Celebrity Status

Before moving here I was warned that foreigners attracted a lot of attention and not to let it get to me, which honestly made me question whether I could really handle living in China. I'm all too familiar with the celebrity status foreigners can have. Where I lived in high school groups of little kids would latch on to foreigners passing by in the streets and follow them shouting "you," "foreigner," "money," or whatever other random English phrase they knew until they got

Zhongyang Dajie in Harbin.

a little attention (if you were lucky) or money (if you weren't). In their wake would come beggars and students looking to practice their English. On the fringes were the people who'd rarely (if ever) seen a foreigner who couldn't help staring at the strangeness passing by.

Maybe that doesn't sound so bad on the surface, but when your every public movement is tracked, often with the feeling of a town crier going before and behind you, then going even a block down the street to pickup some groceries or grab a coffee can be a frustrating experience. For this introvert it was a draining one. I budgeted my time out and about, and would return home completely wiped. The experience also left me with a rather deep-seated insecurity about friendship after being approached by so many people looking to be 'friends' - that is, looking for someone to give them money, marry them, provide free English lessons, find them a foreign wife, make them cooler in the eyes of their friends, pay for their children's school fees, et cetera.

Returning to North America after this experience I found myself going through withdrawal. The attention had become so normal that losing it - blessed relief that that was! - left me wondering what was wrong with me that no one did a double take when I walked down the street. It made me realize that I had gotten used to my celebrity status, and it left me with a deep sympathy for what truly famous people must go through. (Can you imagine going through life never just being able to go to the grocery store, the park, et cetera, without being hassled? What a nightmare!)

Withdrawals or no, the thought of living with that kind of attention again was almost a deal breaker for me when I was considering the move to northeastern China. And while I do notice the double takes as I walk down the street here, my celebrity status is nothing like back home. I had actually almost forgotten about my concern till today, when a random kid walked up to me at one of the beer gardens on Zhongyang Dajie (downtown Harbin's pedestrian street) and asked if he could take his picture with me - I may not be in the big leagues anymore, but apparently I'm still a celebrity! I think, however, that this is the kind of low key celebrity status that I can handle.