“You have gotten a bit fat,” said King as I hopped on the elliptical. King is my friend and the English-speaking trainer at my gym.

Why thank you, King. But that’s what happens when your parents come to visit and you spend 3 weeks eating 2-3 meals a day in restaurants where oil practically oozes from the walls and you don’t have time to get to the gym.

Now I am harsher on myself than ANYONE, but my pants still fit just fine. It couldn’t have been a difference of more than 5 pounds. But let me tell you, the Chinese can spot those 50 extra calories you forgot to burn and they won’t hesitate to tell you, either.

The next week as I was finishing on the treadmill, King came over to talk. After about a minute, his eyes got wide and he pointed at the lovely zit on my forehead.

“Whoa,” he said, and proceeded to expound upon its disgustingness.

And then today I was bicycling home from the gym. I whirred past a man standing in the street fixing his bike. He looked up as I passed, and what do you think he shouted as I passed by? “Hello!” or the ever-popular “Waiguo ren!”?

No no. After seeing me for half a second, the first and only words out of his mouth were:

“Wow, such a high nose!” *

He gets points for originality.

*The high-ness of a nose refers to the height of one’s nose between the eyes, where Han Chinese noses are typically fairly flat. A high nose is considered by many to be a desirable trait.