Last to know.

One of the girls who works at  our school got married yesterday.  It was only by happenstance that I learned of this.  I went to the lunchroom to eat my lunch and heard the word baijoe mentioned.  I made a comment about it to a girl named Ida who told me she drank only a little yesterday at a party.  I asked what party? and she told me Nancy's wedding party.  Knowing several Nancy's, I had to ask which one.  I then had to confirm that it was the one I thought Ida said because I couldn't believe it.  Anyway, at this party, most of the Chinese staff had been invited.  One foreigner went.  My reaction was surprise mixed with a feeling of "why wasn't I told!".  Talking to the other foreigners, I learned that I was the last to know.  Several of the other foreigners also happened to learn by happenstance I found out. 

 

I shouldn't complain about this sort of thing happening in China because it has happened several times before.  But still, you feel like a person apart when they do.  Laowei are the last to know.

 

 

It reminds me of the time that my niece was born prematurely.  I learned of it a week afterwards again by happenstance.  Being told in a casual by-the-way manner, when I phoned my sister, by the father of the birth, I found it hard to say congratulations.  I felt very insulted like I had been dealt a rebuke.  It may well be that they were busy and things slipped their mind.  Still, the sourness of the memory lingers with me.  What happened brought that memory back.