peacekeepers

our security, our 保安 bao an, are all young men, college students in their early 20s, clearly overqualified for standing around, opening doors and unlocking things for us. most of them are not from shanghai, but from the nearby province of Anhui. they're charming and strangely affectionate with each other in that youngchinesemanway that baffles americans with force fields of personal space. they go by nicknames that they give each other. one is Chrysanthemum, because when he laughs his face looks like a chrysanthemum. they just smile at you when you complain about being tired and wanting to go home, since their workday is twice as long and twice as monotonous and they are probably more deserving of being tired and wanting to go home.

since one of their positions is standing next to the spot where we introduce ourselves to guests over and over with our same tired introduction spiels, they've memorized tidbits of information about each of us, like what state we're from, where our families are from, where we went to school; they'll surprise you by mentioning personal facts about you in conversation that you never directly told them. we like talking to each other. a few bao an like test-driving their english, but most would prefer to put up with/giggle over my childlike mandarin. one says that if america opened its doors to all chinese people, half of the chinese would choose to leave china in search of something better. they teach us useful phrases in chinese, like "i'm going to smack you so hard that you'll go bouncing back and forth between the two sides of the Huangpu River." they ask us about America, about weed, violence, homosexuality. A bao an asked that if americans are allowed to own guns, do you see people on the street pointing guns at one another and shooting? i explained that it's more likely for a man to be shooting from a moving vehicle at someone on the street.