Look, mommy! Americans!

According to the CIA World Factbook, China is 91.6% Han Chinese, 1.3% Zhuang, and 7.1% other (including Hui, Manchu, Uighur, Miao, Yi, Tujia, Tibetan, Mongol, Dong, Buyei, Yao, Bai, Korean, Hani, Li, Kazakh, and Dai). In short, nearly everyone looks the same - black hair, darker skin, and brown eyes. Only after visiting China have I realized how ethnically diverse the U.S. is.

Because China is so racially homogeneous, our primarily white family gets a lot of stares. Many Chinese have never even seen a foreigner, especially in cities like Nanchang that are not tourist cities. More than once a little boy or girl has approached us with a curious look on their face, than quickly ran to their parents to point excitedly at us and ask why our skin was so light. Even walking down the street, people glance over their shoulders at us and even some on motor scooters slow down to stare at our family. 

However, we aren't just a white family walking down the street. We're a white family with a chinese daughter. Now people don't just look at us because we're americans, but also because they are utterly confused about why a chinese girl is in the same family as four white americans. We have mostly gotten used to the staring at this point...

It doesn't stop at just staring, though! People love to take our pictures as well. When we were at a restaurant having our last dinner in Chengdu, several Chinese kids were snapping photos of us with their smartphones. (not very related, but everyone in China seems to own one of the big Samsung galaxy s6's...) We also got a bit of a laugh on Jingli street while we were enjoying our DQ ice cream - someone discreetly took a selfie while walking by us with Dave framed perfectly in the background!

But is that as far as people are willing to go? I think not! While waiting for others in our tour group to use the bathroom at the panda breeding center, a chinese family asked to take a picture with me and Dave. Of course, we agreed (Minnesota nice!) and took the photo. We had another photo taken at the Terracotta army museum in Xi'an. We were looking at the terracotta warriors and taking some photos when a chinese woman and her daughter (who looked to be about my age) approached us. The daughter asked if she could take a photo with Dave, and it seemed like she didn't want to ask but her mother had made her ask. After taking the photo, her mother started nagging her again, and we could tell she was embarrassed and reluctant. She then asked if she could take a photo of me. This was before Chengdu, so I was a bit confused why a stranger would want to take a photo with me, but I quickly realized why - because they probably hadn't seen a foreigner before.

We've gotten used to it. All the staring and photos. I'm kind of starting to feel like a celebrity of some sort, one that is somewhat interesting to most of the population but not enough to be swarmed by people asking for autographs and signed t-shirts. 

- Luke