So today, on my way home from the video shop downtown, I had an interesting experience. After getting on and struggling to maintain balance as the bus cut 3 lanes of traffic to make a hairpin turn through a red light, a Chinese guy in the seat behind me tugged my sleeve and motioned to an empty seat next to him, across the aisle. I thanked him and sat down, and he started talking to me in English.

This isn’t a particularly amazing thing in China. A decent number of locals actually have a pretty good grasp of English, and even though most aren’t fluent, they’re understandable, and it’s possible to have a basic conversation with them. But what made this a little different is that his accent wasn’t right. I know what a Chinese accent sounds like. They stick vowels in weird places and have trouble with “V”s. But his accent didn’t match. It was foreign in a different way. And it was obvious he’d been speaking English most of his life, though he hadn’t learned it in the States.

So I asked. It turns out he was from Kazakhstan! He’d only been in China for five years, and as soon as he explained this it made a lot of sense to me. The accent, his attire, hairdo, and even the cologne he wore (Chinese guys don’t wear cologne). And although we didn’t talk much, since he got off at the next stop, I imagined that his life here isn’t easy. Back in the States I had talked to a Chinese friend who’d grown up in the US and lived in Beijing for a month. She said it was a difficult transition. Although she could speak the language, she thought and acted like an American, and the Chinese couldn’t understand her for it.

And as I was thinking about all of this and wondering what additional challenges a Middle-Eastern-raised Chinese would face here, I really began to appreciate at least one aspect of American life – the cultural diversity. Although China continues to globalize and become familiar with other cultures, foreigners in most cities still stand out as an oddity. A taxi driver just this week almost crashed into a pedestrian because he was distracted by my black roommate. It can be frustrating and cumbersome, but that’s just the nature of a place like this. In many aspects, China is still very much a developing country.