One of our favorite pieces of graffiti art,
Jill and I continued to walk around and check out the scene.
We were very impressed and noticed a massive building off a side street.
It was totally covered in graffitti and we noticed some other people taking pictures of it.
Being that I work Sunday through Wednesday, we often go places when other people are at work, so the locations are quite empty.
However, there were a lot of people visiting from out of town and so there were more tourists than usual compared to when we normally go sightseeing.
We walked up and notice a few high school aged girls taking pictures and waited for them to finish.
They looked at us and one of them started speaking English and asked us where we are from, do we live in Beijing and so forth. They were on vacation from their high school and in Beijing only for a few days.
Jill and I have gotten used to being asked these kinds of questions, here in Beijing, and when we travel to other parts of China.
We don’t find it rude but it can be somewhat tiring as we sort of feel as if we are “monkeys in a zoo” and never really allowed to fit in completely.
Even on the subway or walking around beijing, a city of 23 million people, we are often stared at and looked at with amazement.
Now, we are good looking folks, but not that good looking. Just kidding!
We also realize that expatriates are still fairly rare to a lot of people here and we want to make a good example so that people don’t believe everything they see on tv and that most Americans aren’t running around, shooting each other and dealing drugs. We are just people who are trying to get along and survive, like most anyone else.
These girls then asked Jill, which I sort of expected, if she would take a picture with them.
This happens to us a lot.
Again, we aren’t that good looking, we are just average, but we are different here and so people want to take pictures with us.
I could never imagine going up to someone, who I don’t know in the USA, and just saying, “Oh, can I take a picture with you because you don’t look like me?” but people do here. And it isn’t done in a rude or offensive way. They just love selfies and love taking pictures with people.
So, Jill being Jill, she jumped right in and they took a few pictures.
After this, we continued on our way and just enjoyed the art and gorgeous day with very low pollution and blue skies.