A Story of Culture Shock

While eating dinner last night I learned a few cultural lessons in one story. The girls were sitting at one table and the boys at another. All of a sudden the girls ran over to the boys table and started laughing loudly, pointing behind me, and laughing, without really trying to hold it in. I turned around to see where there amused fingers were pointing and my eyes were greeted by a young man's (fill in whatever euphemism your prefer for "butt crack") hanging out for all the restaurant, most obviously 8 pre-teen Chinese orphans. My response was a failed attempt to subdue my own laughter and hush the kids. My laughter, of course, not directed at the unintentional yet still indecent exposure, but at the hysterics of kids.

It is OK in China to tell someone they are fat. It is perfectly normal and accepted for a potential employer to discriminate against someone because they are ugly, short, etc., and to tell them so. Apparently it is not normal in China to ignore the draft you feel on your backside and neglect to pull up your pants. It is OK to gawk, point, and stare (I know, I am a white guy that lives in a town with 10 other white guys and 2 black people). I understood all of these cultural nuances before last night, but just never saw them displayed by a group of 10 year old Chinese kids in America, where we only laugh and point on the inside.

*** Sorry, I do not have a picture to attach to this post.