U*LOVETT!
Stories from China by
Michael Lovett
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There were a few things I needed to add to, mention more about, or simply explain another "sub story", and this is where you can find that information. Nearly every one of the ten pages has some small notation that refers to this page. I included page references to the notes when possible.
Lily was actually the first Chinese girl I ever had a relationship with, and her name wasn't Lily, but Grace. That first day in Guangzhou I mentioned before, when I had discovered the Hill Bar, I had also discovered another intrigue of the city--the prostitutes. Only I didn't know it at the time, I simply thought Grace was being flirtatious. She approached me the second night I was in the city. "Hello..." came a voice behind me. I was sitting in a rather posh disco in the Garden Hotel. She sat beside me, and I bought her a drink. We talked a bit, then she invited me to go with her and her girlfriend to her apartment, so I accepted. We picked up some beer and food on the way. After a few rounds of drinks, all three of use were kissing and before I knew it, I was spending the night with not one, but two Chinese girls! Although Grace didn't ask me for money afterwards, I realized later the next day what her occupation was. Her friend slept in, but Grace and I went about the city for the day, window shopping, eating, and taking photos. I still have a photo from that first weekend with Grace (click here to see it). When I moved to Guangzhou from the countryside two months later, I actually moved in with Grace for about two weeks. She was more than happy to accommodate me, and she was one of the best cooks of Chinese cuisine I ever met in the five years I lived in China.
Either because of her chosen lifestyle, or for physical reasons (she had a long "movie monster" like-scar on her abdomen that she never explained), Grace didn't enjoy sex. One day I asked her why--wrong thing to do. She got tears in her eyes and said that she didn't have to like it, it was just her job, and she was loving and caring in other ways. Seeing that I was frustrated with her, she yelled at me, still crying, "Don't you see I love you? I love you every way, I can't love anyone that way!" I felt really bad for her, but we eventually drifted apart. She was from Shanghai originally, and so I believe she went back for some time. When I saw her the morning after leaving the bank, it was the first time I had seen her in more than four years, and she was still working the streets. Grace was about 30 then, and I only hope she finally found someone to love, she really deserves it. I do so miss her excellent food.
Beer and me seem to have a lot of stories in China. I fell deeply in love more than once because of it, and regretted that perhaps twice as often. The wonderful thing about this beverage is its great ability to bring people together that would not otherwise have met.
I would see groups of Chinese men sitting together at small collapsible tables along sidewalks out front of the numerous little family shops that lined practically every street. Both men and women love to quaff the stuff, and so I often found myself among an impromptu group in just such a setting, all of us with our own bottle, or quite often, two or three bottles sitting in the center, each of us filling our own small glass tea cups and toasting to our good health. Gam Bei! was the shout to be heard all about--it means dry glass and it is one of the first Chinese phrases many foreigners learn.
One very special memory comes to mind that involved beer, cleavage, and the police. One night I went to an after hours bar, the only one at the time in fact. It was all quite illegal and had come to the attention of the local police. The story went that the owner was a former cop who went into the nightclub business. Only problem was, he started to skimp on his payments to his cronies, who turned the other way when it came to bar hour curfew. So on this one particular night, I happened to be there when the police decided to raid their former compatriots place. Now I had just ordered a large pitcher of beer, and I wasn't about to leave it. Also at the time I noticed a new girl on the scene. She was about five foot three and had the largest natural breasts I had ever laid eyes on in China. Of course being the drunken sot I was at the time, I decided I had to meet her. So I asked the bartender for two more empty glasses, and as the patrons were all herded out the door, I skillfully hid both the nearly full pitcher and the extra glasses.
Once outside I corned the lovely buxom woman and her attractive girlfriend and struck up a conversation. They both exclaimed how rude it was of the police to ruin everyone's good time; it was there first time in that club and only their first week in the city. "That's why I haven't seen them before..." I thought to myself. I realized I'd best be quick before any other foreigner snatched up this undiscovered vixen. Just as I was about to invite them to have a late dinner with me, the police barreled out of the club and jumped into their SUV and sped off. Overcome with anger (and perhaps too much to drink?) for having our good time interrupted, I decided to toss my half full glass of beer their way! The glass shattered close behind the vehicle. The break lights illuminated, I saw the silouetted, hatted heads of two of the police turn toward the direction of the crowd. Again, like a drunken fool, I raced ahead and yelled something to the affect of "You lousy no good so and so's! How dare you run us off!" When the police saw it was a foreigner--meaning many pages of paperwork, not to mention acquiring an interpreter and having to explain why they were even there in the first place, they sped off. That left me to bask in the applause and shouts of the amazed crowd; people do not often confront authority, especially ones toting guns, in China. When I turned to face my curvey friend Alice, I saw in her eyes she was smitten. And yes, we did have dinner that night, and her and I had some wonderful private days and evenings ahead. Alice and her assets were definitely one of my hightlights of life in China! Gambei anyone?
The concept of face boggles the mind of most foreigners, as it did me when I first arrived in China. The opening paragraph at Wikipedia is even baffling: "Face refers to two separate but related concepts in Chinese social relations. One is mianzi, and the other is lian, which are both used commonly in everyday speech rather than in formal writings.
Lian is the confidence of society in a person's moral character, while mianzi represents social perceptions of a person's prestige.
An experience I witnessed with a former girlfriend shows a good example of how confusing this concept is, even to the Chinese themselves. Wang Ding (you can see her here) was a business woman that I lived with for a time. She worked in the foreign loan department of a local bank, and she often took clients out for extravagant meals, courtesy the bank, and I sometimes came along. Understanding who paid for a business dinner was never an issue, but what happened within her own family caused her some anxiety to say the least. Wang Ding had two sisters, and both were married. The eldest sister however, was married to a very rich man. When they came to visit (they lived in another province) the husband of her sister was in charge of most everything. Wang Ding decided to invite them, the other sister and her husband, and her mother, father, and myself to a dinner at a very posh Chinese restaurant. We had an excellent time, but near the end of the meal, after our desserts, Wang Ding leaned over to me and told me in a quick whisper, "I don't know what to do! I invited everyone here, but do I pay, or does my brother and law pay?" She looked at me with a confused look, hiding behind a menu so as to shield her loss of composure. She continued, "If I pay, he may lose face. Normally he takes care of the bills, but because I invited him, perhaps I am to pay...oh! How I hate Chinese traditions!" When I asked her why didn't she simply take him aside and ask, she sniped, "Then I would most certainly lose face!" In the end, she paid, and all was well.
bravenet.com
