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I'm sitting in a bar in Japan, enjoying a holiday whiskey, when I hear something that grabs my attention.
The couple next to me is speaking Mandarin.
They're both young Chinese professionals, polite, and fashionably dressed.
We share holiday stories and travel tips, but very quickly start to chat about China.
We discover a shared love of Yunnan food and street snacks, talk about the merits of Beijing versus Shanghai, and, of course, decide Beijing is cooler. Naturally, we spend a bit of time complaining about the air. Drinks are bought, toasts are made, and so it goes for the rest of the evening.
I've only been living in China for two years, but that night at the bar, I felt a real connection with my new Chinese mates, the kind I usually only feel when I meet Australians while traveling abroad.
And that's when I began wondering, how Chinese have I become?
I talk it over with my fiancee, Kelly.
"Well, you do spit your bones out on the dinner table now," she remarks.
"I like doing that," I tell her, and fire back with "you say 'dui' like a Beijing taxi driver."
"Huh?"
"You always say, 'dui, dui, dui, dui,' four times, really quickly," I point out.
We list each other's Chinese attributes. I eat lunch at 11:30 am now. Kelly drinks hot water instead of cold water.
"It's better for your health," she says, a bit condescendingly.
I'm thinking about all this as we continue our holiday, during which, lunch is frequently purchased at a civilized 11:30 am.
Can two years in China really have an effect on an Australian?
We are in Tokyo, shopping in an electronics store, when it happens.
We walk up to the checkout, spend 10 minutes asking the shop assistant questions about a product, pay, and then chat idly while we slowly pack our things away. The very polite, very quiet Japanese shop assistant is acting strange though.
That's when I look around, and realize to my horror, there is a huge line of people waiting to be served.
We'd walked straight past them to get to the counter, and pushed in.
Kelly and I look at each other, mortified.
"We just," I stutter, "I think we ... "
"Yes," Kelly says, "we just pulled a 'China move' on those people."
Cultural exchange is a wonderful thing. I love being immersed in Chinese culture, but I felt we'd just crossed the line; or in this case, cut it.
The next and final stop on our holiday is Okinawa, where we get back in touch with our Australian roots by drinking too much, loudly singing Aussie rock songs while periodically instructing other tourists how to best survive a shark attack, and getting really, really sunburned. Perhaps after two weeks away from China, we are reverting to being 100 percent Australian?
I'm about to ask Kelly if she thinks this is the case, but I realize she can't answer, because she's covering her mouth while using a toothpick.
Contact the writer at josephcatanzaro@chinadaily.com.cn
