An unlikely artist
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2004
1
5
34
Trip End
Jun 07, 2004
Dali,
China
Friday, April 16, 2004
15th April 2004
When the red metal louvre-doors are hinged closed, the Space Café becomes invisible. I walk backwards and forwards past it so many times that I am attracting curious looks. Then I remember the bike I had with me when I last visited. I put it in a passageway didn't I ? I spot the smooth faced iron swing gates in a narrow alley and I am sure I have found it. Rosie welcomes me in. I smile through the rain and frustration and tell her she needs a sign outside for people to see and thus it becomes my job. First I make a template with stiff card and nail scissors. Using several bright poster paints I test it on a wall in the yard. We agree it looks alright. So over the next few days I am creating a big Space Café logo on the front aspect of the building
Space balls
. Now that's classified as 'working' in some countries and must be substantiated with a work permit. The curtain-twitchers are having a field day. What do those foreign letters mean ? Who is he ? And what is a Space Café ? Sure enough, curiosity gets the better of them and we receive a visitor one day under the guise he wants a game of pool. We don't get many visitors. Actually, we don't get any. Least of all Chinese. The guestrooms are aimed squarely at foreign travellers. And contain only one such person which is me. Rosie sleeps in the bar. Turns out this young man is the local policeman's younger brother. It's a surveillance operation. He's here to observe and report on my connection with Rosie.
What's to report ? Rosie and I lark about in the yard, but not in public view. My artistic skills are now focused on copying classical Chinese paper cuts of dragons onto the compound walls. In bright red paint. Perhaps I am over-stepping the mark a little with regards to my 'tourist visa'.
Next, I find myself agreeing to help in the kitchen by doing the cooking. In return I can sleep here for free. I begin to make fresh burgers by hand. Blending minced beef with onion, egg and spices. I have never done this before and merrily make it up as I go along. I fetch the bread rolls from a local supplier. And potatoes for the chips. Which reminds me, in the case of those potatoes, the first time I needed them I had to visit a street market and perform a stand-up impression of a farmer digging up a spud. Knowing the word for potato, or being able to pronounce it would have been much easier. But at the end of the day, my Space-burger meal is top notch. If only we had some customers. We spend our evenings together watching movies and drinking Yunnan red as we puff away on the hash pipe. Daytimes in the yard drinking cold bottles of Dali beer. Congenial is the word for it, not much more.
There is an argument one day after I write my own drinks bill and pay it. What's wrong with that ? Surely if anyone knows what I've had to drink it must be me. Its called being presumptuous. She's attaches her wicker basket to her back and tromps off to the market to buy some vegetables, locking me in the yard like a pet dog. Sometimes I go to the market alone with some basic instructions. It's a challenge to come back with the right things. I enjoy getting things right. One day the challenge saps my energy a little too much. I think I am asked to search out a set of curtains for the bar and lounge. I need a holiday.
Next ; The piss artist
