Eastern Hospitality

My last post was titled "Creepy". It's basically about a guy living in my townhouse complex that at one time creep the hell out of me.

Today I went on a morning walk with a neighbor. Not the creepy guy of course. This friendly neighbor's house is located right next to mine. She's a housewife/student/web developer that is also Asian. Vietnamese to be exact. Her name is Xuan. She's nice.

Anyway, I told her about the guy that freaked me out. I told her how he insisted on getting me to hangout with him eventhough I'd told him I was married. We met one time when we were both taking our dogs on a walk and trying to be friendly I greeted the guy and conversed. The insisting part came to a point where he actually came to my house and knock on my door at 2 in the afternoon, when obviously my husband is not home. I brushed him off of course, but I got quite paranoid after that. He never came back though. Or at least I think he never did, because the last few days I've been trying to get out of the house every afternoon.

After my long explanation on what the guy did, Xuan just reacted with a simple question, "Did you laugh or giggle to anything he said?" I reluctantly nodded. I did both. Quite a few times. Very naively of me, I thought I was being friendly and spreading that "eastern hospitality". She said, "Never do that. They take that as an open invitation and that you like his company. Never smile, never giggle and for heaven's sake never laugh!" OK, that warning came just a tad too late.

Well, now I know better. No more eastern hospitality. That explains a little on why people here just pretend they don't care about each other's existence. I never have a good judgment on character though. Now I guess I will just present every stranger with the same vague smile or lack thereof.