New Year

11/02/02 - 12/02/02

It's New Year's day, and I'm sitting at a plastic table in a hard-sleeper carriage of the night train to Xi'an. Now and again, red, green and yellow fireworks explode in the darkness outside, reminding me of my own celebrations last night. I feel like I've left home. When we departed this evening, there was much exchanging of email addresses and promises of keeping in touch forever. Which, of course, will never happen.

Last night, New Year's eve, started with dumplings in the hostel kitchen. Everything had been prepared by the sweet and energetic female staff. All us foreigners had to do was put the pork into the dough and wrap it up, but all my efforts looked like car wrecks. Rebecca, on the other hand, got the hang of it after a few minutes, coercing the lumpy bits of goo into pretty packages. When it came to eating them, I carefully avoided the ones crafted by my clumsy hands, and went for Rebecca's instead. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain, something metallic in my mouth. I complained about the alien object in my dumpling. The Chinese girls laughed and said that I'd found the One Yuan coin.

'I think I just lost a filling.' I whined, rubbing my sore mouth.

'No, it's good news. There is only one coin, and you got it. It means you'll be lucky.'

I tongued my skinned gum, trying to look cynical, then saw Marina smiling at me and couldn't help smiling back. As I did so, I made a silent wish on that lucky coin.

Over the last few days, Marina and I had been inseparable. We seemed to be constantly in conversation, and had even begun doing that bumping-together-as-you-walk thing that people do when they're attracted to each other. I loved her placid sky-blue eyes and shy, serious mouth. A mixture of the imperturbable and the vulnerable, looking at her face was like looking at the sky on a spring day, feeling the beauty and provenance of the world, but knowing that clouds could come at any minute.

Our group of friends walked down the market streets, looking for fun. Fireworks lit up the night sky. I was itching to hold Marina's hand, but couldn't figure out a suitably nonchalant way do it, so that it didn't seem overly serious. I settled for a nudge, pretending to point out a firework. She nudged back. At the club, we watched as Paulien became embroiled in her usual bout of haggling with the barman. Despite her angry demeanor during these sessions, I was convicned she actually enjoyed it. Perhaps she was addicted to the adrenalin rush of justification and pride that came after her usual victory. This time, however, they were wise to her.

PAULIEN: No no no! You said, one karaoke room, two packet cigarettes, twelve beer and one red of wine for two hundred!

BARMAN: No no no no no! I say, one ka la okay loom, one packet cigarette, but no beer or led of wine for two hunled!

PAULIEN (shaking her fist in the air): Right! I've had it! Boycott! Boycott!

And she led our group right of the club and never came back. Marina and I didn't follow them, however, we stayed on the dancefloor. As we danced, I began to suffer from an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as images of dancing here with Frauke just a few nights ago, and being unable to pluck up the courage to kiss her, flashed through my brain. I pulled Marina close and buried my face in her candy hair, but still I couldn't kiss her. What was wrong with me? For some reason I remembered, in one of my favourite Spiderman comics as a kid, how Spidey had lost his special powers but still had to fight every one of his arch enemies, one-by-one.

Then Marina said:

'I think I'm going to kiss you now.'

I was enraptured. That proximity, that touch, that smell, that softness! Fireworks boomed outside, dance music boomed inside, lights flashed, and young, drunk, happy locals whooped and danced around, bringing in their New Year, Marina and I locked tight together in their midst.

This afternoon, New Year's day, I took one final walk through the colourful market streets, to buy Marina a present. She'd spent the day in bed with a migraine. When I knocked on the girls' door back at the hostel, Helena answered in her pyjamas. I caught sight of Marina, snuggled up in bed, and felt like jumping in beside her and never coming out again. Helena shook her awake, and she slowly, painfully, got up, stretching like a long yellow cat. She padded softly over and held me in a short, ambiguous hug. I gave her the jade necklace I'd bought, one single green bead on a red string, symbolic of good luck for the New Year, symbolic that anything was possible for her, for me, but probably not for us. She kissed me silently on the cheek, put it in her pyjama pocket, and went back to bed.

Hutongs

09/02/02 - 10/02/02.

