57. Blissful ignorance

What benefits do you have as a expatriate living in a foreign country? I thought today blissful ignorance was one of them.

Living in another country is different to just visiting that country on holiday. You encounter day to day situations you don't get the time to experience on a holiday and as a foreigner you can manage to bypass them, gain from them or vent your frustration at them without getting into as much of a bother as you would back home.

Situation 1: Leaflet givers

Just like home leaflet givers go out of their way to plant some kind of useless material in your hands. However I have found them here to retract their Chinese written leaflets from your oncoming path (as they make the judgement you would not be able to read it). It’s one less worry.

Situation 2: School canteen

School lunch’s consist of dubious meat with tasty sauce, rice and two vegetable sides. There are two different types of veg sides, one is sloppy and horrible the other is crunchy often combined with egg and quite yummy. Through some foreign lingo of grunting and gesturing, I manage to get two of the better veg dishes and sometime even come up for seconds.

It’s not allowed to have two crunchy vegetable sides but the poor ladies don’t have the English to tell me No. Every little helps.

Situation 3: The confrontations

Every now again you can get in a heated argument usually with a taxi driver. It is a welcome tonic to release a vent of anger in your own local swear lingo. As I know they are doing the same.

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Being a foreigner in Shanghai is great though. You don't get the celebrity style attention that's afforded in the smaller cities and in general you are respected quite a lot. 

Clubs often give you free tables with questionable booze so you can go into their club, and old folk are often very warm around you especially when you hold the lift for them.

I suppose the Brits have been here since the 1830's. Though we didn't exactly shower ourselves in glory with the Opium war we started. However despite the way we enacted ourselves on the law and public back then, the public in general treat you very well.

For the ones who don't you have that blissful ignorance to fall back on.