Zhongguo Uber Alles

Believe it or not, I don’t usually get to hangout with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) chief ideologues and discuss Marxist-Leninism, Maoist ideals, or communist paradigms in the Twenty First Century. But I really want to. Sure, the big bucks are in pushing widgets, but buying hearts and minds is so much more fun.

By Chinese standards my communist credentials are not pure. However, when I lived in Texas I voiced the opinions that there should be shelters for the homeless, recycling is a good idea, and better access to healthcare would probably benefit America. I was promptly labeled a Pinko. So my dear comrades will have to meet me half way.

I say all of this because the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the even more exciting People’s Consultative Political Conference (CPPCC) earlier this month, followed by the US Congress passing a healthcare reform bill, has raised my fervor for socialism. By the way, I’m sure Glenn Beck could make a connection between the two Communist political meetings in Beijing and the Democrats passing the healthcare bill, but I’m just not as smart.

Word around the karaoke bars is that the leading Politburo candidates Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are poised to take over the government from Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in 2012 and everyone is jockeying for position; I’d like to join the fray. Here’s how I can help. I know a thing or two about public relations, marketing and politics, and I think I could help the incoming leaders define their platform and inspire a new generation.

In the United States political slogans and the pithy ideas they represent are great for election campaigns, but they are promptly forgotten the morning after the votes are tallied. Remember “Change we can believe in”? Eighteen months later I’m still waiting for change and I still don’t believe.

In China, on the other hand, where they have efficiently done a way with the whole electoral process and skip merrily ahead to making policy and solving problems, political slogans are the CCP’s mission statement. They are useful for codifying the Party’s values so everyone is reading off the same script and knows at any given time exactly what they should be paying lip service to.

In the PRC, ideology is serious, and they need professionals to keep the Party spinning in the same direction. I’m just their man. I dream of having heated brainstorming sessions at the Party School just a few long nights away from our pitch deadline when we have to come up with that perfect slogan and supporting campaign. We’d go to the white board and list the ‘hot button issues’ along with the driving adjectives, critical verbs and other words that would optimize search results in Google; I mean Baidu. Then we'd package it in some memorable language.

China is wonderful for these slogans, even as far back as a few hundred years ago they were in place. Han rebels fighting the Manchus bandied the catchy phrase "Fan Ching, Fu Ming" ("Overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming"), which you got to admit wouldn’t have made a bad bumper sticker. When the CCP came to power Mao’s idealism and poetry ran wild with all kinds of slogans. They are too numerous to list here, so I will simply summarize as: “Better dead than not red!” And like any good corporate leader he went to town to ‘action that statement’.

Moving a long, I’ll try to quickly summarize over twenty years of CCP jargon before describing my own ideas for new campaigns. Don’t worry; when I get there I’ll spare you the supporting demographics, consumer surveys and SWOT analysis used to justify my thoughts. However, I can produce a lovely Power Point deck if necessary.

The Deng Xiaoping era – Two quotes by the former paramount leader summarize "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and the introduction of sweeping economic reforms. The first was “It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” This meant being ideologically pure was no longer more important than, say, having a basic understanding of macroeconomic theory. But after a team building exercise in Tiananmen Square went horribly awry in 1989, some cadres were unclear where that left reforms. So a couple years later Deng went on to clarify his thoughts with “To get rich is glorious!” After that, the capitalist road in China was an eight lane super highway with no speed limit.

The Jiang Zemin era – More of a pragmatist than a wordsmith, Jiang pretty much rode Deng’s verbal coattails until late in his career when he suddenly became worried about his legacy. Deciding he should contribute something to the Communist lexicon he bet heavily on his “Three Represents”. Oddly enough this is when The People’s Daily also started populating its website with scantily clad runway models, I guess Jiang’s wisdom didn’t do much for circulation. In a nutshell, the “Three Represents” state that the CCP should “be representative to advanced social productive forces, advanced culture, and the interests of the overwhelming majority”. Or in other words, “since we have a bunch of capitalists in our country now, we might as well invite them to join the CCP, otherwise they might get their own political agenda.”

