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Expat's Eye
Print Edition> Expat's Eye
UPDATED: November 16, 2009 NO. 46 N0VEMBER 19, 2009
A Visit From the Neighbors
Warmly welcoming and hosting unexpected guests
By TARUBVA NGULUBE
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(LI SHIGONG) 

They hovered at the door for a few moments (three generations of one Chinese family) as though they hadn't heard my invitation to come in. If I didn't know them any better (and I really didn't), I'd have thought they feared an onslaught from a band of phantom tribal warriors that would emerge from the off-white walls. Lizzie handed me a bag of what she said were groundnuts she'd brought from her hometown, then she came in, holding her baby and smiling nervously like she always did, not because she was actually nervous this time, but because she mirrored the expression on the little girl's face playfully, some kind of reverse psychology to get the baby to smile. It worked. The little face beamed, and the phantoms conjured up earlier vanished or departed back to the walls. Her husband had to go back to their apartment and I thought he wouldn't be joining us. Their door banged shut, and shortly after he appeared again, nodding in appreciation for being permitted into my humble abode, and technically bringing his whole family with him.

Now that they'd entered, they stood around like chameleons about to acclimatize. Their methods varied. The old lady, walked around looking at all the foreign objects and asking Lizzie to fill in information, because she was their translator to the hostess—me. Lizzie, between responses, pointed at objects and said the Chinese name to the little girl, as though she was walking through the halls of a museum with a class of one. The husband looked on in a strange kind of apathetic reverence, the same look most men have when they make the mistake of accompanying their wives shopping (how similar our cultures are). And I, a picture of patience, pulled out a chair, sat down and enjoyed my apartment with my visitors: a fresh look at something always renews your appreciation for it, or could just generate disdain. It was the former in this case. Besides the lump of just dried clothes I'd dumped on the leather armchair when the doorbell rang, the place was tidy, allowing it to display its simple elegance.

The low ceilings undulated like sand dunes, and the lighting was distributed like a meticulously set oasis. In the section designated as the dining room, three lamps of blue, orange and green hung at different lengths, stalactites from a cave ceiling, their pools of light reflected from the glass table below. Four wooden panels of equal length flanked these lily shaped lamps, two on each side; light came from these also. The living room was an aurora of lights: 16 beams spotted proficiently around the four by seven meter area. The apartment didn't drown in all the light; lamps shaded most of the bulbs, the rest were installed in a total of nine rectangular semi-sanctuaries that I hadn't fully admired till today.

Amid the small talk, the husband's line of vision crossed mine. And instead of doing the thing done by most—turning away in the dilution that the clocks turn back too, we just smiled politely at each other. On my part, to show them again that they were welcome, and his, a somewhat comical way to apologize for the female contingent of his traveling party.

He was a small man in his mid-30s but showed signs of balding. His waistline was not in its former glory, but he insisted on using a belt to hold up his gray trousers. The appearance was that of a small semi-ball tied at its circumference. What he lacked in commendable stature he made up for with his paternal finesse, affable character and warm features. On the few occasions I'd seen him with his little girl, he seemed to be doing a good job. I'd also seen that same tenderness in the interaction between other Chinese fathers and their sole offspring.

He brushed the thinning spot on his scalp as if reassuring it that he knew it got cold.

I got up suddenly, like bread popping out of a hot toaster, coming back from the kitchen a moment later with four plastic tumblers and a packet of green tea; I'd been in China long enough to know you don't ask someone if they want a drink, because they'll say no out of courtesy. And here my mother's voice came back to me on that universal code of hospitality. I invited Lizzie, who by now had handed the baby to her mother-in-law, to help herself and make the tea. The older woman had started singing what sounded like a Chinese nursery rhyme while bouncing the little girl up and down on her right arm, where she was perched ever so comfortably. The baby reached out to her grandmother's mature face playfully tugging at her graying hair. Her son must have looked like his father; he had nothing of his mother in his face. She was as short as him and displayed features of the archetypal aging Chinese woman: short thinning hair and figure, and the responsibility of looking after the grandchild.

In my year and a half in China, I was glad to host a family like this. My mother would be proud.

The writer is a Zimbabwean living in Wuhan, Hubei Province



 
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