Trophies
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2008
1
28
46
Trip End
Sep 04, 2008
Beijing,
China
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Adam's boss Mr. Li invited Adam and I out for drinks. Of course, drinks include dinner and with other guests because Chinese businessmen enjoy showing off their white friends. We went to a restaurant in the southwest corner of Beijing, which was different from any other part of the city we'd been to. It felt less cosmopolitan and commercialized, more residential. We were dragged along on a tour of Mr. Li's friend, a principal's, primary school. I'm still not sure why that was necessary but it looked like an average school with little decoration that would create a kid-friendly environment.
So, Adam and I, Mr. Li, and his two business friends ate dinner at the restaurant owned by the principal's school. We had a private room with an obnoxiously large Chairman Mao portrait hanging beneath the air conditioner. I was forced to announce that I didn't eat pork, but it was ok because another guest said he didn't either since his wife is Muslim. So they ordered, surprisingly, a number of healthy vegetable dishes and a roast fish dish that is delicious. And, of course, beer. Adam boasted that I could drink more beer than he, so I was challenged to keep pace and drink a bottle of beer during each new round with the men. My secret was to fill up my stomach on a lot of food and then graciously share all my beer with Adam and the man sitting next to me.
Though there was some effort made to speak in broken English, I spent most of the night laughing when everyone else was laughing but had no idea what the joke in Chinese had been. Mr. Li kept referring to me as Pretty Lady, so I finally said, thinking he'd forgotten, "It's Rachael." He had remembered but determined that I needed a Chinese name instead. Adam and I informed him that I'd recently been given the nickname Xiao Qie. [Now, no offense to my mother's amazing eggplant parm, but the eggplant in China is out of this world. So, for a nickname I chose little (xiao) eggplant (qiezi).] As soon as we said this, the men erupted into laughter. Xiao Qie means mistress or prostitute. The men told us that your first wife is your boss and your second wife is your xiao che. For the rest of the night they teased Adam about my being his boss and his xiao qie.
Even though I initially believed our host had ordered a practical amount of food and I was sufficiently full, a second meal's worth of food arrived at our table. It was barely touched. Adam explained that the host had probably gotten nervous that he hadn't ordered enough (for appearances sake only) and so he ordered food that he must have known would go uneaten. Crazy. Around 11 pm I began to dramatically yawn to signal I was ready to leave. Thankfully it worked and they understood that teachers need their sleep, so we got out of there probably an hour earlier than if we hadn't made any noise about going home.
Wow. I definitely left with a better understanding of Adam's explanation of guanxi.
Part 2: Boxing Trophies
Thursday night we went to see an Olympics boxing match at the Worker's Gymnasium. It wasn't the finals, so no medals (or trophies) were handed out, but I still like my clever title. Plus, in my heart, I gave out many trophies.
First of all, the boxing scoring is pretty interesting. They score by points for hits, and there are four judges sitting at all cardinal directions around the ring. If a judge thinks that a boxer has made a hit, he presses a button and if a second judge also presses the button within 1.7 seconds, the boxer earns a point. The part I am less clear on is what constitutes a hit. I believe it's if the white part of the boxer's glove makes a connection with his opponent's body. Anyway, I liked that the boxers were wearing headgear because it didn't appear to be too violent that anyone would get seriously hurt. Adam, on the other hand, was disappointed because headgear typically precludes any knockouts.
We probably saw 7 or 8 fights, but only one (between Ireland and Dominican Republic) was at all close. I was rooting for the Dominican guy because he had walked into the arena wearing both a Dominican flag and a Chinese flag in order to get the fans' support on his side. He definitely had the most fire and the most spirit, so I was glad that the referees named him the winner when Round 4 finished in a tie.
At the very end there was a welter weight fight between USA and Russia, so everyone of course made references to the Cold War. The American dominated, so it wasn't that intense of a match, but it was still a lot of fun to cheer for your home team half a world away.
