My first Taobao order and a subway creeper

This weekend, I spent time exploring new places and riding public transportation to new destinations. I’ll write here about two things that stick out from the weekend and, I think, are important to understanding current Chinese culture: online shopping and dirty old men.

Taobao is a massive Amazon-like website that is central to Chinese material consumption. Although in-person shopping is still necessary and popular, for younger people, Taobao is their first choice.

My first Taobao order cost $4.53. I ordered a glass and black plastic teapot for use with loose leaf tea and six matching teacups. Placing the order took about 45 minutes, but only because I had to use an app to translate 23 screenshots as I entered my shipping address. I requested the address from an international student who has been here for a year and is well-versed in all things foreigner-in-Beijing. My first mistake was removing the parts of the translated address that seemed redundant or didn’t make sense. Really? What was I thinking? Because I had to tinker, it shipped to the wrong address.

Fortunately, the customer service person contacted me to confirm the address. After many messages back and forth and a good workout for my translation app, I was able to update the address. Today, I received a text message that my package had arrived. Hooray! But, after translating the text, all I could understand is that I could pick it up until 7pm and it was at the west gate of campus. Phone in hand, I hustled to the lobby and showed the text to the desk clerk. She pointed a direction, spoke to me in Mandarin, and smiled. I thanked her, walked out the door, and headed that direction.

After finding the west gate, I realized it was the wrong place. I showed a stranger the text, and she walked me across the road to a shop. I showed someone in the shop the text, and he walked me to the next shop. Ta-da! That’s where it was. It’s lovely. I rushed straight back to my apartment, washed everything in boiling water, and am waiting for it to dry. Although circuitous, I’ll count that as a success. Earlier in the day, however, I was not so lucky.

I decided to go souvenir hunting. Looking up supermarkets in my area led me to what Google called a “megastore” that I could access by riding the closest subway line with no transfers. Off I went. All was good until the subway ride home. I ended up standing next to an older man who was talking VERY loudly into his cell phone. That was annoying, but when he hung up, things kicked up a notch. He tried talking to me. When a young woman standing nearby realized that I couldn’t understand anything he was saying, she started translating for me. He asked where I was from. Fine. He asked if I was married. Fine. He asked how long I was in Beijing. Fine. He asked if I had children. Fine. He asked what I was doing in Beijing. Fine.

That’s when it stopped being fine. The young woman suddenly stopped translating and looked around in horror. Several people nearby turned and stared. The older man laughed, so I laughed. I was nervous and uncomfortable. He said something else. More people turned to look. At this point, I started looking around and smiling. He handed me his business card and asked me for my phone number. I said no. He asked me for my WeChat code. I said no. 

As I prepared to depart the subway, the young woman who had been translating tapped me on the shoulder said, “It’s your eyes. They are so beautiful. He shouldn’t be saying those things.” I still don’t have any idea what he said to or about me, but it was likely sexual or derogatory. She was wonderfully kind to speak up and say something nice to me.

Because I’m all about learning stuff, I took some time to think about my reaction. I could have moved away or translated something like “please leave me alone” and shown it to him on my phone. Instead, I laughed and smiled nervously. I didn’t want to humiliate him, no matter how rude he was being to me. In part, that was because I wasn’t completely certain at the time that he was being rude. However, in hindsight, I’m questioning my commitment to being nice or conciliatory over protecting myself. Next time something like that happens, my goal is to move or speak up rather than smiling.

Today was a pretty good day. I have a swanky new tea set, I discovered that most people are incredibly helpful if you look lost and ask for help, and I learned something about myself. There’s a quote lurking out there on the internet about learning about yourself through travel. I’m too tired to look it up, but it feels pretty accurate today.