articles
China Elevator Stories
“Where’s your Soviet companion?”
I chat with the employee of a bathhouse in Siping.
09/03/2015
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
It’s January 2015. I go to a bathhouse. When the employee opens my locker, she asks me: “Where’s your companion today?”
I reply: “Who do you mean? My husband?”
“No. The tall woman who came to the bathhouse yesterday. The Soviet.”
“Umm, I don’t know that woman. Actually, I don’t know any other foreigners here.”
The employee stares at me, incredulously.
Interestingly, many people in Siping still refer to Russians as “Soviets.”
Have you ever had a similar conversation?
This is part of the series ‘Conversations with Locals in China,’ where I share conversations with Chinese people on my blog.