To Wear or Not to Wear...

Remember that dream where you’re naked and everyone is staring at you? You know people are looking, and you know there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re the only one. You feel ashamed, but at the same time you know you must stand your ground and maintain your dignity or all hope is lost.

I had an experience similar to that the other day. I can’t say it was nearly that bad as I was indeed clothed. However, I was also wearing a helmet. I had my first experience riding a tiny toy-like bike in heavy city traffic, and I decided that if people are going to stare at me because I’m foreign, they might as well stare at me while I’m a little less fearful of sustaining head injuries in the event of being cut off, forced to veer into someone else's motor-bike, and landing in the middle of the street with swarms of hasty city bikers nearly missing my skull. So, naturally, in a crowd of about a million commuters, being the only white, red-headed, blue eyed, more-than-100-pound foreigner wearing a helmet in the whole of Hangzhou, I got a lot of looks. Yet, arriving back to campus in one piece to with a bike-basket full of groceries to cook dinner with somehow made it worth the humiliation.