I bet they miss us too.

I like it here, but i remember and miss all this stuff that i've been used to while growing up. I guess the evil you know you're fonder of then the one you don't.



I miss the market people. The fawning scooter men, the matronly women who ran the stalls and whipped their workers into shape. Who constantly cheated and mis-priced the food just for our benefit and who stared at us as if we hadn't been there a couple of times every week since creation.
I miss bargaining at the Splendid China stores down the road, and how even if they didn't remember us a the bargain savvy foreigners we'd always get to see the look of terror on their faces as it all comes back to them and they sob openly in the knowledge that, no they wont be able to make a meal of us dumb foreigners.
Speaking of meals...I miss food street, the constant smell of coriander and spicy SiChuan cai made walking through the mass of tables with people smacking loudly and talking as if they had all been struck by a bolt of lightening, the annoying waitresses 'convincing you' quite physically to patron their outdoor restaurant, made it all somehow enjoyable.
I miss bargaining at the second hand market, they were usually craftier so it was more of a gamble as to how much money you were unwittingly giving them. I miss going downtown for computer parts or MP3 players to constantly replace the old ones that broke - often.
I miss the mini-buses. Their screeching tyres was a constant reminder of life on the streets even to the early morning hours. I even forgive them for letting us off a couple blocks too far every time.
I miss the people who would always tell us how good our chinese was after we'd spoken a word or two to them. "Do you speak chinese?" "Not at all!" "Wow, your chinese is so good!"
I miss my DVD vendors that I never got to tell of my ardent love, I guess my often trips to their stores might have let them know that they were beloved. Their trust always comforted me, like the times I had to take broken DVD's back and they accepted them without question.

The people; there were always so many. At the night markets, circling around most foreigners, out on the streets searching for arguments to watch and call their friends to view. Gathering to "play" on the weekends and constantly going out to the stores or eating. Because most of them were short sometimes you'd be walking along in a field of black massing figures. My clone theory worked really well there, I'd spot clones almost everyday. Of course you'd be constantly watching out for your wallet, and anything of little or no value you were carrying. Haven't you noticed how beggars always look cloned? I don't miss the beggars.
I miss the Bao-ans, with their self given sense of importance and high heeled shoes. Or maybe they were just tall. They always thought they knew best but were usually wrong/easy to side-step. They lacked any real authority, and we loved them for it. The laws they usually decided to enforce were stupid, and you could tell they didn't really care about the actual rule, only their secret wish that maybe this time they'd get a foreigner to obey them and live to tell the tale.
Cheap alcohol, even if it was sweet.
The vendors, who were always so cheap(yes, we buy vendors). The grimy stalls by the roadsides selling corn, sweet potatoes, dofu. The Si-chuan shish kabobs were so nice. Not necessarily clean, there was risk involved. People were often unscrupulous. Like the watermelon some apparently inject with food colouring, and the wax covered rotten tangerines, or the fake eggs. I seem to be getting to the things I don't miss.