我是外国人 (i am a foreigner)

everywhere i go, i hear people talking about me. 外国人!! 外国人! (wai guo ren! foreigner!)
foreigner walking down the street.
foreigner eating in the restaurant.
foreigner in the aisle of pans. (today i bought a frying pan.)
foreigner in the aisle of microwaves. (today i also bought a microwave--mine was smoking and possibly going to catch something on fire.)
foreigner on the bus.
foreigner on the train.
foreigner going down the escalator.
foreigner going up the escalator.
foreigner in the market.
foreigner in a taxi.
foreigner in a corner store.
foreigner riding a bicycle.

this sounds a little bit like dr. suess. or go, dogs, go. i bet i could write a chinese children's book, in chinese!! i totally could. it would be about a foreigner and everywhere the child saw a foreigner in the city!! this could be a money maker right here. and it would be a true story. and this could be the last page:
foreigners playing cards in the train station.
(do you know this poker game? everyone gets a card and you put the card on your forehead so you can see everyone else's cards but not your own. then (if you are in china) pretend to have 1000 kuai in your mind, and everyone bets on how confident they are that their card is the best. the only name i knew for this game was indian poker, but apparently it's also called blind man's bluff. and the first world championship of this game took place in october 2010 at the irish winter festival according to wikipedia for those of you who were incredibly curious and who also trust wikipedia.)

yes, sometimes the things foreigners do are worth noting, worth doing a double take for, worth staring at for long periods of time. buying a frying pan or a carrot or sitting at a table in a restaurant are not one of those things. but usually they're treated pretty much the same way by chinese people who are watching as actual notable things like the strange foreigners who put cards on their foreheads. it's a little weird to have almost everything you do considered noteworthy by someone (or many someones) nearby who are watching closely. but the nice thing is, if i do something that is actually weird or that would make me stand out in some other place where people are not normally watching every move i make, here i receive the same amount of attention for those things as i do for normal things. so, why not where crazy hats, dance, sing, and play weird card games?