He stands without moving behind the shop window. One of his hands lies open, making a decisive chopping gesture. The other sits curled around a stick that long ago rotted away. His hair is tied in a bun, and he wears armor that has long since gone out of fashion.

To his left and to his right there are shelves. And upon each shelf has been placed, of all things, a cell phone. It is as if the outstretched hand were only a minute ago holding the phone, but set it down before I happened to pass.

This is the mighty terracotta warrior. The proud symbol of the power of the Chinese nation, his regality is astonishing. One look is enough to inspire awe in even the casual observer. And placed alongside him, the cell phone: a comparably powerful representation of a Western invention.

This shop window is China in miniature: a culture with a long and distinguished history, standing awkwardly alongside a newfangled Western toy.

I read about a court case just now in Beijing. A man who goes by the name of Shan is suing the McDonald’s Beijing branch, for printing their receipts in English. He claims that this interferes with his ability to know what he has just purchased. How much is he suing for? 1 Renminbi. This is the equivalent of roughly 13 cents.

The case is meant to be a symbolic gesture. By forcing McDonald’s to print their receipts in Chinese, Shan wins a victory for Chinese nationalism. He means to ride on the coattails of a previous ruling that forced Starbucks out of the Forbidden City.

But again, we see the terracotta warrior selling cell phones. The most European feature of this case is not that the receipts are printed in English, but that the case exists at all. In solving his dispute through the method of litigation, Shan has betrayed a particularly Western side — he has become a part of the Culture of the Law Suit.

I see a version of this uneasy and unsure relationship with the West as I walk down the street here in Xi’An. I am in the part of Xi’An that foreigners don’t visit. On the other side of the city from the terracotta warriors, there is nothing really famous for Westerners to gawk at. I live in a tenement apartment. Outside my window, my neighbors play Ma Jiang at all hours of the day and night, listening to Beijing opera music. And I stick out like a sore thumb, with my blond hair and blue eyes.

Yesterday, on my way to work, I was stopped by not one, not two, but three Chinese police officers. Grabbing my shoulder, one of them rather violently spun me around and proceeded to tell me in a very matter-of-fact voice that foreigners, and more specifically, white people, aren’t allowed in this area. “Is this guy serious?” I remember thinking.

It kind of makes sense — my workplace is a school that is part of a medical hospital for the People’s Liberation Army. They naturally assume that any foreign-looking person is a spy, gathering secrets for the American government. But why white people? If I were the American government, and I were genuinely interested in spying on China, I would definitely use a Chinese-looking spy.

The police officers stopped me for a full 45 minutes, berating me with questions and demanding to see my Chinese ID card (which, of course, I did not have). Eventually, they sent me back to my house, to find my boss and prove that I was actually an employee of the school.

I was a full two hours late to the class I was teaching and I had been unnecessarily humiliated. The rule at military centers, as I found out later, is that foreigners are allowed to enter, but cannot spend the night in the establishment. I was not breaking any rules.

I see the anger of these policemen as an expression of anger at the West itself. To these three men, I was a walking and talking embodiment of Western capitalism and imperialism. To these men, I was a staunch supporter of American trade policies, a Wall Street banker and a militant ethnocentrist to boot.

In a more painful way, I see this same anger every time a child cries at me. This is a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. In America, most children very much like me, finding in my slapstickery a common bond. But so far, in China, three children have bawled upon seeing my face. One of them was prompted by his mother: “Look at our foreign brother. Look how different he is, how long his nose is!” Every time, the child stops crying as soon as the mother shields it from my view. Now, I’m not the prettiest boy you’ll ever see, but I’m fairly certain the children aren’t crying because I’m ugly.

As angry as my presence might make the populace, China is already undeniably Western in many ways. The word “Western” has become meaningless, as modern China works to syncretically blend the old and the new, in a culturally distinctive way. But the blend isn’t complete, and awkwardness has ensued. It seems as if even China doesn’t know what Chinese culture means anymore.

I hope you accept my musings, realizing they are from my personal point of view. I am not an expert, and I don’t think I ever will be. But I am writing what I have seen. And I have seen a terracotta warrior who looks like he’s holding a cellphone.