Handsome in China

First day of class at the local middle school, walking up the stairwell past hundreds of young Chinese pupils, and a young voice bellows out at its breaking point: “HANDSOME! YOU ARE HANDSOME!” I swiveled my head to search the stairwell for the red-faced boy who had screamed it out. SCUH-REAMED screamed. He yelled like only a middle school boy could. Of the surprising amount of admiration I was already adding up, his unrestrained shouting stood out.

Almost anyone who goes to Asia to teach English is guaranteed to hear, over and over, by one and all, how good-looking they are. In fact, if an American teacher didn’t hear a generous amount of personal compliments, I would be worried that they had a tumorous growth on their face or a horrendous skin disease. Then again- no joke- while overseas I did meet an American guy with some skin condition that turned him grayish-purple. Other than that he looked healthy, and he had a young Korean wife and a baby, so maybe there are no disqualifications. Readers, take note: if you spend enough time with the locals in China and they don’t tell you how handsome or beautiful you are, demand why not.

Even so, while I learned to laugh off these compliments as a general cultural phenomenon, something sweet that needed to be taken with a grain of salt, it still seemed as if people were going out of their way to praise me in particular. I decided to test it. I shared some pictures of my friend Andrew with one of my college classes. Physically fit with a strong, smooth jawline, and clear eyes- I thought if my students didn’t think he was an attractive American specimen then they didn’t know what handsome was. When I displayed some pictures from our vacation together in Thailand, immediately I heard from my students how handsome I looked. Yeah, yeah, as expected, but thank you all the same. As jaded and knowing as I wanted to pretend I was, “handsome” compliments never lost their charm. “But what about Andrew? Do you think he’s handsome?” I asked. “En,” came the muted reply. One girl flat out told me “no.”

Blurry or not, Andrew is a good-looking guy, despite what my students might tell you.

Stunned, I struggled as how I should interpret their reaction. My English class wasn’t seen as being nearly as important as other university classes, so I could rule out personal flattery to get a better grade out of me. Perhaps they just preferred lighter hair colors and blue eyes? I ran the experiment again, this time with small portrait pictures of every member of my father’s side of the family. My younger brother is a lot blonder than I am, with blue eyes and a pleasing smile, so surely my students would be impressed by him, I thought. I asked what they thought of my brother, then what they thought of my cousin’s strawberry blonde husband. “Don’t you think they’re handsome?” I baited.

“No,” said one of my male students, “Only you are handsome.” I laugh at it now, but he was completely serious.

As with most every American, when I met people in China, it was better than an even chance they would tell me I was handsome. And, as in the example above, even the men said so.

Once, while out chatting with the curious English-speaking students at our university campus along with my fellow foreign English teachers, Grant and Sue, a young man approached me and, sure enough, after asking where I came from, blurted out how handsome he thought I was. Sue and I shared a humorous glance with each other- it was a running joke at that point- and she remarked to me about the gap between Western culture, where the men are not supposed to say such things. Then she told my admirer, “In our countries, we don’t do that. Men aren’t supposed to tell other men they’re handsome! It’s just not done.”

The student looked at her blankly, and plainly stated, “But it’s true!” Sue didn’t know what to say after that.

Even if someone contradicted my alleged handsomeness, he and his like-minded countrymen would have none of it.

When they told me so, I told them thanks, they were very kind. That was what I worked out as my polite response after an awkward phase of smiling and not knowing what to say. I worried that it might make me sound conceited in a culture where it was standard to deflect and deny compliments by saying, “No, not at all.” But as the student above proved, I would not have been successful in negating what they said. For awhile, I thought it might seem more humble to reciprocate the kind words, so I would say, “Thanks! I think you’re handsome, too.” But that just seemed to make the situation tenser, and they might look at me askance and ask why I thought that.

If it was a group of girls giggling about me, I sometimes blushed. To my American sensibilities, it was out of the ordinary, even off-putting, to hear people comment on my appearance, especially when they were pouring on the praise. I was amazed to hear them say they thought I was handsome, or the Chinese word for “cool young man.” My experience and upbringing had not prepared me for this.

At English Corner in the campus park, foreign teachers could expect girls like these to come gawk and get a picture.

Even most adults and the college professors said so when they met me. One English professor told me, while we were waiting in an English office for our student-interview meeting to begin, “Oh, Dustin, you are so handsome. All the girls like you.” He meant it. It took all my power not to burst out laughing. I thanked him awkwardly, yet kindly, for that special compliment.

And every Joe Average from America will hear from his Chinese inspectors how much he resembles Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks or some other Hollywood superstar. On my campus, there were quite a few students who watched the American TV show Prison Break who told me that I looked like the main character, Michael Scofield (played by Wentworth Miller). I cannot vouch for that, but at that same English meeting I mentioned, with student scholarship applicants sitting one at a time before a long table of English language professors, one girl sat down and immediately began by saying how attractive she thought I was and how closely I resembled Michael Scofield. She had to fit that in as part of her self-introduction; didn’t even let anyone ask her any questions first. Then she smiled in nervous embarrassment, as did I.

My celebrity comparison in China: the very handsome American actor, Wentworth Miller.

I don’t see the resemblance.

A couple times, when I passed by a group of girls, they called out after me. What a turn of the tables compared to my American life! Usually, when my onlookers wanted to get a kick out of me, they would holler a high-pitched “Hello!” as soon as my back was turned to them, but on a few occasions some giggly students waited until I was past and blurted out, “I think you are handsome!”

