Stood Up

It should have been the perfect day. Went on another school trip to the Song Feng Shan mountain range, this time to an ex game reserve, an ancient deciduous forest with long thin pine trees sprouting from steep glacial ridges, which formed high, narrow natural paths to tightrope-walk along. In the afternoon, we got back in time to meet some friends we've made from the Commercial University, for our weekly kick-about. There's little or no grass in Harbin, so our football is played on a dustbowl, with ancient rusted goalposts, broken bottles and empty noodle cartons littering the pitch. Went home, showered, got spruced up, and I was in the perfect mood to finish the day on a perfect, happy hat trick.

We ate at the Shepherd's Pie Place, then on to Gong Da, and from there to the Banana Bar, in a retracing of our steps from Wednesday night only this time, I hoped, without the prostitutes. I was meeting Liu Yang at 10 pm; Tam and Clive, either to keep me company, or to get a closer look at Liu Yang, came with me. We had a drink at the bar as we waited for her. And waited. And waited. She never showed. I couldn't understand it. What was with the e-card, the phone calls, the enthusiasm, if she wasn't interested? How could she have lost interest so quickly? Had I done something wrong?

'Everything seemed to be going so well,' I told Nick and Matt, just in case they thought Liu Yang was a figment of my imagination. 'We went shopping this week and had a nice time. I don’t understand it.'

'Maybe you said something, did something, that she didn't like. You know, Chinese girls are different. It's impossible to tell what they think.' Clive said, with the benefit of experience.

'Well, she did say that she didn't like my hat. But, I mean, I thought she was joking.’

'What colour was it?'

'Huh?'

'What colour was the hat?'

'Green.'

'Oh. Oh dear...'

Nick made a face, the kind you make when a child does something wrong and doesn't realise it.

'You know, if someone wears a green hat in China, it means their partner is having an affair.'

'Really? But, how was I supposed to know that? And how could that have changed her feelings towards me?'

'Maybe she just thought there were too many cultural differences, too many difficulties dating a foreigner. Or maybe you just had BO, or a bit of spinach stuck in your teeth, and the hat had nothing to do with it.'

Perhaps she'd just taken offence to me wearing my stupid pork-pie hat on our first date, regardless of the colour. And if that was the case, I only had myself to blame. Girls are a mystery to me at the best of times, and Chinese girls were no different, were, in fact, more of a mystery to me, with the language and cultural differences taken into account. I didn't want to drink, or play Connect 4, and I certainly didn't want to dance. I was home before midnight. I tried to contact Liu Yang a number of times during the week, but she never answered her phone or replied to my emails.