Alright, so bear with me while I fill in some necessary background information by way of getting to a girl problem:
1. I"m a newly-minted 22-year-old studying Chinese in Beijing over the Summer and remaining in China indefinitely thereafter.
2. This past week was a designated travel week during which some friends and I took a train from Beijing to Shanghai.
Last Friday night, en route to Shanghai, we sat with a very cute Chinese/Korean (Chinese citizen, goes to school in Beijing, but a member of the Korean minority here in China). One of my friends, Dan, also happened to be Korean, so they were able to converse. About five hours into the ride, and still about seven hours away from Shanghai, Dan woke up from a nap, yawned, and his jawbone dislodged leaving his mouth in a permanentOposition.
The girl, Jenkey (self-appointed English name -- I know), did her best to act as intermediary between my debilitated friend (with whom she spoke Korean), and the train employees (with whom she spoke Chinese). Still seven hours from Shanghai, the only solution that presented itself was for us to stop at a backwater shithole of a town named Xuzhou to visit a hospital. Jenkey took it upon herself to come with us to make sure everything got worked out, despite the fact this meant her not getting to her location (a family friend"s house near Shanghai) on time.
Despite much sketchiness, the hospital trip was a success and Dan was mended. Unfortunately, however, there was no more train availability to Shanghai that day, so we were stuck in Shitzhou. Jenkey managed to find us a tolerable hotel (as good as it was going to get), and then took us to various random spots (an aquarium, a Han Dynasty cave-tomb). We taught her to play Texas Hold"em and Bullshit. Had a nice dinner. Fun day.
Next day we took an early train on to our final destinations. She"s a 20/21 college student in Beijing, where I"ll be living and working indefinitely. We got to talking and she mentioned how she intends to go to America after graduation. I whispered sweet nothings about things it would be cool to show her. Emphasis on the nothings, but anyways. I was really digging the chick at this point (great personality, super cute, funny [after teaching her to play Bullshit, she"d throw random "Bullshits!" at us at deliberately inappropriate times], and intelligent [spoke 3/4 languages])...
...but I blundered. I"m going to Hong Kong in about a month for about 4-5 days vacation. I have an extra pass to Disney World. It seemed to make sense at the time. I threw her an open invitation to come to Hong Kong with me. She did what any sensible Chinese girl would do: Told me she"d think about it and a day or two later manufactured an obvious lie to tell me she couldn"t during the course of a brief text correspondence.
I don"t really understand Chinese girls yet and how they think, but I"m pretty sure inviting a girl from any culture on vacation with you when you"ve just been acquainted as friends is an epic amount of stupidity. So I"m left wondering, is this salvageable and if so, how to salvage?
I"m in the dark about a ton of stuff: She have any interest at all in dating a foreigner? Was she digging me at all? Was what I did an irreparable fuck-up? Was it no big deal at all to her? Many others...
We all exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, etc., and plan to meet up for dinner before our program ends (before the 23rd of August). Should I try and keep her out of sight and out of mind until then, see how I feel at that point, and if that dinner goes well ask her if she"d care to grab a bite just her and i at some point? All advice appreciated, as ever, and sorry for the length.
