I was going to post a video today about the Olympic opening ceremonies, and what having the Olympics means to Chinese people, but two things got in the way. The first is that I discovered I’m going to need some sort of adapter to plug in and charge my camera here. The second is that my roommate is an idiot, and it’s affecting my life.

I was sitting in the Foreign Teachers’ Office today with a few other teachers when he came in, clearly flustered. He’s often sort of flustered–he’s been putting a lot of effort into meeting Chinese people and just getting out, but he’s been ripped off a bunch of times, and just generally found things difficult (he doesn’t speak any Chinese). Then, he told us that he had just killed someone’s pet.

At first, I figured that was some British figure of speech I had never heard, but no. He saw a praying mantis tied to a string that “appeared to be suffering” and killed it. This, shockingly, had angered the insect’s owner. In an annoyed tone, he explained to us that he had been forced to get a Chinese-English dictionary and explain to them “praying mantises aren’t pets.”

Of course, Praying Mantises have been pets in China for thousands of years. They eat other insects and don’t stain rugs, and so are often kept tied to a string near beds so as to get rid of pests. They apparently live 5-6 months, and I imagine they aren’t kept in the winter, so the one he killed probably had a good couple months left.

It might have been suffering, of course, but honestly, unless you’re an expert in praying mantis behavior how could anyone tell? Can insects even feel pain? (According to this guy, no.). And even if it WAS suffering, why didn’t he tell the pet’s owner that instead of telling him that his pet isn’t a pet?

The answers to these questions are not clear to me. I did ask him if he would kill someone else’s dog if he saw that tied up somewhere. He answered that when he lived in the Middle East, people there considered cats pests, and left poison out for them. The poison took a while to actually kill the cats, he said. He paused for a second, and then: “A cat’s neck isn’t easy to break.” As he said it, he left my room.

The cultural superiority and general insensitivity he displayed is simply staggering to me. I knew that he held some misguided opinions about Chinese culture, but I figured they came more from ignorance than anything else (and that’s a problem a lot of people have when it comes to China). Telling someone his pet isn’t a pet, and refusing to apologize or even pay for it after you’ve killed it, though…that’s something else entirely.

And, of course, as the only other foreigner living in this area, everything he does reflects on me, and in all likelihood, people get the two of us confused. Great.