As an English teacher, I have lived many places like Brazil, Japan, Turkey, and Sweden. But none of these countries compare to China.
作为一个英语老师，我在巴西、日本、土耳其、瑞典等许多地方居住过。不过这些国家都无法与中国相比较。
I have been living in China for six months now and I love the people and the customs. I would like to tell you about one of my first impressions (1) of this great, and at times, daunting (2) country.
After a short stay in Beijing, we went to Xi’an, a beautiful and historical city with many tourist sights. One of these is a mountain called Hua Shan.
在北京住了一小段时间，我们又前往西安，一个美丽又古老的城市，旅游景点众多。其中一处便是华山。
Mark and I decided to go to this mountain alone. We were tired of (4) all the “special tours” offered to laowai. They were in fact far more expensive because they were for laowai! Mark and I don’t speak Chinese but we were confident (5) that we would be okay.
The bus took about two and a half hours from Xi’an before finally leaving us at a small village at the foot (6) of the great mountain. After we got off the bus, we sat in a rather dirty room with many excited older people. We didn’t know what to do. Then out of nowhere (7), two young Chinese people appeared. To our blind luck (8), they spoke a little English. They told us that this was a tour group going up the mountain by cable car (9), not by foot. We wanted to walk. So, we joined this young couple.
For the next 48 hours we enjoyed the hospitality (10) of these young Chinese students. We only communicated (11) basic things but the warmth of friendship was there. My friend and I were a little nervous at first. We thought that these students wanted us to pay for everything, but that was not true. In fact, they saved us 600RMB! This is what the hotel manager wanted us to pay to sleep in a room because we were foreigners! Our younger friends were embarrassed by this blatant rip-off (12) and told the manager that we would only pay 25RMB each for the night, which we did.
Going up the mountain, local people stopped us many times. Mark was stopped several times for photos. Chinese people also stopped us to practice their English. This was a refreshing (13) change from the usual “Hello, Hello!” It was nice to talk to these people. They showed real interest in what we had to say.
上山途中，当地人多次拦住我们。马克被拦下好几次与人合影。还有一些中国人拦住我们练习英语。从通常的“你好”“我好”中，这一变化可谓令人精神一振。与他们交谈很愉快。他们对于我们要说的话很感兴趣。
Many foreigners in China worry that Chinese people only see them as walking dollar signs (14), and in some places this is true. However, not everyone is like this. It was wonderful and rewarding (15) to meet these two genuine (16) people. I like to look at them as representatives of the new China.
许多在中国的外国人担心中国人只把他们当作“冤大头”。在有些地方确实如此。然而，并不是每个人都像这样的。能遇见这两个真诚的学生真好，对我们非常有帮助。我愿意把他们看作新中国的代表人物。
In the West, we do not stare (17) at people as Chinese people do here. Westerners also do not shout out, “laowai!” when we see a foreigner. But we also do not often help foreign people, at least not without being asked. This is a strange paradox. In the West, we are more open but we are also more conservative. So I ask the question: why are laowai treated like this in China? And is it changing?