After a while, it almost became easy to believe. Really, I knew coming in that people would notice my tall figure in a crowd and many Americans had already seen their stock rise after coming to Asia. I would have been more surprised to not receive praise. For most of my Chinese admirers, I was the only foreigner they had ever met in person. In an area of a couple million people, I was one of only a handful of white faces. (How’s that for a pleasant literary image? A handful of faces.) The only other white people I saw around my town were the Australian couple, Grant and Sue, who lived across from me in my campus apartment building, and on a few rare occasions some foreign English teachers in the nearby mid-sized city.

And even if the Chinese said I was handsome, it was more like I was a curiosity- something to look at. A novelty who was good for a picture, not an interview. Or, if there was interaction through words, it was the same three questions (“Where are you come from?” (sic) “How old are you?” “Do you like Chinese food?”) or English as a stunt. At the middle school, the students liked to shout “Hello!” to me as a game of daring, or for their own entertainment they could call out my Chinese name “Li Da-Sen!” At the university, the students would sometimes do a double-take, and if they were with a group of friends, I could expect a jocular, “Hello!”

Everything I did was conspicuous, so occasionally I would hear from one of my students when and where so-and-so or so-and-so’s friend sighted me on campus or around town. I behaved myself every time I went out for a bowl of beef noodles or for a trip to the market, because I knew that eyes were always on me and I would eventually hear reports about what I did earlier in the week from someone who watched me do it. I even found out from a few girls that my celebrity picture (students would stealthily use their camera phone to take my picture while I lectured in class- some students would even sit in on my class just to watch me and take my picture) had made the rounds on Chinese internet sites and reached their friends in cities many provinces removed from ours.

And where celebrity goes, gossip is sure to follow. Once, a student I met on campus told me, “I heard someone say that Dustin has two kids.” That was the only rumor I ever heard. I can only hope I was spared from other wild fables.

With a baby. Not my baby.

Being called handsome in China taught me an important lesson. I had to travel halfway around the globe to do it, but once I was there, I had changed my world. My status in society and my esteem in other’s eyes were completely different than my place in America. In my home country, I had been ignored and excluded so much that I thought it was a law of the universe. Gravity pulls objects toward objects of greater mass just as surely as women and attention are only attracted to the rich, powerful, and showy, I thought. I never expected to receive compliments on my appearance until that imaginary day when my face was on a magazine cover. I thought I would have to settle for my female relatives’ familial pride whenever I dressed up for holidays.

China taught me otherwise. Who I was changed with where I lived. I was a nobody in America, or next to it, but I was handsome in China. I had an outsider’s place in society, or a lack of place in society, but coming from America, being young, and being perceived as handsome meant my position was one of minor celebrity.

I have to say that I preferred it to no celebrity, or no attention at all. Conversations were much easier to start, and I could talk to anyone with the expectation that they would “give me the time of day.” I no longer had to mumble timidly and lower my gaze around people who did not seem comfortable with me. The first time I walked into a classroom in China, the students erupted into gleeful applause. No exaggeration, that happened multiple times. (Of course, that wore off after they became bored with my class as it was inevitable they would be. All I could do was talk at them- in incomprehensible English!)

Still, I could not shake off my shyness. My meek character had been formed by years of being a silent man of little importance in the Midwest. Even when my Chinese students and friends looked at me expectantly, mouths open in wide smiles- even when I wanted to dazzle them- I struggled to find the words and enthusiasm. I would watch in admiration as Grant and Sue, the Australians, would tell breathless tales about life on the Gold Coast, driving on the beach, hunting for mud crabs, spotting snakes and wild birds around their house, while all of their young onlookers (myself included) were bound to them in smiling silence. I did my best, I raised my voice and tried to make simple jokes, I tried to be like Grant and Sue, but I struggled to build any social momentum with my listeners. (And it was “listeners” mostly, as Chinese students go mute by default and will almost never speak unless called upon by name.) I was Sisyphus struggling up a steep of stone dispositions, always sinking back to the unsure feeling of a failed comedian.

What I faced on a daily basis. Note the girl on the right-hand side who is taking my picture with her phone.

Walking into a room, I would immediately arrest the attention of everyone, but I could not hold it. I was as shy and introverted as the quiet Chinese students as I was trying to model speech to. It was beautiful, and humbling, irony that I was teaching Chinese students the basics of English conversation. I often looked over the text’s rudimentary reminders (e.g. “English speakers often precede personal questions by using a hesitant statement such as ‘I hope you don’t mind, but…’”) and I would think to myself how sensible and helpful the advice was. Wow! I could use that! I needed to be taught basic social skills and conversation, too.

But I was the teacher, so I had to be an example for my students. I had a strong sense of English conversation, if not real comfort and mastery of it; I was at least able to discuss it with my students. I was not a typical American, but I could relate to them how Americans typically behaved. Often, I found myself, a definite non-fan of spectator sports, telling my Chinese charges about American football and American sports culture, among other topics I had detached insight into. I was not interested in American sports personally, but I did find it a fascinating subject to talk about and a convenient topic to teach. I was an atypical American teaching, if not exactly modelling, what Americans were like.

Like a circular knot, I could not tell where my position and personality started and where it met with the representative, handsome American teacher in my students’ imagination. My identity was intertwined with strands of my old self- conditioned by my lowly rank in America- and the new handsome man I was in Chinese society. My heart never truly accepted my celebrity. Though I was grateful to finally feel what it was like to be admired and noticed by the masses. It was flattering and it made it easy to win friends, but it also taught me that popularity is, like most everything, a meaningless pursuit. Even with the affection of a classroom of girls’ eyes, my loneliness remained. I still carried hidden burdens on my heart. My face enjoyed a wonderful reception in China; I could not say the same for my soul.

When I later lived In Korea, I was still handsome, but I was runner-up to my school’s Number 1 Most Handsome Teacher, the P.E. teacher. This honor was bestowed by the 5th grade girls.