Re-enacting Pretty Woman in Harbin

I have a new friend in Harbin. I just met her last week, but we bonded instantly because she spent the past year living near Pittsburgh and teaching Chinese at a rural PA high school. As soon as she found out I was from Pittsburgh she started chanting the Steelers fight song. We bonded instantly (its a 'burgh thing).

Anyway, she has been back in Harbin (her hometown) for a week and is having reverse culture shock at how (in her words) snobby Chinese people are. For example, she and her cousin went shopping last night at an expensive Harbin mall. Coming from the US, her skin is tan because she has not taken all measures Chinese urban women take to keep their skin white. She also knew she was just going shopping so she wore jeans, a T-shirt, and flip flops (not high heels and sparkly clothes like Chinese women). In a nice store, she picked out some clothes to try on. The store keeper who had been hovering over her immediately grabbed the clothes from her and put it back on the rack, telling her she could not try them on.

Why? They thought she was from the countryside (dark skin and casual clothes) and was trying clothes on but not serious about buying them. She left the store in a huff and declared to me at lunch today she is ready to go back to the US (she's returning in August). I told her to watch Pretty Woman because there is a similar scene where Julia Roberts is denied access to a store on Rodeo Drive. She goes back a few days later wearing nice clothes and bags in her hands. She then tells the saleswoman it was a huge mistake to chase her out. I told my friend I would gladly accompany her to the store.

Anyway, this conversation came up when we were translating some of my research material. Once she read a little bit of my questions, it clicked to her that I was trying to look at social status. It was a beautiful moment when she said, 'oh you are studying rice because its something that is so traditional in China, but has undergone so many changes over the last 30 years as China's economy has developed.' She threw the word 'social status' in there somewhere and I wanted to give her a hug. She gets it.

Not many people here understand what I am trying to do by studying rice. Maybe its because they haven't experienced anything besides Chinese society so they don't see it from an outsider's perspective. She talked to me for hours about how materialistic China is. We also talked about this weird position we are both in being 'between' the US and China (the outsider vs. insider perspective). I realize I haven't written much about this aspect of Chinese society so I thought I would share this story.