Today I had lunch with a new friend. Hiromi-a Japanese expat. Our relationship is interesting because she doesn't speak English and my Japanese is limited to "1,2, 3, 4, 7,/that is a watch./ is that a car?, thanks, good morning and do you speak Chinese?" Thus we communicate solely through our mutual second language. She has been here for 4 years and has another 4 to go.

Through our combined broken Chinese, we get along very well. She, like me, understands the limitations of conversation with our Chinese friends (i.e world events, politics, etc) and appreciates having an open-minded female to talk with. We come from very different backgrounds in the grand scheme of things, but in China we are more alike than not.

I find this to be true with most expats. You are either Chinese or not. The 'not' category is globbed together under the 'laowai' (originally meant foreign devil, now just means foreigner) title. At first, I thought laowais were white people, but the more I asked, the more I realized it was everyone who was not Chinese.

Anyway, so Hiromi and I bonded over the fact that we were both 'laowai' living in Shenzhen. We talked about our families, our upbringing, Chinese fashion, sushi, and North Korea-a refreshingly diverse Mandarin dialogue. Together, we connected over how different our respective cultures were in relation to China and how similar they were to each other.