Supermarket Sweep

Apologies to everyone I saw back in London last week, who have already heard this story straight from my angry little mouth. However, it's a tale so distressing that it just cries out to be written down...

One of the (many) moderately bizarre things about life in L.A. is the way that the whole city seems to be one giant pick-up joint. In some ways this must be great for single people, as one gets asked out on dates and dinners about a thousand times more than in England. On the other hand, it's rather disconcerting that you end up fending off men when you've just popped down to the supermarket to buy a pint of milk. I thought this might just be an L.A. phenomenom, but I have recently received confirmation that Americans from all over the country are shocked, when visiting England, to discover that no-one dresses up to go to the supermarket. To be honest, I'm kind of glad that I'm not single here. The idea of putting on makeup and nice clothes every time you leave the house 'just in case' seems rather exhausting.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I'd gone down to the local Ralphs (think Tescos but with all the products arranged in really counter-intuitive groupings [why on earth would anyone group vinegar in with soups rather than, say, salad dressings or condiments?]) wearing my clearly totally-inappropriate-to-grocery-shopping-in-America jeans, sweatshirt and un-made-up face. I was hoping that this would mean I could do my shopping free from male hassle. I thought I'd succeeded but, no, standing in the check-out queue I found myself accosted by a man whose appearence epitomised every stereotype one could possibly have about Californian surfer-dudes. He chats to me about the contents of my basket, and I respond with the sort of bland smalltalk that seems appropriate. I happen to mention that I've only just moved here. He replies that I must be finding life here pretty different to China.

China? I respond. What's China got to do with anything? He looks confused at this, and says that well, seeing as I'm Chinese I must find America pretty confusing. I honestly don't know how to respond to this. As far as I'm aware I neither look Chinese, or speak with anything resembling a Chinese accent (and it worries me slightly that it clearly sounds to Americans as if English is my second language). Not wanting to get involved in some ridiculous debate while trying to pay for my shopping, I decide to simply smile and tell him that no, actually I'm English. To this he nods and says "well, I was close, wasn't I? After all, England and China are next to each other".

No surfer-dude man, no they're not. I don't know which shocks me more - the level of geographical ignorance, or the fact that this man (who, btw, appears to be in his late-20s, not 16 or anything) appears to show absoloutely no shame or embarassment when I explain to him that these two places are in entirely different continents.

I'm not a genius. I freely admit that there's an awful lot of stuff that I don't know, particularly with regard to U.S. history and geography. But (and in my mind this is a big but), if I get something hideously wrong and someone corrects me, I show at least some interest in finding out the real answer. This guy was completely unbothered by his ignorance.

Maybe I'm an insufferable intellectual snob. Clearly if I ever want to fit in here I'm going to have to get over this and embrace self-belief as more important than intellectual acumen. The cardinal social rule here seems to be to never criticise anything, and always agree with everything everyone ever says, even if you know them to be wrong (the correct form for coping with such wrongness is apparently to just go home and bitch about it afterwards, thus sparing the feelings of the person in question). It's just so hard when I've lived my whole life thinking that the pursuit of knowledge is more important than hurting someone's feelings a little bit. Am I right or wrong readers? Opinions gladly taken (even [nay, especially] those that differ from my own).