i just had a visit from some friends from my school, which was really nice. it made me notice how much i've come to take for granted about china. well not exactly take for granted, but just no longer pay attention to. for first time visitors to china, everything is novel. everything is a story, from the way that the vendors haggle in the markets to people playing "go" on the streets. in a way, i'm sad that i'm past that point. certainly, i would find more to write blog entries about if i could find all the encounters of my day worth telling people about. but at the same time, its nice to know that for me, china no longer has the edge of strangeness and foreignness that it has to newer visitors. walking down a street in beijing is just like walking down a street in new york. it really is home, and although i know that nowhere could ever be home to me in the way that new york is, i do feel at home when i'm here.
there was one thing that happened during my friends' visit, though, that did strike me as worth writing about. we were out at a Uyger restaurant, which serves the cuisine of the muslim inhabitants of Xinjiang, in china's west (one of my favorite types of chinese food, for those of you who have never heard me talk about it). we were eating our food, when all of a sudden a chopstick hit my friend mandie in the head. we were understandably confused, and looked over to see where it could have come from. at the same time, one of my friends pointed out that the chopstick's partner had narrowly missed hitting me. we spotted the only group in that area, a large-built man sitting across from a pretty girl. both looked vaguely eastern european, and mandie later pointed out that they were definitely muslims. the man was facing away from us, and did not look in our direction as we stared inquisitively at him. i think we had all figured that he could not possibly have thrown the chopsticks, since he didn't seem to be aware that we were there. but then, he stood up and sort of turned toward us, and said "America" in a really angry voice. the girl sort of rushed over to him and tried to calm him down, and then he turned away and they left. this was pretty scary, because the guy was a really big dude, and if he had further pursued the matter, it could have ended badly. it sort of made me glad that i've chosen china as the foreign country i live in, because the majority of chinese have no beef with americans. at the same time, it was scary, because we realized that there isn't really anyone over here to intercede in matters like that. the chinese philosophy is generally to keep out of issues that don't concern them. for instance, there was a waitress standing right next to the man for most of this, but she didn't say anything.