Mitsuwa Marketplace and Couple Purikura

Hello everyone! Boba and I took a trip on Sunday to Mitsuwa Marketplace a Japanese specialty grocery store that has a food court and a few other stores located in New Jersey. We do have a few Sunrise Marts in NYC that sell Japanese items and food, but we went to Mitsuwa specifically for the purikura machine. Which I was super excited to discover that they had as I've been wanting to take purikura pics for awhile and have never done it before. It was actually pretty easy to get to and their website gave great instructions which I really appreciated. It's only about 25-30 minutes from Port Authority, so it didn't take too long to get there.

The purikura machine is located in the store that sells traditional Japanese items and Japanese pop culture merch like wall scrolls and anime figurines. The store is right beside Kinokuniya and located near the Gundam kits.

The booth has a credit card option, but it doesn't work so make sure to bring cash. It costs $7 dollars for one round of photos. It was actually quite fun to do and the pictures came out super cute. I liked how it didn't feel like everyone could see you while you were taking photos. Most American photo booths I've been to the few times I've used them has the side out which is awkward. I wasn't used to the timing section, but it makes since so people don't decorate all day long while others are waiting to use the machine.

You could have one photo sent to your smartphone for free which I thought was a nice touch. If you wanted to purchase the rest of the pictures for digital download it was only 3 dollars. I decided to buy them all in case I lost the printed photos.

So, I'm a Sellout

Let me set the scene for you: I'm walking on a nice day in Brooklyn, not too hot, not too cold. Holding hands with Boba who I hadn't seen in in three months due to me teaching in China. We're heading to see my bestie and her awesome girlfriend to spend a chill day at their apartment. Then it happened, a guy walked past me, leaned way in my personal space all by neck and called me a sellout. 

....

.....

Hold up...

We kept walking, but I stopped at the end of the block as I processed what had happened.

The strange thing about the situation is that I wasn't upset. I'm from the deep South, so I've experienced a lot of ignorance and flat out racism. I was more annoyed by the fact that he felt his thoughts mattered to me, a person that he didn't even know. He knew nothing of my relationship, saw something he didn't like, and projected some mess onto us. I also was heated that he got in my personal space. Luckily, Boba and I are pretty chill and felt it was best to just keep it moving and not dwell on it. I hadn't experienced anything like that before, but I am aware of what interracial couples may face. I had heard stories from my friends and read about different couples' experiences on blogs. I also feel that calling someone a sellout is ridiculous because you have no idea why they are with their partner. Like somehow I magically am not black anymore because I am dating someone non black. The term implies that I hate myself and black people and that I view other races as better than my own. I read a post that breaks down why these notions are false. 

Now, I'm not gonna sit here and act simple like there aren't people that date interracially for the wrong reasons (self-hate, fetishism, etc.). But that ain't me. I'm not dating my boyfriend because I have feel some type of way about black men like some would assume. I was taught to judge people by their character, so I have always selected the people in my life by that principle. I love Boba for Boba, not because he’s a different race than me. 

We make the best silly faces together ^^

It's fine if people have their own opinions on the issue, but you shouldn't use them to judge or shame other people. I'm very lucky that my parents raised me to listen to the people that matter and disregard folks that are irrelevant.

Dongying Time Part 2

Sorry it has been so long since I updated! Things have finally been calming down for me. Happy new year! Enjoy Bob's last couple of days in China!

On Sunday (5/5), I took Boba to the electronic mall. He is a technophile, so I figured he would have lots of eyegasms checking out the merchandise. We meet up with Remus and Kim; she is one of Remus’ students. The three of us had gone out together a few times before this outing. 

Before we met up I sort of had a weird vibe, like I should have cancelled or something, but I thought nothing of it. When we arrive, Kim stepped in front of me and placed her hand on Boba’s shoulder. She proceeded to tell him that he was very handsome. -_- It definitely irritated me and rubbed me the wrong way. Since I’m abroad, my second thought was is this culturally acceptable? Usually my feelings aren't off, but you never know. I had no idea at the time (I know now that it isn’t. I told Dean what happened, and he was shocked and angry that she did that). 