The Hu Jintao era – If you’ve spent more than a month in China with out hearing about a “harmonious society” please tell me your secret, because except for Taco Bell’s talking Chihuahua this might be the best marketing campaign ever. If a billion people can coherently regurgitate your brand message you’ve done something right. “Harmonious society” is closely linked to another Hu era catch phrase, “scientific development”. Both essentially aim at the idea that when you introduce capitalists to your system you start having winners and losers, and the losers need to be taken care of. After all, no one knows better than the CCP that “the meek shall inherit the earth”, and they’ll probably do it with a machine gun.

By the way, as a footnote to “harmonious society” check out Wikipedia’s entry on the topic. The wiki quickly raises the corresponding issue of “river crabs”, an interesting sign of the times.

OK, so let’s get back to my dreams of creating the slogan to describe the political platform of the eventual new leaders of China. Not that they would necessarily need one to get the coveted positions of Party Secretary and President, and Premier, but it wouldn’t hurt.

When thinking about what they have to communicate and how they can galvanize the CCP and Chinese society let’s consider the coming ten years. Right now China and its leadership are riding high; clearly the PRC is continuing to ascend. However, there are fissures in the system, economic bubbles could burst and then the leaders will likely have to fall back on nationalism to maintain its mandate. This has been more or less true for three decades, but the red star over China is perhaps reaching unexpected altitudes in the wake of a global financial crisis and the relative decline of American power.

In short, things probably haven’t looked this good for the rulers of China since before the damn Limeys showed up on their doorstep with high ideals about free trade and narcotics. Therefore, the next all-encompassing CCP slogan will probably be a careful mixture of pragmatic appeals to materialistic greed or necessity (depending on which socio-economic bracket you fall in) backed by a triumphant return of chauvinism matched with a healthy dose of authoritarianism.

To summarize, the message needs to say: 1. China has returned as a superpower, 2. Never forget the CCP got us here, 3. Problems are unavoidable, but we’ll continue delivering the goods no matter what, so don’t screw with us.

I have a few suggestions; I was partially inspired by the Olympic theme of ‘One World, One Dream’ and the World Expo theme ‘Better City, Better Life’. But also in true modern Chinese fashion some intellectual property was borrowed from other successful political messages and adapted to the local market:

• Glorious Civilization, Glorious Century – while forward looking, this trades heavily on the uniqueness and longevity of Chinese culture.
• 3 to 3 (Unity, Strength and Will creates Security, Prosperity and Respect) – a Chinese audience always appreciates employing numbers and symmetry, and it saves the writer from having to be truly clever.
• Zhongguo uber alles – It’s not subtle, but it’s refreshingly militant; it also has the added benefit of being a tested and proven winner.
• Liberty (sort of) Equality (mostly) and Fraternity (sometimes) – This doesn’t exactly role off the tongue, but it is steeped in a revolutionary tradition and a moral relativism that could be appealing to a mass market.
• We are many, so there! – Inspired by E pluribus unum (Out of many, one) this just comes right out and tells it like it is.

When thinking about this topic I invariably came to the conclusion that I might as well look to the true masters for inspiration, and this is where Madison Avenue meets Zhongnanhai.

• The CCP, when you absolutely, positively have to have a government (inspired by Fedex)
• Just do what we say! (inspired by Nike)
• Don’t think different (inspired by Apple)
• We bring good things to China (inspired by GE)
• We try (inspired by Avis)
• Have it our way (inspired by Burger King)
• CCP is it! (inspired by Coke)
• you’re lov’n it (inspired by McDonald’s)
• We’re not evil (inspired by Google)
• Probably the best government in China (inspired by Carlsberg)

Well, that’s all I got. But I encourage everyone to play along and send in your suggestions. The editorial team at Red, White & Blue in China enjoys reader participation.

About Peters, Dicks and Booms…

My friend’s father gave her the best advice I’ve ever heard any parent give a young person when she graduated from college and prepared to enter the work force. It was: “Get ready to be disappointed, people are stupid!”

Truer words have never been spoken. I remember when I was young and naïve, I assumed ‘experts’ and other people in positions of authority, like say, my bosses in various jobs, journalists, cops, doctors, politicians, etc. had attained their ranks, titles and other powers because they were smart, capable, skilled and earned their credentials through hard work. Boy, was I dumb.

I’m jealous that my friend started her career with a level of enlightened cynicism that usually takes years to cultivate. I’ve been privileged to be educated by and work for some brilliant people, but they are comparatively rare in my experience. Sure, not everyone is ‘brilliant’, but I’m starting to get the impression that just being competent is sadly rare.

