“No, I’m not Russian, but thanks for asking. French, really. Yes, I’m fully aware of the fact that I speak Chinese. Trust me, it’s not something I picked up last week.”
Beijing is full of tourists in August. I spot like twenty different white or black people every day. We stand out. Sometimes, we nod when we pass each other. I don’t even know why we do that. One of those “yep, not sure what this character means either?” nods?
“Where are you from?” I can’t help asking when I’m stuck with a foreigner in a long public toilet line—my favourite kind, no door, five women squatting together. I hope my fellow foreigner knows that Beijing hutong toilets are very basic.
“Russia.”
Ah, she’s actually Russian. I wish I could take her to the convenience store downstairs from our building and introduce her to the cashier who asks me every day if I’m Russian—short-term memory?—and point out the differences between us.
Wait, there’s no difference between us.
I mean, she’s younger, prettier, whiter… but yeah, we look like foreigners, Russian or French, same difference. Never mind.
“Where do you live in Russia?”
Somewhere far from Moscow and way up north. Another Yakutsk situation. We can’t find her city on Baidu even though the bathroom line is long enough that we try, zooming out, in and out again.
“Somewhere here,” she concludes, pointing to a place way too close to Siberia, the Arctic Circle and all. “You should visit someday.”
“Er, yeah… how is life in Russia?”
“Dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” And you’ve just invited me here, I add mentally.
“Many bears.”
It’s not Russian humour or a metaphor. Apparently, there are bears roaming around, she explains in broken English.
“And politicians. Not good. Putin…”
Ah, I see eye to eye politically with a Russian woman from God knows where, hurrah, there’s hope!
“I want to move to Florida.”
I don’t have time to tell her about Trump and alligators—it’s my turn to pee and I really need to go. I’m in front of her. She turns around when she notices the bathroom setup, and this is how our conversation ends because I can’t tell her about the nearby mall where the squat toilets have doors while I’m squatting. I can talk behind a bathroom door, but I can’t talk when there’s no door. Way too intimate.
I don’t chat with Russian people that much otherwise, mostly because I don’t speak Russian and they don’t really speak English. We’re both too busy figuring out China, anyway.
I gladly chat with Chinese people, though. Speaking (enough of) the language helps me get a glimpse into their lives and offer a glimpse of mine. We talk about kids, food, life in general. Despite what the media might claim in the West, I’ve never felt any animosity toward foreigners here. We’re just… you know, people. It’s not our fault if many of our leaders are fearmongering, warmongering idiots.
“Are Chinese husbands better than French ones?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He is the only one I have ever had.”
Most of the Chinese people I talk to have never travelled outside China, which isn’t surprising given the size of the country. It’s like in Brazil: domestic travel first; going abroad is expensive.
“I’d like to move to the US,” a young Chinese guy admitted in Shenyang.
“It’s not that great,” I explained. “I don’t think it’s better than China.”
“But the Americans I see in China look so happy compared to us!”
“Maybe they’re happy because they’re in China?”
Here are the people of Beijing, August 2026 edition!
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