Chinese Nurse and Canadian Teacher Paint The Town Red.
Written at
Shenzhen, China, August 13, 2001
Events of
Saturday August 11, 2001
Mercy and I decide to go out drinking, or what passes for drinking in China. Oliver does not seem to mind at all, and prefers to stay at home hitting the TOEFL books for his English-language training. Mercy wants to try an expensive-looking club, shaded by a small forest of trees, just a few minutes away. Bands from all over the world play there, she says hopefully. Or should we go to the seaside bars, already notorious for the pick-ups between Western men and Chinese girls.
Oliver warns me about Chinese men on the way, Sometimes even sexual events happen as a result of going to these bars. Thanks Oliver! You can trust us, I say, since no one ever looked at us on our first barhopping night, where we sipped only mineral water, because a nurse and teacher have social cachet here, and that’s about it.
Waiting for the elevator, Mercy and I laugh about Chinese men.
They grab you by the hand, I say, in the west that is a very family gesture. Handholding. Here it seems to be some sort of dating overture, except that the men employing this tactic, have skipped over dating as a tactic, and are too hideously practical and lacking in romance for a Westerner. There are many types of Western men and women, I try to help my Chinese friends, by letting them just know different we all are. Like all of our horrible grammatical constructions, the poor Chinese students have to wrack their tired brains out over.
We are also concerned about the multiple marriage tendencies creeping back into The Chinese Mind, the Chinese Male Mind, that is. I know the people of my own culture that I do know, and when the floods of unfortunate Western sleaze assail the gates of Chinese propriety, people will end up more and more alone, as in the West. The good news is that women holding better-paying jobs leads to a desire not to tolerate humiliating circumstances, and that perhaps a belief that a second marriage absorbing lessons learned from the first broken marriage might actually be a step forwards.
We sail forth into the night, just expecting something new. We turn onto a pretty side street, childishly envying apartment that cost less than our own, because they have balconies, quiet courtyards, foliage around their windows. Chinese men love the hi-rise, complains Mercy. Some of my colleagues, she continues, referring to doctors and nurses, Love our new house.
We both do not like our new home, although we do not complain, especially me, since I am an Honoured Guest In China, and after the Taipei crush, Shenzhen looks likes a holiday resort.
Our friends even want to buy into our building, says Mercy, baffled.
Sell it if you can, I say, before the building starts to go. The Western people do not buy apartments, if there is water spouting out of the walls. In our luxury bathroom, there is a hole in the wall, where water from the other taps seems to back up, and suddenly spout forth. The landlord could not even be bothered to repaint the walls with a fresh coat of white paint.
We also complain about the horrible noise from construction in the fastest growing city on the planet. At ten at night, there are drilling and sawing noises all around us, surely night construction must be risky.
Awful, she says, I hate it. We are trying to think how we can go out of our new home, and into one of the prettier, treed and balconied places we pass. Mercy and Oliver have to travel to the Philippines at Christmas and have asked me to go with them, we will stay in a budget hotel and I will help them by pretending t be a Canadian Immigration officer.
We turn at a main corner into a small park, and hop along stones to an oddly peaceful building. Anywhere in Asia that is peaceful and quiet begins to seem intriguing.
Mercy talks to the entire staff as we enter a mellow softly-lit pub, and the manager Johnny comes forth to greet us, we enquire precisely about the exact prices of various types of drinks, not caring if we look dirt-cheap, since we are women and thrifty. Mercy turns to me and says there is no cover charge. The drinks are between four and six dollars.
The tables are wood, the chairs comfortable, and a band from Russia is to begin playing at nine o’clock. There are white candles on the tables, and blocks of wood to play with. It seems in every way like a quiet upscale place in the west, and it takes me sometime to assess just how different The Chinese Way is.
There are no loud groups of people as in our own bars, and this is strange, since the Chinese favour large, noisy groups, always chattering and gesticulating. There are a lot of men in pairs, out for the night with just one close male buddy. These men drink very slowly; all around us I note the same beer bottles remain for over one hour!
They are sexually circumspect, though Mercy tells me they are interested in western women, I do not think so. At any rate, I could only have a close relationship with someone who speaks my own language, and so many men are married young, or looking for a parallel marriage.
The music is wonderful, and I enjoy explaining the song Hotel California by the Eagles to my friend. This is not at all about California, as the title suggests, but about a famous place in the city of Paris. Chinese seem to have taken to country and western music, which is surprising to me, how can we understand what will appeal to them as shoppers and consumers.
The light is too red and we ask the manager to turn it down, and he does. I am amazed the man at the next table is trying to grow a goatee, that ghastly new fashion among Western men. I whisper to Mercy about this, and we giggle. She too likes the Chinese look on men, hairless, plain, and clean-cut. Oliver tried to grow a beard at university; she shudders just thinking about this. I remember my 14-year-old student in Taipei who moved her fingers from the crook of her arm to her wrist, shivering as she referred to hair on the forearm of the Western male as being ugly. We do look ugly to them, do not be deceived.
Mercy and I share five small beers over three hours, and frankly, Mercy is unable to finish her half and passes it over to me. Chinese people living it up will not set the world on fire. We note all the beards and long ponytails on the Russian band members, who speak excellent Chinese and play gentle rock music that I am unfamiliar with.
We stop talking about apartments and hair, and I listen to music, while my friend plays for several hours with wood blocks, constructing hi-rise structures, which inevitably tumble down!