staring

Ok, so I don't feel I've had much culture shock, but one aspect of the Chinese people's culture is grating on me, and that's staring. You get stared at everwhere, whether it be walking down the street, eating meals, and even the occasional stare while doing your thing in the toilet. Of course, there is also my earlier remarks about being stared at while getting changed at a swimming pool... You get used to people staring and to some extent you deal with it, but I still don't like it. It can be really invasive. My main way of dealing with it is to ignore it, or send a fixated stare back, and lately when someone's deliberately trying to get a good look, to look downwards and away as much as possible to deprive them of any "stare enjoyment" factor...

I haven't worked out how to say in Chinese that "staring is extremely impolite in the West" etc. This combined with the constant exclamations of "mei guo ren" (American) or "lai wei" (foreigner) that for some reason Chinese people feel compelled to say when you walk past is really annoying.

I've thought up many shirts I could print up to 'fight back'.... one's like "have a good stare"... or "yes, I'm a foreigner"... maybe even, "I'm a foreigner - you should stare at me"... or taking it further, "I'm a foreigner" (and on the back) "want to try and rip me off?".... of course all of these would be more effective if written in Chinese characters on the reverse...