Eric's Beijing Diary

Last night I was studying at the coffee bar near Fujitsu, when a lady came and sat down at my table. She is a young professional who apparently works for some sort of local journal. She did not speak a word of English, and I am not very conversational in Mandarin yet, so I did not get a detailed description, but she was very interested in talking with me. As we were talking, she was overcome with an irresistible urge to touch my beard. It was rather amusing to watch her slowly reaching across the table.

You know, it is not always easy for Americans to appreciate the extreme cultural deprivation that many young people in China are afflicted with. This young lady was not strange or abnormal. She was bright and friendly, and her boyfriend insisted on buying my coffee. But I guess she just could not live with the thought of having been so close to a beard without having taken the opportunity to touch it. The thing that really concerns me most, though, about young people like this young lady and her boyfriend, is that they do not speak a word of English. When I meet older people in China, I do not expect them to speak English. But young professionals who do not speak English are frozen to very limited future. They do not have a lot of options.