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A few weeks ago, I was in line at a convenience store in L.A. when a Chinese-looking woman walked in and started talking to the cashier in Mandarin. Immediately, I started watching her out of the corner of my eye, trying to sneak a peak at what she was wearing without being too obvious about it since I didn't want to scare off any potential customers. You could see from her outfit that she lived nearby - she had on a pale pink tank top and some dark denim jeans with scuffed up knees - but there were no telltale signs that would suggest where exactly she came from; there were no signs of shopping bags or plastic rice sacks on her person. And yet, if you saw her walking down the street, you would say she was a foreigner - a big-boned, ladylike one at that. This is because she had a combination of characteristics that I've only seen in foreign women living here in L.A., and which I can't seem to place when looking at Chinese women in China: an ability to walk with an upright back and chin held high, such that she seems taller than she really is; the swing of her arms when walking with her hands held loose by her sides; and the way she tended to look around furtively when talking to someone. None of these traits is entirely new to me, but when combined, they are very noticeably "foreign". What struck me most however was her voice. Not that she was talking loudly or anything - in fact she spoke in a hushed tone - but there is something about the way Chinese women at home speak that I've never heard before. Their words are shorter, clipped off in the middle, with a gentle upward lift at the end of sentences. When they're angry, they go up even higher. This woman's voice sounded different - lower, rounder, yet still tinged with the same upward lilt. When I heard her speak English to the cashier, I was shocked at how fluent she was - it wasn't until she left the store that I realized she was speaking with a British accent. A few days later I ran into her again, this time at the grocery store which is further away from my place than the convenience store. She was just putting things in her cart when I walked in and looked around for an open spot to put my basket down. When I was about to take my place in line, she looked up and waved me over. "Hi," she said in a soft voice as I approached her. "I'm from China." "Oh?" I replied, trying to sound presentable. "Whereabouts?" "I'm originally from Shanghai," she said, pointing down the aisles to a nearby box of canned foods. "And now I live in L.A. cfa1e77820
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