Over the last few days, King and I have been hard at work having ourselves several small, contained adventures. Our aim, for these last few days of the holidays, were (is) to meet as many people as possible.
We’re doing quite well.
Adventures 6,199,997,746-41
Subjects: Xiao Zhang’s friends (and the nail lady)
After our disastrous night of debortuory, we laid low for a few nights, taking it easy, spending our time in the local KFC, sipping bottomless coffees.
Xiao Zhang, the boy who ‘saved’ King and I from ourselves, SMS’ed me two days ago, saying something to the effect of ‘I miss you’. Not exactly that, but a series of messages that boiled down to that.
At first, not in the mood for his particular brand of selfness, I didn’t reply. But after having briefly visited Lara and leaving after 10 minutes for no reason other than just sitting there not talking to each other, I needed some company.
I was in Liuyan at the time, sent him a message, and as if by magic, he instantly appeared. He happened to be in a nearby Internet Cafe. He took me down into a pit (seems many entertainment outlets are located below ground), of which I was previously unaware was host to an internet cafe, and introduced me to 3 of his male friends.
They were engaged in a range of activities, from a dancing game, to the ever-popular QQ to Counter Strike. Will that game ever not be popular? Their names, regrettably, I have now forgotten.
They were engrossed in their games and declined to join us. After a too-brief coffee in KFC, we spent the next 40 minutes in the People’s Market with him going “what’s this in English” and “Oh, I love that brand”. I don’t care much for brands, being style-less as I am; that boy is a poser.
After I’ve had as much as I could stomach of “What’s this in Englis” I finally told him, you go to the I-cafe, and I’ll go have my nails done. He wanted to see me engage in this ‘sissy’ activity. So he lead me into the Nail Salon, explained my desire and left.
For the next half hour I had the life resorted to my dull finger nails, my cuticles pushed back and the dead skin trimmed. I never did ask the Nail Lady’s name, and I don’t know what she looks like as she was hiding behind a mask. She had fabulously soft hands and beautiful nails though
I can’t imagine working in a shop like that all day long, they must all be flying by the close of day. The shop was full of pretty ladies though (*wink wink*), everyone gossiping. They gawked at me and wondered what this foreign male was doing there.
Shortly after, I found the lads and 2 of them, plus Xiao Zhang and myself, set off for dinner. We had steamboat, and were later joined by a female friend who’s name I also don’t remember.
The steamboat was messy; lots of noodles and stuff that whip-lashed fatty spots onto my clothing. I’m convinced I didn’t do it to myself though. I’m sure the majority of the stains on my shirt and pants where from the sloppy eating technique of Xiao Zhang, sitting to my right. He felt very confident and drank too much beer; he quickly became pissed and obvious impared his motor skills which lead to poor chopstick control.
King eventually buzzed to say he had arrived at the club with the Gateman and friends. We joined them shortly after. As my kind hosts paid for dinner, I paid for entrance fees. Dissapointingly (or in hindsight, maybe not so dissapointingly), two of them quickly left not 5 minutes later.
Adventure 6,199,997,741-31
Subjects: Mung Li & her Aunties & Uncles & Cousins & …
This girl is weird. It’s the tall, beautiful Chinese girl I met the last time. The phoned me the next night, she had been to the club and was horribly drunk. “I low you” she said, attempting to speak English. “Wo ai ni” she said repeating herself in Chinese.
“Are you sure?” I enquired, “you don’t know me”. “I low you” she said again.
I have made peace with the fact that women are never to be understood, Chinese women even more so, and that instead of wasting time trying to understand them, us men should simply just enjoy and appreciate the precious moments we are allowed to share with them.
Ha, flipping ha!
Anyway, by the time we got to the club, following dinner with the boys and one girl, and it wasn’t late at all, she (Mung Li), was there and already drunk. Again.
I danced a bit with her and also with two of her aunts, plus her cousin, who’s name I still don’t know. At one point one of the aunties asked me to buy them wine. I blankly said “no” and walked off, not feeling like a sucker.
Not long after that Mung Li pulled me closer and gave me a beer. She wanted me to dance at their table, which I did. First the cousin, then the one auntie, then the other auntie came up and danced with me. I was confused because she didn’t want to dance with me, so I typed her an SMS in Chinese, wanting to say “Chinese Women!”, rolling my eyes and smiling as I watched her read it, but I made and oops. She looked up and gave me the Look of Death.
Instead of saying “Chinese Women!”, I typed the wrong character and said “Chinese Slaves!”. This I would only be told later though…
After her getting pissed off by my message, showing it to the rest of her table, and then leaving, the one auntie took my hand and dragged me along the wall of the entire club, and we ended at another table with more relatives, where I was fed two shots of Chivas to toast the main dude and auntie at that table.
Dancing ensued, they tried to force King, who had appeared to check that I’m ok, to drink. He didn’t, squirmed out of it and ran. To be polite I toasted in his stead.
Eventually Xiao Zhang appeared with Mung Li and he asked me what the message was that I gave her. I showed him, he told me what it actually meant, I felt very embarresed and apologised to her.
He said, because I had offended her, I should now buy her a drink – the auntie said a bottle of red wine, but I said I don’t have that much money on me (thinking that even if I did, over my dead body). I ended up buying some beers and all was forgiven.
To cut a vicious amount of detail from the story (but you know how it goes: she comes over, we dance, she leaves pretending not to be interested, she comes back, she leaves again, etc), the night ended with us dancing oh-so-closely, and enjoying it too. Before she left she gave me a peck on the cheek.
That put me on a bit of a cloud, but it was not to last.