Questions

One of the advantages of being a foreigner, and looking the part, is that I save myself the bother of being stopped by people making some poll or getting signatures for any campaing in the streets, or to be offered too many shop flyers, or similar things. I would not escape in Europe or the US —as I did not, I was asked once if I wanted to register to vote in their elections—, but here they see me coming and I can tell in their faces how they are quickly making a probability estimate of my understanding any Chinese and, with good reason, they decide it is not worth it.

One day last week, as I was walking along the Gongguan zone, I went past an army of middle-aged women, dressed with white trousers and dark blue polos, that tried to stop anybody that was around. They were probably from some kind of cultural, or even political, association. They looked at me, with a slightly disappointed face, as if thinking: one that gets away. Well, I do not think I would stop for long even if I understood the language. Of course, you never know; I think I am more peaceful here.