How Long Have You Been Here?

One of the more amusing aspects of being an expat in China is the question: “How long have you been here?”

Taken at face value, it can seem like an innocent inquiry, a gentle introduction or an icebreaker to a wider conversation. A more cynical interpretation, however, is that the question is asked in order to establish your – or rather someone else’s - position in the “How long have you been here?” league table.

When asked the question it’s difficult not to reply with an answer that quickly establishes one’s bona fides as a true and tested Sinophile. “Well, I first came to China in XYZ year, and after that I have lived here in ZYX year..."

Providing you answer the question with a year that places your arrival here either alongside your interlocutor’s or, better yet, way ahead of them, you are free to go.  Or you’re plunged into a discussion about how bloody hard it was to find western food in Beijing in the year YXZ.   

If, however, your arrived here in the past few years (or, heaven forbid, the past few months), the next words you here are likely to be: “It’s changed so much since I got here!”

To which, if one wanted to be impolitic, you might reply: “No shit!”

Much of the above reminds me of a wonderful scene in Jonathan Raban’s novel Foreign Land.

A young girl is hiding out of view at a gathering at her parents’ home.  All of the guests are onetime expats, now all returned to England.  Eavesdropping on the evening conversation, she hears one phrase repeated over and over again: 

“When I was in.'