Bruno

This is Bruno. He's Italian, but he hasn't lived in Italy for a number of years. He lives in Guangzhou province in southern China. He left Italy to escape the cycle that he claims captures so many young Italian men: Go to university in Italy, get a low-paying, dead-end job such as waitering, live with your mother until you are thirty and you finally decide to get married.

Bruno speaks Italian, English, Spanish, and Chinese. My brother Nate and I met him on a two-day, overnight boat cruise on Halong Bay in northern Vietnam.

While living in China, Bruno started an export business in which he exports a Chinese-made weatherproofing product. He is doing quite well for himself.

I asked him how his former neighbors and friends respond to him and the life he has built for himself when he occassionally returns to Italy. He said they envy his freedom, autonomy, and success; but at the same time they recognize that they could never do what he has done.

Why? I asked.

Food.

Food? I repeated.

Even if they want to leave, he explained, most young Italian men can't stray far from home for long. When abroad, they spend half of their time looking for decent Italian cuisine and when they find it, they spend the rest of their time complaining about how in-authentic it is.

Bruno was being completely serious.

Nate first got to know Bruno when he sat next to him for three-hours on the shuttle bus that was taking us to Halong Bay. Realizing that Nate was single, Bruno took it upon himself to school Nate on the art of getting and keeping a Chinese girlfriend.

Because it is a cross-cultural relationship, it can draw upon the best -and worst, depending on your perspective- aspects of Chinese and Western dating practices. For example, as the male in the relationship, you will have tremendous freedom. Your Chinese girlfriend will probably not nag you about going out for drinks with the boys several nights a week. In fact, she probably won't nag you about anything at all.

But your Chinese girlfriend is also going to expect from you a monthly allowance for food, clothing, and rent. If someone in her family takes ill, you will be expected to help pay for part of the medical expenses.

In the five years he has been in China, Bruno has had several Chinese girlfriends. He is currently not in a relationship. His conclusion to Nate: it's almost more trouble than its worth.

Although, he did confess that there is no better way to learn Chinese that to get yourself a Chinese girlfriend.

-Jack

I was sitting at a table with some people from our tour group when Bruno found out that one of the women in our group rinsed her pasta with cold water after cooking it. He proceeded to explain to her the proper way to cook pasta. I excused myself to -as Bruno would say- to go make pee-pee. When I returned six minutes later, he was just finishing up his lecture on the proper way to cook pasta.