Here's a short message I sent a friend that aptly describes the oddities and nuisances that abound living in a very Chinese city...
Sometimes you really feel hatred for the way the people leer at you. It's not so bad when you're in a group of foreigners, because at least then you're talking to each other and not paying so much attention to the Chinese, and you can talk openly about the Chinese and they don't understand a fucking word. But when you're alone, it's really annoying.
Today after a long day at the school I wanted to go eat food. Even just walking to a restaurant I was getting annoyed, I just wasn't in the mood for that attention. Specifically when every 20 feet someone waves at you. So as I walk in the restaurant the waiters and girls all run to the door and three of them escort me to my table. Then a fourth, I think a manager, comes over and offers me a Chinese menu - ya, like I can read that.
So I order my food (you just have to memorize the words for beef, chicken, rice, etc. and pray they bring the right thing) and they pour me tea and put my chopsticks on the tea saucer. I'm not really thinking straight because all the patrons are staring, the waiter on break in the back is absolutely staring me in the eyes and not breaking for a second and I'm hot and hungry. So I move my chopsticks off the saucer and kind of play with them a bit in one hand. Quickly, one of the waitresses comes over and takes them out of my hand, pours tea over them (to clean them) and resets them and pours me more tea, then scolds me in Mandarin. She then runs over to the rest of the girls and they all essentially point and giggle and stare.
Throughout the meal, it was just a nuisance that every time I look up someone's staring, or the kitchen staff have all come out to see me, or the girl from upstairs comes down to chat with her friends who are leering at me... you get the idea. Except this one family right across from my table, who aren't paying any special attention to me, or at least the parents aren't. Their (I would guess) 2 year old daughter is both fascinated with and terrified of me, and keeps turning around just to violently turn back, which her parents seem to find cute.
Anyway, just as the meal is finishing I go to pour myself a cup of tea. The girl comes over, dumps the cup I'd poured into my bowl (unused), and repours it, scolding me all over again. Ni ba hao! Ni ba hao!
At this point I'm pissed off. Just despising the attention and the constant watching of my every move. Then, I'm trying to figure out how and where to pay for my meal, when I see the guy at the table across from me (the father) summon the girl to give her money. As I think 'ah, that's how you do it here' he points over at my table, hands her a bit more money, then turns to me and smiles.
I was kind of in shock for a moment, but that's just the kind of perk that balances the nuisances.
It was a fancy restaurant too, my first time eating at a mid-high level place in Huizhou. When his wife and daughter got back from the restroom the wife tried to bring the daughter over to me to say hi, but she was too terrified, trying to run in the opposite direction. We all had a laugh, they said "bye-bye" and I said 'xi-xi' and that was that.
Well, except of course I then had four girls escort me the 25 feet out of the restaurant.