‘Oh I woke
up this morning, next to my Chinese wife,
‘I just
can’t wait until it’s late and I can lament my life… I got the…’
I was staying at one of the local
5-star hotels to get away from my admittedly joyless apartment, but the plan
from a few days earlier was still in place: to meet up with Mr. Hoochador, to
absorb as much food and free beer as possible at the hotel restaurant, and
thence to the locally infamous ‘Yes Pub’ to meet up with the non-locals.
It’s a bit of a cliché to be found
drinking with the other dozen or so local expats, but the opportunity to speak
English to more than the three people on staff at my school (plus the helper
maidens, though they’re not much for repartee) inexorably drew us in shortly
after our arrival in town. That two of
them (with rumours of an antisocial third one somewhere) were attractive women
only added to the scene, and so off we went for the 3rd consecutive
weekend.
On arrival I felt my spirits take
their weekly fall (walking into a smoky dive of a bar playing terrible tunes
will do that to a man), augmented by the added disappointment of there being
nobody who both spoke English and lacked a Y-chromosome. Mr. H. and I bellied up to the lawhai table –
a misleading term as we were the only fit ones there – and started to chat
while we took in some more local brew.
It was all very depressing until…
Actually, nothing happened to keep
the mood light: that was an unnecessary tease.
We were left with only a group of predominantly northern Englishmen, who
seemed to delight equally in regaling with tales of people who had left town
previous to our arrival and in advising us to stay away from Chinese
women. It was pretty easy to see what
angle they were coming from, though, as they were all married to local women
and thus pretty effectively tied down.
One remarkable guy had been in town for eleven (11) years, despite
having a vociferous lack of love for the area, the people, and the act of
flossing.
The evening took on the tone I
imagine one would feel attending a lodge meeting with your grandfather, but
without the fun hats. It was smoky
enough – largely because of the dearth of the usual crowds to absorb the
second-hand smoke before it drifted my way – to render my clothes odious in a
faster time than normal… thankfully I had long stopped caring about my sleek
exterior appearance by this time in the night.
The girls were wisely absent, and so it was with Hooch and I; we changed
our interior for exterior pollution and hopped a cab home in mild defeat.
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