Sasquatch is Never Going Back to Shanghai

Beijing and Shanghai have a long-stemming cultural rivalry a lot like New York and Los Angeles. However, considering the Chinese sense of history and belonging to their native birthplace, the rivalry between the Northern Capital and the City on the Sea is heightened to an extreme degree. Sometimes Beijing people and Shanghai people flat out don’t like each other.

I am a confirmed Beijingren (aka ‘Beijinger’), or as Kaiser Kuo writes in flavorful soda pop prose "Ich Bin Ein Beijinger". And I am a proud Beijingren primarily because I’ve lived in the city a long time and can see it for its charms. I’ve got past the smoggy air you can cut with a knife, the landmines of phlegm on the sidewalk, and cab drivers who seem to freebase garlic everyone morning before going to work with its odor oozing out of every pour and orifice. You can say I’m lucky.

When I compare the two cities for other Americans I tend to describe Beijing as being 50% New York and 50% Washington DC – it’s the political capital, but also a traditional cultural center because of its historical landmarks, also universities as well as news & entertainment media are clustered in the city. Shanghai, on the other hand, is 50% New York and 50% Los Angeles – it’s the business & financial center of the country and a critical port, but also a lot of fashion and pop art is created there. Beijing is very ‘Chinese’ while Shanghai is decidedly cosmopolitan.

They are both great cities, but as I said, I prefer Beijing. And one of the reasons I do is that on my very first visit to Shanghai I was kicked out of the city within 12 hours after arrival. Dear readers, if you think I am proud of the fact that I can boast being kicked out of the world’s most populous city, well you’re right. By the way, I probably also did it in record time!

As with most good stories, it starts with the words “It wasn’t my fault...”

In fact, I blame my friend Sasquatch. I‘ve mentioned him in a previous posting about traveling to Tibet. After experiencing our own version of Misty Mountain Hop in Lhasa, my hairy friend and I made our way for Shanghai. The following is what happened and why Sasquatch will never go back. But before I get in to the whole drunken fisticuffs, running amuck in the hotel, police interrogation, “get out of town before sundown” story, let me first describe Sasquatch.

In high school Sasquatch was captain of the football team and the wrestling team in a Podunk Midwestern town where such lofty stations were hard won by corn fed farm boys. In college he transferred his athletic skills to rugby; a sport as far as I can tell he loved to play because it is within the rules to drink on the sidelines and deliver an occasional knuckle sandwich to an opponent as long as the referee didn’t notice. In summary, Sasquatch was a big, tough son of a bitch.

Big and tough doesn’t do him justice; he was a force of nature. Sasquatch’s consumption of food, beverage and chemicals was something to behold. For example, he chewed tobacco, but he never used a spittoon. That would have been uncouth. No, instead he swallowed the tobacco juice. And when he was hell bent on numbing himself again Chinese realities, for example while traveling ‘hard seat’ for three or four days at a stretch, he could chew (and swallow) tobacco and smoke cigarettes while simultaneously throwing back baijiu and warm beer. All of this was on a stomach fortified by the magical mixture of Tang and Ritz Crackers; a perfect traveler’s diet that I swear by. I also suspect he had a healthy appetite for mind-bending plants and fungi, but I cannot confirm this.

OK, so Sasquatch was big, strong and had insane appetites, well that’s not all. He also has a threshold for the sight of his own blood that would have made Rambo proud. Once while working a summer job as a welder on a construction site, a large I-beam swung dangerously out of control and gave him a glancing blow across his big square mug. The heavy steal object caught him right behind the ear and ripped half his face off. Surviving damage that might kill mere mortals, Sasquatch was in shock, but conscious. Most people I know would have lay down and waited for the ambulance to arrive. Not Sasquatch, he decided this was a rare opportunity to see what his naked skeletal face looked like. So he and his workmates walked to the bathroom and watched in the mirror as he pulled his face back to check out what lay beneath. That’s a true story by the way.

Yep, a real sicko. Sasquatch was great to hang around with; we had many adventures together. They include gunplay in Yunnan, bicycle jousting in Beijing, an encounter with the world’s ugliest prostitute in Lhasa, and getting thrown out of Shanghai.

