written wrong."

sat night went to a chinese version of rudys, where the most unattractive people i have ever seen tried to work a stripper pole. also, this greasy european man who looked like kristen bell's creepy british boyfriend in forgetting sarah marshall, but plus 50 lbs, minus 5 inches and any sort of redeeming qualities whatsoever, was over the place, leaving a trail like hansel and gretel, except instead of bread crumbs it was herpes with an after whiff of tragedy.

struggles/pictures forthcoming.