In Beijing there are endless amounts of street markets, parks, temples and galleries, but the most interesting areas by far are the hutongs. To find them, all you have to do is turn down an alleyway, any old alleyway will do, and suddenly it's not an alleyway any more, but in fact a wormhole in time that takes you back to the Beijing of half a century ago.

You wander down narrow dirt streets lined by rows of ramshackle huts, many with falling-in roofs or broken windows. The streets interconnect with haphazard, illogical nature, and you're lost in minutes. Motorbikes and taxis rush past at dangerous speeds, honking their horns. There's food and cooking everywhere: rusty braziers with smoky sweet potatoes; candied crab apple sellers on bikes, their long sticks of candy precariously perched; stands of raw meat putrifying in the spring sunshine; dumplings steaming in stacked wicker baskets. Old people play cards or mah jhong in shaded ground floor rooms. Men spit and piss with impunity. Children play tag around piles of garbage in the gutter.

The hutongs have a vitality - and an indiscipline - that the clean, policed, sanitised version of Beijing sorely lacks. I guess that's one of the reasons why they're being systematically demolished.

The Chairman Mao Nightlight Hangover Cure

08/02/02

I awoke at 8.30 am on the dot, after exactly three hours sleep, rolled out of bed, remembering too late that I was on the top bunk, and clattered to the floor. I instantly regretted being conscious. I felt awful, sick and giddy. My head ached and my parched throat felt as if someone had taken a razor blade to it during the night. I would have gone straight back to bed, but I couldn't negotiate the stepladder.

I needed a hangover cure.

Tam eventually got up and we formed a two-point plan of action. First, to the MacDonald's next to Tiananmen Square where, two large coffees, French fries, cokes and Big Macs later, we felt ready to confront the embalmed corpse of the most famous Chinaman since Confucius, the theory being that seeing someone who looked worse than us might actually make us feel better. It was worth a try.

You can see Chairman Mao, weirdly serene in his glass case, in his tomb on Tiananmen Square, every morning between 8.30 and 11.30. If you're not squeamish about these things, or if you have a dark, ironic or just downright ghoulish sense of humour, then I heartily recommend it. It's a bizarre and rather funny experience and, unexpectedly, free.

You're marched two-by-two towards the tomb by a platoon of young soldiers in green uniform. Then they stop you, in order to explain the rules:

1. You are to take off your hat.
2. You are not allowed to stop for a closer look.
3. You are not allowed to take photographs.
4. You are to maintain an appropriately respectful demeanour at all times.
5. You must not talk.
6. You must not laugh or smile.
7. You must submit unquestioningly to these rules.

I wrung my blue woolly hat in my hands and gritted my teeth. I caught Tam's eye and saw he was of the same mind: we had to separate, or we'd break out into giggles.

The two lines were then told to start shuffling into the tomb. One line goes round to the left of the glass case, one round to the right. Nobody talks, smiles or stops. Some of the old-school Chinese actually make little bows as they pass their prone ex-demigod. Some just stare open-mouthed. The man himself lies there with an enigmatic smile on his face, looking waxy and unreal. Bright spotlights below his head and shoulders up-light him so that his face glows a luminous shade of orange. He shines like a nightlight, the kind you give children afraid of the dark. The Chairman Mao nightlight: available at an Ikea store near you. This was too much. How can they present you with this then order you not to laugh? I glanced over at Tam, and saw he had his knuckle in his mouth.

Outside the tomb, on either side down the steps, are trinket stalls selling all kinds of tacky Mao memorabilia: watches, plaques, pop art T-shirts, pendants, wall hangings. I wondered whether this was not more disrespectful to their glorious leader than Tam and I could ever be.

In fact, in Beijing there's a whole industry of Mao. I'd bought my fair share in the market the day before, in the shape of a watch with, instead of Mickey Mouse on the face, a cartoon image of Mao waving one arm in frantic salute to denote the passing seconds. What can I say? I just had to have it. I was persuaded to pay thirty Yuan for it, which was far too much, by a bubbly, persistent, pretty woman who, after we'd paid for our purchases, still wouldn't let us leave. Make hay while the sun shines, she was obviously thinking. Or, take the stupid foreigners for every penny you can get. At one point, she was gripping Tam by one arm, not letting him escape, while I was pulling him by the other, trying to drag him away. We stretched him out between us like two medieval torturers, as a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the comedy performance of the two foreign clowns and the unstoppable shopkeeper.

