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China Elevator Stories
“Mum, She’s A Foreigner”
A little girl starts talking about me in an elevator in Shenzhen.
21/11/2012
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
A young woman and her three-year-old daughter enter the elevator right after me. I press the button for the 18th floor; the little girl stands on tiptoe to press the button for the 15th floor.
The girl asks her mother: “Mum, why is the button for the 18th floor pressed?”
Her mother replies: “Auntie is living on the 18th floor.”
The girl then says: “Mum, she’s a foreigner. A foreigner.”
Her mother answers: “No, she’s not.”
The girl insists: “But she is a foreigner! Look, she’s a foreigner!”
Her mother, seemingly embarrassed, says: “Okay, maybe you’re right. Come on, let’s go.”
Have people ever talked about you, thinking you wouldn’t understand their language?
This is part of the series ‘Conversations with Locals in China,’ where I share conversations with Chinese people on my blog.