An Exotic Animal

In some places, we Westerners are still a curiosity. At the Beijing Zoo, a street sweeper asked in Chinese where I was from. I answered “Wo xie mei guo ren.” (I am American).  He told my friend Xiuyu (Judy) he was surprised.  He’d assumed I was Russian.  I can understand.  While I hold an American passport, I have the top heavy, thick waisted build of an East European. My grandparents, all of them Jewish, were from Austria, Latvia, Romania, and Poland.

The zoo sweeper said “Hello,”—apparently this was the only English word he knew.  Shyly, he asked if I would pose with him for a picture.  I considered the pandas more photogenic but obliged. Seeing this, another man asked if I’d pose with him.