Pg 300-325

In this section Hessler gets into a confrontation with a local shoeshine man. The argument does not lead to any physical fight but does reveal some things about Hessler's identity and the shoe shine man. From the reading that leads up to this particular section, I would have never guessed that Hessler would be the one to retaliate against some of the ignorance that went on in Fuling. He was always the type to ignore the ignorance that some the the people from Fuling had towards waiguoren. The altercation reveals that there is a limit to Hessler's patience. For a year and a half he has dismissed anything that would normally upset him but this time he just got tired of dealing with the unnecessary treatment of being a waiguoren. I think that his actions were justified out of anger because he had no intenions of physically fighting that man but would if he got hit first. I think it is perfectly fine that he finally stood up for himself but he didn't not have to taunt the man by insulting him.Towards the end of the sections his feelings towards his unexpected action changed. Although he finally stood up for himself, his concluding reflections show that he has a good conscience. Hessler was educated and had enough common sense to know that the man knew no better than his actions and Hessler fell to the shoeshine man's leave of ignorance. This shows that Hessler is able to point out his mistakes while he is in the act of making them but not quite that strong to correct them just as fast as he notices them. In reference to the shoeshine man, this shows that he has insecurities about himself but chooses to mess with other people to cover them up. This is very apparent when he says that he has many friends that are bigger than him and his anger increases when someone calls him short. He lacks confidence in himself and brings down others in compensation for what he lacks.