where's waldo

where are all the other chinese-but-not-really kids? by which i mean, where are all the other americanized but not enough to prevent them from jumping on a 15 hour plane to live in the motherland chinese kids who will sometime in the next 5 years experience a debilitating identity crisis and write a ripoff of the joy luck club??

i've happened upon a few white people and a shit ton of asians, but so far my cohorts and i have been the only asian americans i've encountered walking around shanghai. there's no way they aren't here. so now, the question is: have i been looking in the wrong places, am i retarded, or does everyone else have the sense to camouflage themselves?

apparently, we stick out. (although "we" seems to exclude me- in the words of the venerable gang chen, i wear clothes that don't match and have a really asian haircut - more on the tragedy later - so i could feasibly be native.) i've never seen a real chinese person wear cargo shorts and flip flops, which seems to be the uniform of choice for many an uncreative american lad. of course, if i had my way, everyone would wear argyle socks and slim-cut slacks everyday, and hedi slimane would be the most employed man in the world. that's the same universe in which everyone speaks in idiosyncratic anachronisms and has cheekbones that cut diamond.

but back to my point- bananas/twinkies/other edible substance that is yellow on the outside and white on the inside (lemon buddies?) asians: where the hell are you?? is it just that when you come to china, you throw on ripped jeans (male) and frilly tops (female)? is that what i should do?

according to my coworkers, if they hadn't known i was chinese american, they would've assumed i was korean. either way, i don't belong. so right now, not only do i not know what i am doing with my life, i feel kind of culturally homeless.

cue holden caulfield moment.