raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Or some kind of mysterious liquid, that is. For some reason, walking on the sidewalks here is an invitation to get splashed -- water, toothbrush juice, urine, who knows—falling from an unidentified location above. Also, Chinese babies pee in the streets—in fact, they have a hole cut out in their bottoms for easy access—so I have become wary of even the most innocuous looking puddles.

As it turns out, the Chinese find Westerners’ obsession with hygiene totally bizarre. Of course, this hygiene issue—or lack thereof—leads to some interesting, albeit sometimes disgusting, dining scenarios. For one thing, knives are nonexistent-chopsticks only- so people just grab large chunks of anything and cram them into their mouths. Since my chopstick use is mediocre at best—I’m way far too clumsy/shaky to get a good grasp on those things—I spill food everywhere (yes, more than usual). But it’s cool, because I’ve found that meals here frequently involve bits of rice and noodles flying everywhere as everyone eats in a flurry of chopsticks and chatter. Also, people use their chopsticks to eat common food: everything is shared, which as a public health student and the daughter of an infection control nurse, makes me secretly cringe with every bite. No one has a problem with bringing their bowl to their mouths and sucking up noodles or rice like a human Hoover. Also, subject is too personal or bizarre for conversation. This weekend, I was chatting with a biostatistician at the Chinese CDC, and he asked me friendly but strange questions like how much I “prioritized money.” This question, I’ve found is a common one, as all Chinese people seem to think Americans are loaded. When I told him I had a cat, he asked me if my cat had had “its genitalia removed;” we proceeded to have a five minute conversation about the pro’s and con’s of removing Victor’s junk. He segued right into a more philosophical realm with next question: “Are you a Christian?” (my response: uh…..)

Actually, much to my personal delight, I’ve been exploiting my so-called Christianity here. At home, where my Catholicism consists of little more than church attendance for the rare wedding, the memory of 12 years of hideous plaid jumpers, and a lingering sense of guilt, I can hardly claim the religion as my own. In China, I find myself employing my so-called faith to get out of things I don’t feel like doing. This works well with Chinese people or Westerners of the non-American variety, because they either don’t understand what Catholicism is (Chinese) or they are somewhat afraid of it (Europeans). The excuse is handy because of its versatility: I can use it to get out of eating meat, doing things on Sunday, or just about anything I like, as my recent encounter with one feisty Scot exemplifies. We were at a bar around closing time, when he invited me under dubious pretenses to share an after-hours hot pot. (dear family: FYI, hot pot is a type of food, not a type of illegal herb).

“I totally would, but it’s Saturday night, and I have to get up early for Church tomorrow. You know, the Catholic thing…” I said by way of explanation.

“Are all Catholic girls this difficult?” he asked, disgruntled.

“Only ones who are studying to become nuns,” I said, before grabbing my roomies and hailing a cab, laughing all the way out the door. My Israeli roommates, by the way, find my Catholic excuses hilarious—the next step is to get them to try it out.

I’ve also been telling a disproportionate number of nun stories lately, mostly to horrify my UK peers, who apparently view Catholicism as some sort of draconian torture. Of course I have to perpetuate this belief by regaling them with tales of the time Sr. Adele punished me for poor reading skills by pinching clothespins to my ears, bruising me for weeks, or how, every time an ambulance passed, Sr. Mary Norberta would pray that the victims were not Catholic. These stories are not only untrue, they’re stolen from Pat Conroy, who has a far more imaginative and distorted view of a Catholic childhood than do I. I’m not sure why I find this so amusing, when I should be grateful simply to have some undiluted English conversation. In fact, the tiny fraction of my soul which has been forever imprinted with twice-a-week Masses and endless confessionals recoils in horror—I know I’m gonna pay for this someday. But in the meantime, since I highly suspect that the Chinese are laughing at my own poor dining etiquette (in fact I know they are—I finally learned the word for chopsticks, and can hear them saying something about kuai zi as they stare and laugh), and the Israelis gab away in Hebrew, I’ll take my mischief where I can get it—even if I’m the only one laughing.