Jackie

When I remember the first time I met Jackie I always laugh to myself. It's strange looking back on that day not so many months ago when I first let her into my apartment.

It was a sunny morning in September, the weather in Changsha still hot. I was drinking Oolong tea and offered her some. She brushed past me, said no, no, waving her hand, heels clicking on the floor.

"Where will we have class?"

My little office at the back, detached from the breeze that runs through the house -- the sort of room that is unbearably stuffy in summer and freezing cold in the winter. We sat on the pull-out couch.

She wanted to give me a test, know about my Chinese level, look at my textbook -- I didn't have one?

I'd been expecting Jackie with a sort of nervous anxiety, curious as to what she'd be like. I observed with a certain skepticism her dress and high heels and the sweat droplets on her nose and upper lip. I wondered if I had a choice and began to dread meeting with her 3 mornings a week. Her voice bounced off the bare walls of my still empty office and rang in my ears. It hurt. I wondered if she would stop talking or if she was capable of not screaming.

After the third or so class I decided to fight fire with fire. Every time Jackie asked me a question I'd shout the answer at her equally loudly and in as high a pitch as I could without going too far above the normal range of my voice. I bet it hurt and I wondered if she'd catch on.

"Stop it!", she shouted, "Why are you shouting?" she shouted.

"You're shouting too!" I shouted.

And just like that we resumed our lessons in a more normal tone of voice.

Jackie quickly became my go-to person. I need to open a bank account, move, find an apartment, buy a purse, whatever -- she always has endless suggestions and will make me go 3 hours out of my way in the humid heat of Changsha to save 5 yuan -- less than a dollar. She's one of my dearest friends in China now and I can't help but smile at my first impressions (read dread) of her and what must have been her first impressions of me.

Jackie is loud and I love her for it, especially now that she doesn't shout at me when we have class anymore. She talks endlessly and non-stop; her new dress, the new dumpling place down the street, her work, her professors, her mother, her money, her dreams... and she laughs loud and hearty which is such a rare quality in demur Chinese females. She has an endless appetite, too, and so many of our conversations revolve around the latest thing she ate or what she hopes to eat next -- I always wonder at her slim figure.

We shop together and eat together, I've even "dragged" her to bars a few times, which she insists are evil degenerate places and that she won't drink but she finishes her beer and is always reluctant to leave at the end of the night.

Jackie's favorite phrases:
Romi 你太可爱了！ ("Romi you are too cute!" -- I cannot overstate the frequency with which she says this)
Romi 我太喜欢你了，怎么办？ ("Romi I like you too much, what to do?" -- said ALOT)
Romi 我看见你就想笑！ ("Romi when I see you I just want to laugh" -- Her excuse for laughing all the time)
Romi 这件衣服好看吗？ ("Romi are these clothes pretty?" -- every morning)
Romi 我穿这件衣服好看吗？ ("Romi do I look good in these clothes?" -- every morning immediately following the one above)
Romi 这里的（insert food item）非常，非常好吃！("Romi the (insert food item) here are really, really delicious!" -- every 20 or so meters if we are walking outside)
Romi 你觉得我胖了吗？ (Romi do you think I gained weight? -- immediately following any comment on the deliciousness of any food)

(mis)-Quoted!

The Olympic Torch was relayed through Changsha last Wednesday June 4th and I, along with a handful of other foreign teachers at Hunan University, was invited to attend the opening ceremonies. The relay in Changsha was set to start at the foot of the Yuelu Academy in the heart of the university campus at 8:18 in the morning (the auspicious 8) and university officials saw it as a prime time to show off some of their foreign faculty, going so far as to call it a "free marketing opportunity". I personally felt lucky to view the entire thing from a privileged position without having to fight my way through the crowds of enthusiastic Chinese college students.

The photo above and many variations of it ended up in several of the cities main newspapers as well as several online news sources. I was asked by one of the flag-bearers at the ceremony to hold the flag while he snapped some pictures and in seconds became the target of about 20 trigger-happy photographers for the local news who jumped at the opportunity to capture a shot of a foreigner holding a Chinese flag. What better way to sell newspapers and calm fears of foreign dissenters, protestors, tibetan sympathizers and the like?

Most of the reporters captioned the photo with "Hunan University Foreign Exchange Student", a few got "Foreign Teacher" right. But what bothered me the most was a particular caption in which the reporter quoted me as having said "我今天是长沙人" -- which literally translates to "today I am a Changsha person". I never said that! Most of the photographers didn't ever bother to even ask me anything, assuming I couldn't speak Chinese. I never said anything!

The message itself doesn't personally offend me. I love Changsha. But the fact that the press has absolutely no qualms about literally pulling words out of thin air and passing them on as my own? Hello professionalism? Accountability? Truth? I did not have a chance to see any of the other newspapers where my photo got printed, but I would not be surprised to find that similar misquotations happened elsewhere.

It's hard for me to say if this is singularly a Chinese phenomenon or not. I have never really been interviewed or photographed by a newspaper back home or anywhere else for that matter. But when I learnt that a Japanese friend of mine living in China had been quoted in a newspaper as apologizing in the name of Japan to the Chinese people for the atrocities committed by the Japanese in WWII I couldn't help but make some assumptions.

The Chinese are generally very patriotic and extremely touchy when it comes to foreign perceptions of China and the image of China in the foreign media. Historically they are a society that has closed itself off to the outside world for millennia. As they struggle to deal with these issues and with creating a new image of China in the world one wonders about the role of the Chinese media in defining the country's image for the Chinese people themselves. I can't help feeling that the media here has a tendency to jump at opportunities to portray foreign approval of China (a broad generalization, I know), whether through making up quotes that they wish they had heard or through overindulging in an opportunistic photo op.