So, when we arrived in Shanghai it was about five in the morning after a three-day train ride from Xining that was miraculously cut short by tiny white sleeping pills bought over the counter at the train station. We were bedraggled and travel funked, but ready to see the sites when we hit town. Being good backpackers we decided it was a waste of the cost of one night in a hotel to check in at that late hour. So we decided to go for a walk through the French Concession, have breakfast and start drinking.

First we gorged ourselves on baozi and beer while watching the early morning taiqi practitioners in Renmin Park as the sun came up. And for one reason or another we decided it was a good idea to raise the stakes to Bloody Maries made with ghetto Russian vodka and tomato juice heavily spiced with Tabasco sauce swiped from some five star-hotel. For obvious reasons, I forget the details about how and why we procured all the ingredients. But I assure you it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, a few hours later we were quit foxed; and I mean blotto! It was noon, a perfect time to check into a hostel and get our money’s worth, so we started looking for accommodations. Unfortunately, we encountered a kind of hostel we hadn’t banked on.

We tried three or four places, no dice; everywhere was full. Facing the prospect of passing out in the gutter, we began to worry. However, one hotel recommended another, and unfortunately I can’t remember its name, because that’s where Sasquatch met his doom.

As we were checking in my friend needed to relieve himself, he was directed to take the elevator to the nearest men’s room on the third floor. After twenty minutes or so, Sasquatch had still not returned to the front desk. I was left waiting and wondering how a guy that big could misplace himself. Then I asked the desk clerk to watch our bags as I went upstairs to look for him.

When the elevator doors opened I was faced with a sweating, bleeding, battle-crazed Sasquatch with his fist cocked ready to knock out the first person in sight. Needless to say, parts of my body puckered. When I asked what happened he told me four men with clubs assailed him the moment he stepped on the third floor and then proceeded to try to relieve him of his wallet, watch and other valuables. Sasquatch took several blows but managed to curl up into a ball and protect his jewels and other prized assets.

My wild friend was raised to believe if you fall off a horse get up and shoot it. Once Sasquatch regained some of his senses he took it upon himself to deliver some Texas-style justice to the perpetrators, including the staff of the hotel - who he was convinced must have been in on the ambush. Insults were thrown, weapons brandished, and my short life flashed before my eyes. It was utter mayhem; I loved it, especially because no one beat me up.

The cops arrived on the scene. I remember being relieved by that, and then I realized they weren’t on our side. For about an hour or so we were on the receiving end of ‘good cop / bad cop’; I guess some things are universal. However, the scrupulous occidentals confounded the police. You see; we didn’t lie. Separately, we gave them our story straight, but they just didn’t want to believe two foreign exchange students got mugged in a Shanghai hostel. I guess they feared it would end up in the Lonely Planet and the flea trap would have been deficit a star, whatever.

The leading municipal storm trooper on the seen insisted Sasquatch and I were drunk. OK, guilty as charged. But he also insisted we made up the whole story and that Sasquatch was mentally unstable. Well, that wasn’t a case I wanted to defend in front of a jury, but we were highly insulted nonetheless. Sasquatch was the victim!

He wasn’t about to take it lying down either. As long as I live, I’ll never forget hearing the words “Run! I’m gonna’ hit the cop.” Well, if that had happened, I wonder if I would be so willing to write about this today. Quickly and diplomatically, I threw my scrawny two hundred pound frame against my monstrous woolly friend and reminded him that they held our passports in one hand and cattle prods in the other. Where was I supposed to run to?

I talked him down, and then the cops were ready to let us go, on one condition. That’s when I heard the equivalent of “be out of town before sundown” in Mandarin. We were driven to the train station and told that as far as the Shanghai police were concerned we never need to cross the Yangtze again.

I don’t hold a grudge against Shanghai. I’m over it. But Sasquatch swore never to return. I miss that freak; the last I heard of him he was a cuckolding collections agent with pending applications to law school. I pity the debtor or opposing attorney who ever runs across him.