Sometimes I get the feeling that some people here are shocked that I have a boyfriend and are even more shocked to discover that he's a different race than me. First off, no one expects me to have a love life. Remus says the first question he usually gets is does he have a girlfriend. The next question is does he like Chinese girls which is super awkward for him because he's not an Asian woman fetishizing douche. Foreign women in China don't usually get asked these questions. I don't think it has anything to do with my attractiveness; I think it's mostly based on me being Black and female. There is a lot of issues with anti-blackness and colorism in China (as well as other countries in East Asia). Lighter skin (specifically white skin) is perceived to be better than darker skin; these ideas existed before Western colonialism. Some women here use umbrellas in the summertime because they don’t want to get darker. Also, for some reason here the male foreigners are constantly asked about dating but the females are never asked. Nicky met her husband (Pan Chao) in Dongying and they were recently married and people (foreigners and locals) are very shocked to hear that she has a husband let alone a Chinese one.

I personally wouldn’t ever do what she did; Brit and I have told each other that we think the other’s boyfriend is super cute, but I wouldn’t tell her boyfriend that. If I made a remark, it would be about how they looked great together (they are so freakin cute!). But like I said before, something just made me uncomfortable. Boba handled it like a boss which one of the many things I love about him. We’re both super nice people, and we don’t think everyone wants us. But we both can sense when someone is flirting or stepping out of line, and we politely disengage. He politely said thank you, stepped back to stand beside me, and took my hand. Needless to say, I was ready for the outing to be over. We hung out for about an hour looking around. Then we took the bus back to the college campus. On the bus, Kim ran into a friend. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her gesture towards Boba and say something in Mandarin to her friend. 

When we arrived on campus, I could sense that she still wanted to hang out. I said I wanted to take a nap. She reluctantly said goodbye, and we headed to Remus’ apartment. We hung out there until dinner time. 

Beijing Trip: Day 3

On my third day in Beijing, Boba and I went to the Summer Palace!!!! We were both super excited; we were also supposed to visit Tian'amen Square and the Forbidden City, but it was SO hot and we both had seen enough! We just wanted to relax after the Summer Palace. 

Boba and I woke up around 10 am to eat before we left. I didn't know if there were any decent food options around the Summer Palace, so I wanted to make sure we wouldn't get hungry. The last thing you want to deal with is intense hunger, crazy heat, and expensive prices.

We walked to the DongSiShiTiao station and transferred to Line 4 at XiZhiMen. Then we got off at BeiGongMen which wasn't too far from the Summer Palace. The Beijing subway system is super easy to navigate and very affordable at 2 kuai per ride. 

We did have some interesting moments on the way. These two older Chinese women stared at me like I was an alien and to make matters worse they did it the whole ride. After a few stops a white gentleman got on the train. They didn't even look at him. Some Chinese people think that white people are normal and everyone else is not. The excuse I often hear is that the majority of foreigners that come to China are White. I also think it has to do with China's discrimination against non-white teachers. A lot of schools here only want White teachers to work at their school. This tends to be a bigger problem at training schools, but it's still a rampant issue in China. Here's a post from a tumblr run by a 22 year old Black man living in Taiwan about this issue. I do know that Taiwan is a separate country (although the Chinese government will swear up and down it isn't and teaches its people this), but they both tend to treat foreigners the same. 

I just ignored them, but there would have been a problem had phones or cameras popped out. I have only had a few annoying picture incidents during my time here. There comes a point during your time in China that you have to not become annoyed or irritated by the staring. One thing that wasn't hard for me to overcome was having people talk about you while you're near them. Heck, rude people do this back in America, but in a language that I can understand. As long as the person isn't pointing and/or laowaiing the hell out of me, we're fine (laowai is kind of a rude term for foreigner. Some non-native born Chinese embrace it, and some dislike it. I'll talk about this in a later post). 

Most Chinese people on the train weren't staring. I think when Chinese people live in Beijing, they see a lot of foreigners, so it becomes normal to them. So, I figured they were tourists from their behavior. I could also tell by their attire. Most people in Beijing dress very stylishly regardless of their age. Turns out my observation was correct, they got off at the same stop as us.

Next, we followed the crowd of people to the Summer Palace. It wasn't too far down the street. There were some ladies selling bottles of water. I decided to ask how much they were, and to my surprise they were really cheap and the bottles were big. I bought one for us since we had forgot to bring water. Boba and I were starting to feel the heat. I figured prices would go way up once we got inside. We came to an opening and then we saw it!