Here’s why; it seems to me the farther you go up any chain of command people stop paying attention to quality performance and longevity in a position and start paying more attention to politicking, covering their ass, and building an exit strategy. I know, this is hardly news to many readers, but it’s worth writing about anyway.

Why do I draw this conclusion? First, there’s the Peter Principle that states, "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence." For example, the excellent factory worker or salesperson that gets promoted to management even though they have no clue how to manage. It’s a well-known phenomenon anyone who has ever had a job has probable experienced it.

Second, there’s what I call the Dick Principle, which might have already been postulated by someone with a PhD in organizational behavior or some other worthy social science. If it has I ask my faithful readers to please let me know so I don’t falsely claim any credit. The Dick Principle states, “Hierarchies tend to be filled with so many examples of the Peter Principle who attempt to prevent their incompetence from being exposed through negative behavior (lying, sabotage, bullying, stealing credit for others' work, hiding mistakes, etc.) that qualified individuals are dissuaded from wanting to rise in the hierarchy”. In short, this means a lot of worthy candidates elect out of an organization or opportunities to lead because they are completely turned off by their superiors and their organization’s culture.

The Dick Principle seems to be particularly strong in politics. How many citizens look at the US Congress or Chinese Communist Party and say to themselves “There’s no way I want to join that group of assholes”? But it happens in many corporations as well, when’s that last time you heard someone say “I hope I stay with my employer (name any Fortune 500 Company) until I retire because I find its leadership so inspiring”?

Third, there’s what I will call the Big Boom Theory, which is not to be confused with the Big Bang Theory and cosmological arguments based on Einstein’s physics, or a romantic encounter with a sizable member of the opposite sex. Rather, this is a theory on how organizations expand and implode, much like the universe or a large ugly boil.

My Big Boom theory states, “There is a tendency in any boom market for incompetent assholes to become even more abundant at the top of an expanding organization’s hierarchy and eventually the organization falls apart because of a critical mass of short-sighted negative behavior.” This is obvious, when a market, industry or organization is expanding at a dizzying pace the promotion of incompetence is accelerated; therefore their negative behavior is more widespread and insidious. In this model, the incompetents running an organization engage in dangerous short-term thinking and expose their organization to risk.

The Peters and Dicks engage in short-sighted dangerous behavior because they aren’t kidding themselves, they know they are incompetent, so they might as well get as much as they can and cash out quickly before they are canned. However, when everyone around you is just as bad as you are then you will probably never be exposed as a hack. Therefore the bad behavior and risk within the organization increases exponentially until it collapses in the face of rejection from the market, legal liabilities and government inquisitions.

When I think of the Big Boom a few examples come to mind. There’s the financial industry (AIG, Lehman Brothers, et al.) the automotive industry (GM, Toyota, etc.), and the entire print news media industry that failed to meet the challenge of the Internet even though they had over a decade to figure it out, etc.. But of course the list is endless.

So… we have Peters (incompetent leaders), Dicks (leaders who are assholes because they are incompetent), and the Big Boom (organizations that sow the seeds of self destruction in prosperous times because they fill up with incompetent assholes). Now let’s talk about China.

This is a booming market where foreign managers are frequently posted for two to three year tenures and multinationals are localizing as quickly as they can. Hmmm… seems to me there’s lots of potential for Big Booms. As most business leaders in China will tell you, finding and retaining qualified staff is a critical challenge in developing the long-term success of their organization. Here’s a few example the types of talent in China’s job market.

There’s he Tsinghua MBA graduate who brings a Hello Kitty pencil box to a job interview and has plenty of raw intelligence, but she’s never held a job a day in her lif and she expects to enter your company at middle management. Then there’s the codger who still drinks tea out of an old Nescafe jar but is connected with half of the departments in the ministry that regulates your business, he wants to be paid handsomely for reading the newspaper all day because, you know, his value is his guanxi.

And of course, there’s the laowai; they come in many forms. Newbies know everything about their industry and nothing about China, by the time they really start to be worth their fat expat packages they are on their way home again, or to a market that has better quality of life, because not everyone likes to breath air you can shovel. But there’s also the Chinahands, of course these are my preferred group of people, I am one of them, not an elite member but I reckon I’m somewhere between Padawan and Jedi Master. You have to be careful of Chinahands because being able to fluently recite the Dao De Jing and Quotes from Chairman Mao in Mandarin, or just their sheer number of years in the market, although impressive, doesn’t qualify you for a lot of jobs, even if they are offered to you at boozy backyard barbecue in Shunyi or over martinis at the Glamour Bar.

