Letters to Lisa Part 9

Letters to Lisa Part 9
Me and Foreigners (part one)
Dateline: Everyday

Dear Lisa,

I think this will be relatively short. I think….. lol
Quick background.. When I first got to Taiwan, the only foreigners I ever saw were co-workers. Then one day I saw some foreigners on the street. I smiled real big and gave them a hearty Midwestern “HI!”. They looked at me like I had the plague and walked away. “Hmmm…. What’s up with that?” After having this experience several times, I decided just to not try to talk to foreigners. I just pissed me off. How dare they be so smug, they are foreigners in this country too. Oh, by the way, they were all white.
Then one day, I saw my first Black foreigner in a Blockbuster. We both looked up with similar amazement and trepidation. I’m thinking, “Is he gonna blow me off too?” The difference is he smiled and me and smiled at him. Then I got the courage to talk to him. He was a nice guy; part African part Taiwanese.

Then I saw a few more black people, again African. They were university students. Another black guy saw me on the street. He was on a motorcycle. He stopped and came back to meet me. Again, he was from Africa, an engineer. No… I don’t know why I keep running into Africans.

I’ll tell you a secret. Yes, I did ask them if they had they same experiences with white people. Yes, they did. Also, did they find have the same experiences with women. Yes, they did.

What does it all mean? Who knows? And for me at this stage of my life, it’s really not worth the extra brain energy it takes to figure it out. But I have to say, it was comforting to be affirmed in my own experiences and feelings.