Going loco about going local? When in China be yourself

"I'm more Chinese than you are!" the guy sitting next to me suddenly cried out, causing me to jump and inhale the mouthful of noodles I had been enjoying at the time. It's not a sentence you hear often, even in China, and especially not from a 20-something Jewish man from California.

To somehow prove his point, the man slammed his wallet on the table and produced several pictures he'd recently had taken with his Chinese girlfriend at a Beijing photography studio. She was in a traditional qipao, and he was wearing a sparkly T-shirt, leather wristbands and a pair of shades, trying his best to look moody.

The guy was a friend of a friend who had joined a group of us for a feast of beef noodles, lamb skewers and beer. In his defense, his declaration was in response to someone else saying that I was in fact more Chinese than him, because I have a Chinese wife and have lived in the country longer.