pretty much chinese

I spent this past week, my first week of vacation, in complete cultural immersion.
As much as possible, I tried to live as the person I look like: a Chinese college student.

I stopped all my reading, I nearly stopped frequenting my internet haunts, and as much as possible, I stopped speaking, and even thinking, in English. Instead, I filled my time with Chinese soap operas, QQ chat sessions, bumming around at Du Li's lotion shop, attempting to flirt in Chinese with the hair boys, downloading Lin Ju Jie songs, eating spicy dumpling soup with Huang's mom and son at her dumpling shop, and buying way too much crap that I don't need, if only to get a good conversation out of the vendor.

As hard as this little experiment was, it's been damn fun.
Something is definitely happening here. I can sense some kind of change in me, in my status here as an outsider. I think I am finally part of the community. I think I finally belong.
Whether or not I really do, I don't know, but I think what matters is that I feel like I belong.

Heck, I even catch myself thinking that I wouldn't mind being what everyone mistakes me for. But then, I wouldn't be me, and the real me can't go long without reading, Gmail, and the English language.