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At least let’s call him Mr. Zhang. The fact is I made the regrettable mistake of failing to inquire as to his name. But since ten percent of all Chinese people are surnamed Zhang, I have a one in ten chance of being correct. This Mr. Zhang, typically enough, wore the clean and dressy clothes the rest of his lower-middle-class Chinese peers wore. His hair glistened with a modest amount of hair product and revealed a combed over thinning spot when viewed from the correct angle.

As I strode about purposefully after dinner, my mind full of things to do and accomplishments to accomplish, Mr. Zhang motioned me over to his table in the courtyard of the hotel. He bade me sit down and we were soon chatting away, him with a cup of baijiu and me, thankfully, with a nice cup of tea.

It turns out Mr. Zhang had never spoken with a foreigner before. “I’ve seen them on the street, but we do not speak the same language, communication is impossible, and we simply passed by. I had no idea even what country they came from,” he told me. “But now here I am, speaking with a foreigner, and I am very happy,” he said, expressing an emotion he would heavily emphasize throughout the evening.

Shortly we were joined by Adam and Pete. Drew walked by, also hoping to get something done before going to bed, but he was snagged like me and wound up having to explain in elegant Chinese that he was shopping for bungee cords. “Ah ha!” cried Mr. Zhang, “Do you know how much a bungee cord costs? Three yuan?” Drew, who’s knowledge of bungee cords is anything if not impressive, replied, “No, two yuan.” “Yes,” affirmed the impressed Mr. Zhang. He asked Drew where the bungee cord store was. He told Drew where he could buy some bungee cords. He intimated he himself possessed bungee cords. What was going on? Mr. Zhang called his wife (?) over and commanded “Go get some bungee cords!” “What?” chuckled his wife, “I don’t know where your bungee cords are. You go get them!” Then proceeded a long discussion of parts of a room and locations wherein one might expect to find bungee cords. After Mr. Zhang’s wife returned with three, Mr. Zhang inspected them carefully. “This one’s broken!” he stormed upon finding a perceived error. “Broken?!” his wife rejoined, “You’re the broken one!” After Mr. Zhang’s wife had returned with the bungee cords, he presented them to Drew, and spare no ceremony in so doing.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am and is filed under Jim's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.