I’m not kidding myself; I’m not a genius. Although sometimes after a dozen shots of tequila I think I’m Superman, but with the mojo of John Shaft andrapier wit of Lenny Bruce. Yeah, that’s right, I’m ‘special’ that way. But I think I’ve leaned a thing or two after ten years working in China and now being roughly midway through my career. With all the Peter’s, Dicks and the potential for Big Booms there are a couple of things I try never to forget.

First, there’s no point lying to yourself or others about your capabilities, eventually someone will call you out, and reality, like payback, is a bitch. A bad reputation is a social disease, it’s fun and easy to get, but maybe impossible to recover from.

Second, as far as I know there’s only one solution to protecting your organization against Peters and Dicks and the catastrophes they create, and that’s culture. Organizations that have postive cultures don't let these guys run things. Peter’s need to be identified and their upward progress halted and Dicks need to be pulled out before they impregnate the organization with their bad seed. And when the good times are booming vigilance is even more important, because it’s the exuberance of a wild party that creates the hangover and other unintended consequences, not sober reflection during austerity.

So, when you are thinking about your organization in China, ask yourself “Has this 20-year boom allowed a lot of Peters and Dicks to slip in”? Sooner or later you might feel the pain.

The People’s Republic of Never Never Land

I find George Will’s arch conservatism dogmatic, predictable and boring. I am unsure of his marital status, but in my mind he is a Stepford husband - a robotic personification of WASP Americana. I wanted to get that cheap shot at George Will out of the way before I move on. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.

Regardless of my opinions of George Will’s politics, I admit he is very intelligent and I usually enjoy reading his column when I get a chance. His piece in the last issue of Newsweek was no exception. The Basement Boys is thought provoking, and I assure my chaste readers it is in no way a reference to any kind of pornography.

The article is an introduction to Gary Cross, a Penn State University historian, and his book, Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity. As best I could glean from Man George’s pithy commentary and a quick read of reviews, the book argues that late Baby Boomer and Gen X men are reluctant to ‘grow up’ because of a social deluge of woman’s liberation, permissive parenting, contemporary marketing’s fetish for youth, and the decline of positive male role models in American culture.

In short, American men are a self-indulgent tribe of Narcissistic teenagers grown old. Some hard data is given to support the analysis. The data includes declining male academic achievements, the number of men living at home with their parents (thus the title The Basement Boys), and a rising median age of when men marry.

Generally speaking, I wasn’t terribly impressed by all of this, and the only reason I read this far is because a female ‘friend’ on Facebook posted it and ranted about how American men suck. Whatever, her rants about the paucity of eligible bachelors on the planet are frequent and I don’t usually pay attention to them anyway, but I would if she was better looking.

The comment in the article about positive male role models struck home, and I became fixated. Man George writes:

“If you wonder what has become of manliness, he [Cross] says, note the differences between Cary Grant and Hugh Grant, the former, dapper and debonair, the latter, a perpetually befuddled boy.”

The best way to appeal to my short attention span is to mention movies and TV. Comparing the two Grants, which are obviously incomparable, did help drive Prof. Cross’s point home. Think about it, the Greatest Generation had Clark Gable, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. These were men! You go away on a weekend fishing trip with these guys you’ll come back knowing how to slay Apache, seduce the most beautiful woman in the city, and maybe dispense a little wisdom to some children in between.

They were decisive, active, romantic, brave, tough, resourceful, witty, and masculine. Let’s face it, most men would follows those guys into battle or pray they were lucky enough to have them as a wingman in a nightclub – anybody out drinking with Carey Grant or John Wayne is going to get laid!

OK, then there’s the 60s, 70s and 80s; you have Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood and Dustin Hoffman, etc. Generally speaking, I have no complaints; they’re all great actors and more often than not their on-screen personas are strong masculine role models; except for Tootsie where Hoffman remarks “I was a better man as a woman…” This might be where the wheels start falling off male role models in Hollywood.