THE BIG MAN's

07/02/02

The best parties often occur when you've no plan and everything just happens spontaneously. This was Danuka's 28th birthday. The fact that we celebrated it twice as hard as she did herself hardly seems to matter.

That evening, more backpackers arrived, including Aaron, a tall softly-spoken Canadian, and two cute blonde Finnish girls, Helena and Marina, who were most definitely invited. Along with Karst and Paulien, a Dutch couple we've known for a few days, and Rebecca, as well as assorted others, we made up a real multi-national group. To round it all off, Frauke turned up too.

We headed out towards the market area, where Danuka spotted a lively looking restaurant. What an inspired choice it proved to be. It was the kind of Beijing restaurant where the waiters sing you a greeting as you walk through the door. The place had a nice blend of the old and the modern, its polished pinewood furnishings augmented by bright neon and a VCD player attached to a massive TV, that played Hong Kong and Taiwan pop music at way too loud a volume. The food was tasty, spicy and cheap, and the beer came in massive ice-cold pitchers.

If a business is the reflection of the inner spirit of its owner, then picture with me THE BIG MAN: a huge genial pot-bellied Pooh Bear of a man, grubby T-shirt rolled up for ventilation leaving a beachball-sized stomach to wobble underneath with a vitality all its own. A face of idiosyncratic wrinkles, kind eyes and a constant grin. Hearing it was Danuka's birthday, he arranged the tables for us in the middle of the room, stuck on a really bad Michael Jackson VCD, and proceeded to spoil us with discount food, peanuts, sunflower seeds and (personally) hand-rolled cigarettes made from a wretched, lung-busting tobacco.

Three hours later, as 'They Don’t Care About Us' is being drowned out by dozens of chopsticks hammering on any available glass, plate or table-top, Tam and THE BIG MAN are arm in arm.

TAM: Karaoke, zai nar?

He strikes a corny pose, one hand held out in front of him like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

THE BIG MAN: Aaaaah! Ka la okay! Wo zhe dao!

THE BIG MAN mimics Tam's pose so that it looks like they're miming a romantic duet.

THE BIG MAN takes us all the way down the street to a club, talks to the manager to make sure he looks after us, then leaves. We'd eaten and drunk in his restaurant for over three hours, till after midnight, and it had only cost the twelve of us 180 Yuan.

Everybody was up dancing in the club, except for Danuka who, sometime after twelve, had said, 'Right, it's not my birthday anymore,' and had walked out on her own party. Tam was on the stage with a Finnish girl on each arm, Karst was dancing with epileptic rock-star madness, a bevy of gob-smacked Chinese girls in satellite around him, Aaron and Rebecca and Paulien were in their own wee private groovy worlds, but I never really noticed much more after that, as I was dancing with Frauke. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She had this really cute way of twining her arms and raising them above her head, whilst simultaneously wiggling her slim hips and shaking her head from side to side until her blonde shining hair unclasped itself anarchically and fell about her face. I tried to remain as co-ordinated as possible and not fall over my own feet.

As we danced she told me she was going back to Germany the next day. I could hardly hide my disappointment. I weighed up the options: suggest that we go back to her hotel, and make mad passionate love all night, or put my foot in it by suggesting exactly that, breaking the spell of friendship that had grown between us. I plumped for the latter. This was either strangely sensitive of me, or an act of total cowardice - I'm not sure which - and somewhere in there lies the difficult dichotomy of being a bloke.

Sometime later...

PAULIEN: No! You said, one karaoke room, two packet cigarettes, twelve beer and one red of wine for two hundred.

BARMAN: No no no no no! I say, one ka la okay loom, one packet cigarette, six beer but no led of wine for two hunled.

Sometime later still...

ME: She's leaving on a jet plane. Don't know if she'll be back again.

We sang, badly, in a karaoke room above the dancefloor till 5 am. Red of wine included. Wobbly and hoarse, I walked Frauke to the nearest main road, as the first rays of light poked through a peachy-pink dawn. She flagged down a taxi, kissed me on the cheek, got in, and sped away into the new day.