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Published: September 11th 2009
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Love at First Sight
No idea why this was inside a McDonald's Part One: West
This week was a big one for celebration here in Dalian. In addition to Freddy's birthday this Sunday, my roommate Tim had a birthday on Wednesday, which he happens to share with the G.M. of the Goodyear plant over here. So we went down to an expat bar in the city called Brooklyn, owned by a Chinese-American who can actually speak Chinese (my boss knows enough to get around, probably more than he lets on; like a lot of expats here, not speaking Chinese unless it's absolutely necessary is sort of a point of pride) and who takes pride in serving good Western food, a true rarity here unless you savor McDonald's (see below). The bar was populated by a bunch of 40-something Westerners and their 20-something Chinese wives. Not really; not all of them were married, and some had Western wives as well, but that's the impression I usually get. Anyway, the Goodyear G.M. was all jolly that Tim and he had the chance to celebrate the auspicious (a very Chinese-sounding word) birthday of 9/9/09 together, which he announced to the entire bar. We chatted with some old rich businessmen and ate real thin-crust pizza and pulled pork sammies, which almost made me cry it was so good and reminiscent.
We were quickly introduced to the Goodyear G.M., whose name is either Nick or Rick (I'm leaning towards Rick). Rick is the kind of guy who when you tell him where you're from, he regales you with a long and hair-raising tale of the 30 minutes or so he spent there in his well-traveled life. I heard him do this about 5 times throughout the night to different people from all over the U.S. But he was a nice guy and he shared hi ice cream cake, so I shouldn't be so hard on him.
My boss is a real social prostitute, to use a euphemism for how my older, more blue-collar co-worker Jim described him. Although Jim coined the term, everyone in the bar vigorously agreed. But on the plus side, Freddy seems to genuinely enjoy people, as opposed to just being chummy so he can use them for profit. So there's a sort of cute aspect to his constant man-hugging (complete with mandatory back-pats), hand-shaking, and wise-cracking. I'm sure there's a picture of me, him, and the Goodyear G.M. on someone's digital camera. As the crowd thinned out, Jim and I commiserated on how we couldn't really understand this chummy false-facade business type, instead striking up a conversation with an English-speaking Chinese waitress about how she has to deal with well-meaning jerks like this every night. Jim is somehow both overwhelmingly down-to-earth and completely insane. He gesticulates more than I do. So far he's in my top-2 of favorite co-workers, perhaps in terms of sheer entertainment.
Eventually, Tim, Freddy, Jenny, and I were the only ones left, while Freddy took it upon himself to chat up Brooklyn's owner and bartender Wayne. Dalian is a good 30-minute, 80-kuai cab ride back to Kaifaqu, and since Jenny and Freddy live in the same apartment complex as Tim and me, we split it. About 20 minutes in, we decided the three pizzas and ice-cream cake we had at the party weren't enough, so we stopped at McDonald's, the only 24-hour eatery in Kaifaqu. Tim and I, being so close, simply had to document it. Somewhat unsurprisingly, McDonald's didn't
sit in my stomach much better than Chinese street food, and it certainly tasted worse, which made me question its quadrupled price-tag and the favoritism foreigners bestow upon it.
Part Two: East
The following day, September 10th, is Teacher's Day in China, a national holiday which America depressingly lacks (something the Chinese teachers couldn't really fathom). To celebrate, the head of our Chinese staff, Linda (also Chinese, but I don't know them by their Chinese names) took all the teachers out to a well-renowned hot pot restaurant. Us Westerners were formally invited, and perhaps to their surprise everyone but Freddy and Jenny accepted. Hot pot, for the uninitiated, is a special kind of Chinese meal originating I believe from Mongolia. The diners all sit at a round table, in the middle of which is placed a giant dish with a pot of hot coals in the center. A waitress pours a sort of broth, flavored with flowers and spices, into the surrounding dish. Raw food is then brought out on plates and cooked by the diners themselves. Sort of like fondue, as Amy pointed out, but way cooler I think. In all, we ate 14 plates of lamb, one for each teacher, and two Beijing roast ducks (a totally different kind of dish, no boiling involved: sliced duck, mostly skin and fat, wrapped also by the diner, or the waitress if you're really needy and want to see some awesome chopstick skills, in a flat thin pancake along with leek strips and a delicious brown sauce).
We also drank 18 bottles of beer between us. I was surprised to find that the Chinese teachers, all of whom are college-aged girls which in China means they appear to have the maturity level of a 15-year-old, would drink with us. But they did, complete with toasts every 15 minutes or so. Eating etiquette is very fun here; one of the teachers was assigned to keep our Western glasses full at all times. But the celebration was distinctly more subdued than the Western kind: eating and polite conversation (mostly eating, due to the language barrier). I think part of the awkward silence was due to both the Chinese and the Americans having to feel out the other parties' out-of-work personalities, since we've never really socialized together before. And it turns out the Chinese teachers are not so young-acting in their own social setting; the little-girl thing I think is kind of an act they put on for ignorant foreigners, an act that probably stems from the cultural norm of sparing those who think they are superior to you the harsh truth, of keeping your own thoughts to yourself, of letting the idiots figure it out for themselves. Unfortunately, it also might be reinforcing the attitude foreigners have here towards Chinese: that the natives are naive, emotionally under-developed, and immune to sarcasm and the generally jaded world-view of an everyday Westerner.
In any case, this time it was us Westerners who were made to look like fools, in everything from how we held our chopsticks to how little we understood of their social and conversational nuances. A little mockery was probably due, and maybe even deserved; maybe even healthy. I also found out that I prefer the Eastern way of celebrating; it allows one to keep one's dignity (Aside: Chinese has an asexual third-person pronoun, yet another thing they have a leg up on over us English. But I might eat those words, because the girls (women? Freddy always calls them girls, it is programmed into me) agreed to join Tim and me this weekend for a karaoke session.
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Question: Do they have anything to drink in China besides beer?