The 80s is a particularly weird decade; you have the rise of Richard Gere’s career right next to Stallone and Schwarzenegger. What is a young man supposed to think? I should wear Armani and accessorize with a 13-inch survival knife in case the Russians invade? INSERT YOUR OWN CHEAP GERBIL JOKE HERE.

From the late 80s, to the 90s and the dawn of 21st Century is suddenly when Hollywood’s dream machine stops producing great male role models. Seriously, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, John Cusak, Matt Daemon, Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn, Jude Law and Robert Downy Jr.? These all seem like boys grown older. First of all, could you describe any of them as being “rugged”, not likely. Second, think about the characters they play, charismatic, self-doubting, womanizing and weak (if not physically than emotionally). Are any of them someone you want your son to grow up and be?

There are a few exceptions, Denzel Washington is stellar, and the second half of Tom Hanks’ career is as well; less you forget he started on Bosom Buddies. Let me reiterate, I blame Hollywood not the actors for the roles they played. Or to go a step further, I blame America audiences for demanding Hollywood feed us these pretty boys long on looks and short on character.

I owe it to George Will, and Prof. Cross, I have never properly appreciated this phenomenon of American culture before. However, I can readily admit I have heard some discussion on this topic by American women in China. For all I know, European woman are complaining about European men in the same way, but I doubt it.

I hear some (not all) American woman in China say single expat (read American) men in China are a bunch of degenerates with a Peter Pan syndrome, i.e. they never want to grow up. Let me try to summarize their argument, these men:

• Realize that as foreigners Chinese women might find them interesting, therefore shamelessly seize this opportunity to date and sleep with young attractive women.
• Realize that booze is cheap and bars are open around the clock in China, and for some reason expat society in general is susceptible to drunken abandonment, therefore a lot of 40 and 50 year old men party like they are still 20.
• Are far away from family and friends that might subliminally or otherwise nudge them towards marriage, a house in the suburbs, and a couple of dependents to declare on their taxes, and therefore indulge in the first two bullet points.

I am not a woman, so I might have missed some of my and my brethren’s failings, but you get the point. Life in China for American men can seem almost like a long college weekend that lasts for years. Don’t take my word for it; go to the source. The blog China Dirt was a forum for expat women to rant about how much expat men in China suck. The blog has the tagline ‘Could the men living in China get any more retarded? Here are the horror stories from the front lines.’

If you don’t have the patience to scan the blog for estrogen charged horror stories, here’s a review by the City Weekend. The blog seems defunct, either its writers moved home or expat men in China have stopped being lame. I suspect the bloggers moved to greener pastures.

So, where was I? Right, foreign (American) men in China are immature. This leads me to a solution for the Basement Boys. If you are the parent of an unwanted male child residing in your home and you want them to leave (either for your well being or their own) but you just don’t have the gumption to kick their dumb ass to the curb, then buy them a ticket to China.

Here’s why. First, any knucklehead American with a pulse can teach English in China; been there, done that. The money is not bad and you get to meet a lot of girls, be sure to tell your sons this. Second, they will be in good company, there are a lot of slackers, ne’er do wells, and slimy older men to keep them company; everybody needs drinking buddies. Third, man cannot live on woman and beer alone, I know, I’ve tried, man needs entertainment too. Pirated DVDs are $1, so you can get the box set of the Director’ Cut of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and watch to your heart’s content during your 20 hour work week when you are not sleeping with one of your ‘language exchange partners’.

Look, I’m not writing anything any expat in China doesn’t already know. All I am dong is trying to reach out and help the Basement Boys. Writing as someone who is quickly approaching his 40s and who has spent the majority of his 20s and 30s in China, I know this place has the capacity to keep you chin deep in the quagmire of adolescent fantasy, God bless it! But it also has the ability to make a man out of you if that’s what you are trying to achieve.

My first job out of college and out of the purgatory of teaching English was as a chief representative for a small consulting firm in Beijing, I was 26, signed a couple dozen Fortune 500 companies as clients and managed Beijing operations. This isn’t experience I was likely to get back home climbing up the corporate ladder like everyone else. Before that, I backpacked all over China, these were adventures that taught me self reliance, important social skills, and an appreciation for how hard life is in the developing world, all things the Basement Boys could use a big dose of.

God help the millennial boys and their quest for manhood, especially the ones wearing makeup and have more parts of them pierced than an Amtrak ticket.

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.