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Alien? Well, this is another planet

By Dinah Chong Watkins (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-14 07:59

Getting to grips with expat life takes a certain temperament ?and plenty of mime skills

The acne scars along the security guard's jaw line was a telltale sign of his youth. We shuffled in single file, passing through the metal detector one by one. The bright green overcoat was two sizes too big for his slender frame, as was the military-issued belt, looped twice around his skinny waist.

He stopped me and pointed at my handbag. I gave it to him and he did the customary once over, but just as I held out my hand to take it back he stopped and reached into the bottom. He pulled out a paper-wrapped tube no more than 8 centimeters long and eyeballed it. The line of mainly male passengers behind me hissed impatiently under their breath at the delay.

The cold winter air whipped through the terminal and we all wanted to get onboard the Soviet-made but heated turbo-prop. Then, without asking, he peeled off the wrapping to reveal a tube made up of two parts. Before I could reach over and grab it, he pushed the bottom tube and out popped the cotton-packed feminine hygiene product. The sight of the tiny missile with its string flying askew took him by surprise long enough for me to grab my handbag and scamper red-faced.

Welcome to China, circa 1984.

When I first got on that plane to Beijing I didn't realize I was changing my status from citizen to temporary foreigner, or in more polite terms, expatriate. For many of us, what begins as an initial two- or three-year assignment or adventure turns into a lifetime of being neither here nor there. Not immigrants, not natives; sort of long-term visitors.

It takes a certain temperament to embrace the expatriate life in Beijing. If you require milk packed in 1-gallon jugs, drivers who stay in their lane and signal, reading the Sunday paper on the same day it's printed, as well as large parking spaces and even larger grocery carts, then don't leave home. If, however, you're open to eating what you may otherwise deem as a pet, or coaching kid's soccer with a mix of the local language, English and a healthy dose of mime, or even occasionally finding yourself in the opposite sex's bathroom, you may just fit in.

There's no denying that expats are given special treatment, deservedly or not. Just being ourselves gives us VIP access through the velvet ropes. It's a long drop when we return home and become one of the masses again.

My son, who was raised in Asia and is used to live-in help, spent a summer back home in the United States' Midwest with his grandparents. At lunch his young cousins each grabbed cold cuts, bread, cheese and juice on the counter and started to eat. My 8-year-old son sat at the dining table, looked up and said: "Who's going to serve me?"

Expats are like immigrants in many ways. We gravitate to each other, not only by nationality but also by language. We tend to live among ourselves, forming communities around international schools, stores and restaurants that serve up recognizable dishes. In our home countries, we tend to take a dim view of immigrants who don't assimilate, who don't learn the language; but as expats we're not only encouraged to stay in a few convenient, government-sanctioned areas, we're complimented on our language ability even though a toddler would find the conversation stifling.

There seems to be a threshold when a transient expat turns into a permanent one. Three years and you're out, four years and you're wobbling, five years and you're the proud owner of a two-story townhouse in New Dynasty Richland.

We enjoy the faint glamorous sheen that drapes the shoulders of expats, slightly reminiscent of the colonial-age travelers before us like Ernest Hemingway, Jim Thompson and David Hasselhoff (in his brief foray to Germany between Baywatch and America's Got Talent). But with proof lying in the abundance of Irish-themed pubs and Texas diners side by side with the mutton hotpot joints, one thing rings true: you can take the expat out of the country but you can't take the country out of the expat.

The author is a Canadian freelance writer based in Beijing. To comment, e-mail metrobeijing@chinadaily.com.cn. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of METRO.