I rolled out of bed at 10:00, and forced myself to head over to Bally for a long run. I ran for an hour, at the end of which I was exhausted. I have not seriously trained for over 9 months since I came here. I have not been entirely negligent of my health during this time, but the majority of my exercise involved riding my bike. I finished exercising, and went to take a shower in the locker rooms. The showers were right next to the saunas, which although I have not seen in use, still emit a gratuitous amount of heat. The vicinity of the showers hovers around 90o F, and I nearly lost my stomach after drying off, due to the heat of the room and my own body heat.
I returned to the dorm to find that I was one of two people that was already awake. The other was Joy, and we decided to round up the masses and make a trip to the 798 Art District. I ate some moon cakes, yogurt, and the last of my chocolate balls for lunch. I spent an hour waiting on everyone to prepare themselves, and even that wasn’t enough. We – Lee, Joy, Wesley, Lauren, Marianna, I – didn’t leave until around 2, which was very disappointing. We took the subway there, then bus. We finally made it to the district around three, after three people gave us wrong directions. We looked at the art for about 2 ½ hours, and I was newly amazed at the size of the 798 Art District. I didn’t see anything from my last trip, except for the Transformers and rebar lewd statues, which was a planned revisit.
Then, we took a bus back to the subway station, and took us literally 45 minutes to travel not more than 3 miles. I was bulging with impatience and hunger, but had to swallow my chi and wait. Then, we took the subway to DongZhiMen, and Lillian met us at the exit. We ate Hot Pot for supper, at the same place as last time. Joy, who incidentally has her own hot pot cooker at her house, ordered for us. We made a meal of lamb, beef, mushrooms, tofu, bean sprouts, cabbage, spinach, pumpkins and more.
After the spicy and fulfilling supper, the group began to disintegrate. Three of the girls in the group wanted to find a McDonalds, and use an international restroom there. And if I may echo Lee’s sentiments, if you did not, in fact, see a McDonalds or other international establishment on the way to your destination, chances are that there will not be one of those establishments on your route back. When we got to the subway station, Wesley and Lillian parted ways with Lee and I. They wanted to head back to the dorms, but I had a date with destiny. Lee and I headed towards Houhai, towards the most awkward and strange experience that I’ve had thus far in Beijing.
Define: (Chinese) bar – [n] While the generic term “bar” is used to describe establishments of similar function in China, these places have little in common with their western counterparts. Most bars in China resemble a western coffee shop, where one could order an entire meal, and listen to a band while relaxing at a table. Chinese bars are typically cleaner than Western bars, and considerably less noisy. You also do not have to worry about contracting a deadly virus from a Chinese bar. You might take your whole family to a “bar,” or your business acquaintances, in order to strike up a deal on an upcoming project. With that said, many Chinese bars present an innocent front in order to hide less legal – and possibly more seditious and licentious goings-on in the back rooms.
I found myself in one of these bars. When I went in, I met the owner of the bars, and he took me to meet the members of a band there. They seemed like very cool people, and initially seemed nice. I, however, couldn’t figure out what they wanted me to do while I was there. They kept asking me about songs that I knew, and I finally realized that there were trying to determine if I knew any of their band’s songs. Then, they asked me to walk onstage with them, and wanted me to play as their guitar player. I didn’t know any of their songs, when I got up there, and it was so awkward (keep in mind that I’m in front of about 100 Chinese people at this bar). Then, they wanted me to play my own songs. Playing with their band was fun, but their style was not at all like US music in general, or like any group of people that I’ve played with in my entire life. After two songs, I gladly relinquished the guitar to the Chinese guitarist.
It at this point that I realized they were looking to see if I could take the place of the guitarist in their band for the semester, which was entirely impossible. This feat was even more impractical when evaluating the make of the guitar that they asked my to use while I was on stage. In short, the guitar was horrible, and it was designed for a midget. The body was no bigger than a salad plate, and the whole thing looked like a child’s play toy. No self-respecting man should ever play a guitar like that.
To add insult to injury, one of the singers in the band introduced Lee and me to Michael, the craziest person that I’ve met thus far. This is how our conversation began:
“Hey, I’m Jamey. What’s your name?”
“Michael [indistinguishable last name]. I’m a Grammy nominated piano player.”
Oh really? That is patently stupendous! And he was so humble too. Thus, I tried another avenue:
“So where are you from?”
“China. I originally came to Japan to write the music for Hello Kitty, and then I came to China. I make guitars and manage this band here.”
Let’s break this down. First sentence is an obvious lie. Michael is a pudgy, middle-aged American, and he is one of the whitest guys that I have ever met. Secondly, I don’t think that there is any music for Hello Kitty. Thirdly, he tells us that his “company” makes all kinds of guitars, and that he won first place at NAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants, which is this huge convention for independent musical instrument producers). I know that this also must be a lie because he then proceeds to tell me that the midget guitar that I just used was made by his company.
We bounced as soon as we could, and headed back to the subway station, only to find that the last subway train had just run. Imagine that. We took a cab back to the dorm, as we had no other choice. By this time it was after 12, and Lee and I recorded a video chronicling the insanity of this day. You’ll have to watch it sometime.
Fell asleep dead.
This is the end of this installment. Stay tuned! I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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