Little Trouble in Big China

People aren’t afraid to merge on freeways in Beijing.¹ This is the first thing I think when I visit this city. A cab picks us up at BCIA and I mutter this under my breath as the driver continues up the onramp. I say, “People aren’t afraid to merge on freeways in Beijing.” Everyone cuts and weaves too closely in front of each other in a writhing river of honking Hondas, all up in our asses, personal space be damned. Everyone doesn’t care.

You can’t beat the prices though. For 100 Yuan, or about 15 USD, you can buy the absolute best Peking duck you’ve ever eaten, or a night at a quaint three-star hotel, or a month's worth of fresh sandwiches at a bakery, or six or seven Big Macs, or enough beer at the local bar to keep you hung-over for days. A Big Mac in Beijing, by the way, tastes more or less like a Big Mac in the States, only the pickles are more pickly and there’s extra mayonnaise and most likely 30% more sesame seeds per square inch on the top bun.

And the fun, you can’t beat the fun. The first night, I do my Andrew Zimmern thang and swallow a fried silkworm even though my eyes are shut and my hands are squeezed into fists. Then there is the nearly-digested seahorse on a stick as well as the scorpion kebabs that I stay the hell away from, but yeah, all fun, it’s all fun. Other things: visiting the Forbidden City, finding it so magical that I nearly settle on titling this blog entry “Unforbidden City,” but later deciding that it’s either excessively cute or not cute in the least bit, sightseeing at a few Buddhist temples, the inevitable trek up to the Great Wall, watching a formulaic product of Hong Kong cinema that unfortunately lacks English subtitles as well as Jet Li, enjoying a sunrise at Tiananmen Square and attempting to write poetry while senior citizens around me practice Tai Chi.

Best thing: playing a couple games of 21 (basketball, not cards) with several random teenagers. The only way I can explain it is kids here feverishly adore basketball the way teenage girls in the late 90s adored harmonizing pop groups from Orlando. LeBron James decorates their Trapper Keepers, lunch boxes, and comforters. Yao Ming jerseys are proudly worn by every other kid on the streets as they dribble basketballs to and fro. It’s like Indiana, only the term “basketball country” is quite literal here. China is basketball country, is a basketball country. It’s their world, their universe. Thing is, they suck. Sure, in a game of five on five they execute that drive and kick game better than Duke, but they just can’t fucking shoot to save their lives. They shoot like little girls, or frail boys who lack upper body strength—they shoot the ball from their stomachs, taking five seconds or more to gather themselves. They’re accurate jumpshooters, yes, until I come charging in from out of the picture and block the shit out of the ball, screaming victoriously, flexing my muscles. I win the first game easily, wowing everyone with my Larry Bird jump shot and my handles straight out of Rucker Park, and then during a brief intermission, I’m checking something on my iPhone, then start up Game 2, saying to the skinny 5’3” twerp guarding me, “你如今在我的房子里,” which means, “You’re in my house now.”²

But it’s not all fun and games. What starts to get to me about China, after a few days, is the helpless feeling of being in a country where no one knows your words. Like when I’m eating tofu at a restaurant and I accidentally drop my chopsticks on the sticky floor, so I try to communicate to the waiter that I need a new pair of chopsticks, except he doesn’t seem to understand charades, which I learn is the case with just about everyone else here. You would definitely pay to see the horror and confusion on his face when, in an effort to explain to him what had happened, I take what he thinks are perfectly usable chopsticks, wave them in front of his face, then suddenly drop them on the floor, the chopsticks rattling rudely next to his feet.

And then when my parents leave me after a couple days so that they can continue on to Hong Kong and so that I can get into a few adventures here alone before leaving back to the U.S., the frustrating language barrier kind of morphs into this weird loneliness, this immature longing for things that are familiar to me (thus, my trip to McDonald’s). The Chinese mean well, they really do, and they try their best to cater to Westerners but the effort can be bizarre at times, such as signs that read “MIND YOUR STEP” instead of “WATCH YOUR STEP” and juice drinks blatantly emulated after the Hi-C brand, called “Hello-C” because people here don’t seem to get that Hi-C means “High C,” as in it’s high in Vitamin C, understand, China? Whatever. And so nothing here really feels quite like home when you’re traveling alone, and you end up walking down Wangfujing Street while all of that foreign chatter turns in white noise, and you're hungry for a real conversation with someone, anyone.

