Giving up

You know you live in a small town when you introduce yourself to the local bar’s DJ and he responds with, Yes, I’ve read your website. I’ve never been shy about my website, I’ve always encouraged my family to read it (only my sister takes an active interest, I think). I’ve run into reactions in Singapore when friends have not liked what I’ve written, and my answer to them has always been… it is my site and these are my opinions, you can take it or leave it. I’m not more or less opinionated in this piece of virtual real estate than I am in real life — in fact, I probably take more care in what I type than what I say.

Sometimes what comes out of my mouth does not get filtered through my brain first.

These last months in Xiamen have shown me that I do fear other’s condemnation if I say something unpalatable. This is a small town; being persona non grata would be pretty difficult. But I am not happy. I am not happy trying to censor myself and my feelings about living in Xiamen and the people in Xiamen just because some expatriates read it. I’m not happy convincing myself that this is a small town and no one can say what they really think because the repercussions aren’t worth it.

So, fuck it.

There are many human behaviours in Xiamen that are worthy of contempt. Do not, for example, make a pass at me — however subtle — when you know I have a boyfriend. Nothing is going to induce me to cheat, or consider cheating, on Neil. If you’ll notice, the lads I talk to the most and am friendliest and most affectionate with are the ones who respect me, Neil, and their own wives or girlfriends and don’t think that just because they are white males in Xiamen that they can get away with everything. You can’t, you’re a shameless pathetic fool. And I won’t even be your friend. Since I’m not the person who gets hit on the most here in Xiamen (it’s not like I’ve done a poll, but I’m fairly certain other girls get more of this shite than me), I do feel extremely sorry for the girls who have to deal with this. All. The. Fucking. Time.

Thank you for saying you like What’s On Xiamen and you think it’s very helpful. I’m not very good at accepting compliments, but I assure you that I am very pleased people think it’s useful. Please help me with it. I can’t do it all by myself. Surely people must be tired of my writing style by now, how I’m kind of corny and purposely mangle famous old sayings or pop culture references all the time. Help me out here. Everyone says Xiamen needs this, why not help me make it better? It’s so fucking frustrating to talk to people who offer to help and say It’s no problem, I’d love to do it, but when actually asked, make up excuses or magically forget they said anything.

(This is not to criticise those who said they would like to but admit lack of reliability, or those who outline how far they can go to help from the get go. I’m talking to Marjut and Ange here. I appreciate your honesty. For those who have stepped up to the plate and turned in articles, you guys rock, too.)

Superficial conversations on books and movies are fine once in a while, why am I having the same conversations with people I’ve known for a while? Maybe I’m not trying hard enough to make friends, I don’t feel anyone cares to really make friends here, the depth of goodwill correlates directly with how much the other party can benefit the self. I know a lot of people, but there is no one I would consider a real friend, people demand a lot of me and give a lot to me because they care about what happens to me. I miss Mark and Kristen and Wee Delboy, we ‘got’ one another and had disagreements and supported one another and even when we met up after ages of not seeing one another, we still went back to talking like we never moved to three different continents (well, we’ve not tested it with Delboy yet but I’ve no doubt it’ll be the same).

Life isn’t hard.

But I feel confined and solitary.

Maybe it’s China.

Probably not.

It’s probably me.

(Neil does make this life a lot more tolerable but he was a very bad drunk last night and I’m annoyed.)

• 14 Jul 2005