PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED IN DAN’S LIFE: I’m in China.

Somebody—or some assortment of people—keeps leaving his or her garbage next to our apartment door. I’m not one to really care, since just about everywhere in Shijiazhuang is dirty and smells like poo poo anyway. I remember the first day I moved in to the apartment complex, I was shocked at how soiled and unkempt the stairway was. Luckily, my apartment’s inside is several classes neater than what is right outside the door—a usual contrast you find wandering around China.

Next to my door today, there were a couple of rotted watermelons, both thoughtfully bagged and tied; and in between there was a bag of who-does-want-to-know-what-else. Last week, there was an askew bag of some kind of goo, which over the course of a couple of days started oozing down the stairway. It did stink pretty badly. But, again, I’m not one to care in a place where (my Chinese friends would take offense if they understood what this sentence said) I ride my bike by people frying and eating a smelly-scat snack called “tofu” every night. (I must note: I have nothing against anybody eating that sort of tofu. Just, culturally, the aroma would remind any American of scat).

Anyway, I came home from work today to find a polite message on my door, left by the Chinese neighbors. It said, probably via Google Translator:

“Hello. After the trouble you refuse to take down the trash. Thank Thanks.”

I could probably solve the neighborly issue simply by taking down the trash some asshole leaves by the foreigners’ door everyday. But that’s exactly the problem. I don’t want it to become my routine. Instead, I went to Google Translator myself and responded with the following prompt:

“邻居。这不是我们的垃圾。它属于其它人民。“

Which says something like:

“Neighbor. This is not our garbage. It belongs to somebody else.”

After hearing all the stories about how the foreigners usually get the finger pointed to them in small conflicts like this, the neighbors will probably think I’m lying and get the landlord and police involved, and then I’ll have to pay an on-the-spot fine to the police or a special reimbursement for the neighbor’s troubles.

Last week, the police called the school I work for saying the neighbors complained that I was bringing a prostitute home every night. That prostitute would have been my girlfriend, Serena. The mentality here is that any good Chinese woman would be indoors before 10 or 11 o’clock. With a Chinese girl coming home with a foreigner at 12 or later, I can’t possibly be up to any good. I told Serena about it, and she said, “Why can’t we Chinese just mind our own business? …I’m not a prostitute.”

In a way, sometimes this is similar to living at home. I have a curfew to be home by to avoid an inquisition from the cops, I have to impress the neighborhood with the ladies I bring home, and I get pesky notes on my door from would-be stepmothers.

But, then again, it’s just the yin and yang of China. Sure, the neighbors can bug me, but I can get a prostitute at the flick of a hat, I don’t have to be a certain age to drink, and I can get a professionally counterfeited movie for less than 2 dollars. All the mild pressure from the authorities in a place as crazy and seemingly anarchic as Shijiazhuang is—arguably—half the fun. I would say to them, as our great president once said, “Bring it on.”