Occasionally, whenever in the presence of white people, like at a market or something, I’ll even talk to myself out loud. I’ll yawn exaggeratedly and say something like, “Boy, I'm tired,” hoping they will hear this and thus get excited and start talking to me and perhaps meet up later at a bar so we can talk shit about the Chinese together in perfect Midwest-accented English. Or I’ll be at McDonald’s standing in line next to blonde blue-eyed people, ordering a Big Mac as loudly as possible. I’LL HAVE A NUMBER ONE, PLEASE, SUPER SIZE IT. NUMBER ONE. ONE. YES. DIET COKE. COCA-COLA. UNDERSTAND? COCA-COLA. COKE! DIET. OKAY. EASY ON THE ICE. I WILL HAVE THIS FOR HERE. FOR. HERE. EXTRA KETCHUP PACKETS, PLEASE. And each time, the nearby white people will be Dutch or French or something.

Then on my last day here, on the cab ride home, for my deranged amusement, I decide to throw insults to the taxi driver in English. After putting my suitcase in the trunk, I say AIRPORT to the driver, gesturing my hand at an upwards angle, like an airplane taking off, making sound effects even, and the driver silently nods. I look at the reflection of his face on the rearview mirror. He’s got smiling lines by his eyes, but his eyes look sad, weary. He looks kind of like a malnourished Mao Zedong really. I look out the window, at all of the gnarled trees lining the freeway, at the sunny blue sky, rare for Beijing these days. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

The driver grunts. I laugh. I begin.

“You crazy motherfucker, you have no fucking idea what I'm talking about do you?”

“Where's the meter on this car? Your meter better be on and working correctly, because if you overcharge me for this ride, there’s gonna be hell to pay. I know how much a ride to the airport costs. 80 Yuan. Better not be more than that, but don’t worry, I have all this extra currency and I’m going to give you about 200 Yuan, a huge tip, just so I can feel good about myself after I see the look of gratitude on your face.”

“But you smell, do you know that? You smell like vinegar. Sup with that?”

“Your breath stanks too. It’s the smell of copper pennies. What the fuck are you eating every day to get it that way?”

“Oh and your country doesn’t know how to make Snickers bars. I bought one at a convenience store and it had way too many peanuts.”

“And the food here? Overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if I could eat only three things for the rest of my life, it would be tacos, sushi, and Peking duck, but shit, everything else here isn’t all that. Monosodium glutamate ain’t the solution to life’s problems, buddy."

“And what’s with all of the men here hocking loogies and spitting on the street, like inches from where I’m about to step?”

“Oh my gosh, and is your name Wang? Seriously? Seriously? Dude.”

“You fucking zipperhead. Ha ha. You like that? Clint Eastwood taught me that.”

The driver pulls up to my terminal. I pick up my suitcase from the trunk, give him the 200 Yuan, and he smiles warmly and shakes my hand. “Thank you very much, sir,” he says, with a slight British accent. “Hope you enjoyed your stay in Beijing!”

I take tiny steps toward that new airport terminal that they’re so proud of, that shiny, oversized Olympic-fueled mistake. My scalp is sweating, my heart is pounding. What the hell just happened there? Did he understand everything I was saying? Or was “Thank you very much sir, hope you enjoyed your stay in Beijing” simply the only words in English he knew how to say, words he practices every morning in front of a bathroom mirror in order to appear friendly to tourists? What the fuck. Did he know what I saying? Did he understand? Were his feelings hurt? Did he care? You can never tell with these people.

¹ An homage to Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. What gumption!
² I actually did not say this, but the fact that there aren’t footnotes corresponding to other parts of dialogue on this entry should scare you.