My First ‘Last Night in China’

Expatriates are essentially global nomads. One facet of living in Beijing is the annual round of going-away parties; I have had two of my own. The first was an unforgettable experience, primarily because I witnessed the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an actual miracle or Jedi powers. It is also memorable because I was right when almost everyone around me was wrong. In my book, that makes for a good story.

It was a cold December night in 1993, my first year in China was coming to end and a few fellow North American laowai and I were out to make a night of it. I had arrived in Beijing roughly twelve months earlier to study for one semester; one thing led to another and I took a hiatus from college, traveled to Tibet in the summer and then found a job teaching English in Beidaihe from August to December. For those of you outside of China, Beidaihe is the Hamptons of the PRC; the beach wasn’t at all bad and it had the added bonus of containing a mediocre strand of hemp that grew just along the roadway leading to the shore. More about my tenure in Beidaihe in another posting.

So I was back in Beijing for a few days before heading to Hong Kong and back to New York. Back then we didn’t have Sanlitun, or ‘bar street’ to the uninitiated, we had Uighurville. As the name suggests, it was a section of Beijing where ethnic Uighurs had a conclave, it was in the Weigongcun area of the city and close to the university where I had studied.

I will not go into a long exposition on who the Uighurs are, that’s why God made Wikipedia. But I will add my own footnotes to their history in Beijing. Their cuisine it excellent, it comprises of hardy noodle dishes, roasted lamb and nan bread. For Westerns surviving on steady diet of Chinese food, it was a welcome change to something a little more familiar.

So, as students we tended to congregate in Uighurville, we went for the food but stayed for the nightlife. And what a nightlife it was! The area was a couple of square blocks with a main drag of two dozen or so restaurants that stayed open late into the night. During warm weather, tables and chairs where placed on the street so everyone could eat their kebabs and Yanjing beer in open air and watch a certain amount of mayhem unfold.

Dear readers, if you detect nostalgia in the author’s words, you are right to do so, sadly, Uighurville no longer exists. In 1998 or 99, my memory fails, the city fathers decided to eradicate what was probably Beijing’s only ethnic neighborhood. Ostensibly it was because the whole area was being renovated and a giant shopping mall and new residential buildings were to be erected.

However, many assume the neighborhood was ‘gentrified’ because it was a thriving center for the drug trade and the scene of many late night brawls. Also, in March 1997 ten people were injured in a bus bombing in Beijing, this was only weeks after three simultaneous bus bombings in Xinjiang (the region of China Uighurs come from) and the death of Deng Xiaoping. Uighur separatists were widely suspected for the Beijing bomb and it seems likely city fathers where happy to get rid of a whole neighborhood of what they potentially saw as would-be criminals and terrorists. The PRC government really can be a spoilsport sometimes.

One quick note on stereotyping Uighurs, the author’s favorite Uighur kebabmonger was a man with a nasty scar running diagonally from his forehead across an eyebrow, nose and lip. Rumor has it he sold hashish; I will neither confirm nor deny that veracity of that rumor. While munching on kebabs and tossing back a couple beers together one evening I asked him, “What happened to the other guy.” He very coldly responded, “I won the fight!” My point is some Uighurs are badass mothers.

Anyway, back to my last night in Beijing. So there I was, a worldly 21 year old who just spent his fist year in China, fell in love with the place, and was celebrating his impending departure with a night out in Beijing in a neighborhood local Chinese considered to be something akin to 125th St. in New York or Compton in LA. Me and three other guys had just finished a round of beers and were chewing happily on our first course when a wild man burst into to the restaurant.

Although it was a cold winter night, the man wasn’t wearing a coat and his shirt was ripped and half hanging off him, he was also covered head to toe in dirt and patches of blood. In any other neighborhood this would have been bad for business, to foreigners in Uighurville, this was just some more local color.

As it turns out, my friends knew the guy, he was a friend or cousin or whatever of the restaurant’s owner. The owner impressed upon us we would be doing him a favor if we let this fellow sit with us and keep him from leaving the restaurant. The man in question had just been in a fight in a nearby alleyway and there was concern that if he went back out on to the street something very bad would happen. We all readily agreed this was just the dinner companion for us.

More beer and food was ordered as we quizzed him about the fight. He happily showed us various scrapes and bruises, including bloody knuckles and a series of viscous bite marks on his back that did not appear to have been delivered affectionately. We all congratulated him and stood in awe; this was a man!

By the way, I would be remiss if I forgot to mention that this fellow was heavily intoxicated on God-knows-what. When I looked into his eyes I definitely got the impression that the hamster had slipped the wheel. This makes the next turn of events all that more extraordinary.

After hearing about the high points of the fisticuffs in the alley, we laowai settled into chattering with each other, more beers were ordered, and more conversation ensued… in English. He didn’t speak the language, and I think our friend was frustrated in no longer being the center of attention; he changed that in a momentous way.

He snatched a porcelain bowl from the table in one hand and with the other stretched out his index and ring fingers and waved them in the air. He then proclaimed “I can pass these two fingers right through this bowl. Do you want to see my try?”

This caused a lot of muttering among us. Did he mean his fingers would magically pass through the bowl without breaking it? “No! Don’t be stupid,” was the reply, but he could force his two little fingers through the bowl with a flick of his hand.

I rapidly said that would be amazing and I’d like to see him do it. My companions were bigger humanitarians than I; they all quickly disagreed with me and suggested I shut up. Our friend had obviously suffered enough for one evening; a couple of broken or cut fingers weren’t going to do him a bit of good. Besides, he was obviously off his head on something; it would be cruel to goad him into attempting anything stupid.

I agree; I was cruel. I slapped a hundred kuai note on the table and proudly stated he could do it, so the others should put up or shut up! My character was called into question, but money was put on the table, half of us for and half against.

I have read tales of intrepid explorers marching into the darkest regions of obscure countries and befriending local tribe by saving the offspring of its chief from a terrible fate, or curing malaria with a gin and tonic, or singlehandedly wiping out the enemy tribe armed with only a smart horse and a six shooter. These daring exploits win the undying loyalty of hard, savage men; the explorers become blood brothers and honorary members of the tribe. Dear readers, this was just such a case. When I threw my money down and sided with him without hesitation, our Uighur friend turned and gave me such a look of gratitude and loyalty I think I could have asked him to kill for me. It’s a pity I don’t know what’s happened to him since.

In a flash, the man’s arm ripped through the air and with a neat jerk of his hand, two finger cracked through the bowl and knocked a perfect delta shape chip out of it two inches long, sending it tinkling across the floor in one of the most triumphant sounds the author has ever heard in his life. It was simply amazing. Winners and losers of the wager cheered in admiration. More beer was ordered, a lot more, the bill was paid by the winnings.

How did I know he could do it? Well, truth be told, I really didn’t. I was mostly just drunk and thought it would be an interesting thing to do. However, I did think the odds were on my side. First, never bet a man against his own trick, you’ll probably lose. Second, Uighurs have their own version of Central Asian machismo which is usually backed by some serious conojes. So, I was fairly sure this guy had done this trick before and wasn’t talking out of his ass. As it turns out, I was right.

And that, dear readers, was my first ‘last night in China’. No wonder I came back as soon as I could.