| After we left The Walking Street, Nathan, Summer, Amy, and I went to a store that sells sunglasses near San Xiao Kou. The store was built on a corner, so there were two entrances to the place with a linking walkway between them that curved around tables where people could sit down and examine themselves in front of small stand-up mirrors. While Summer was talking to one of the store clerks behind the counter, I gently kicked her in the back of her shoe to mess with her. She wore shoes that had the words "Qiao Dan" written on them with a little Michael Jordan symbol on back. That is the way to call Michael Jordan in Mandarin. Michael Jordan and the NBA in general are very popular in China. Many people, especially the younger generation, talk about the NBA all the time with great enthusiasm. Amy noticed what I did to Summer, and quickly came over to defend her sister. She put her hands on me and said, "Don't ever touch my sister when I'm around!" while looking at me like she was prepared to defend her sister to the death. She had great bravery for someone who was at least a head shorter than me. I was surprised, but I said back to her, "Don't touch me when I'm around!" Summer looked back at me and laughed because she knew what I said was ridiculous. That was when I first found out that Amy had a stinger attached to her. She could react with a force that Summer was incapable of. Summer usually just ran away when there was a problem, which was another thing that made Amy seem older than her. Later in the afternoon, we went to a building that sold jewelry and other things that had an arcade on one of the upper levels. The building only had one elevator, and it was always very crowded with people, and there was usually a big cluster of people waiting to squeeze in once the doors opened. Most of the games in the arcade were exactly like the ones that are in the U.S. I started getting upset with Summer because it seemed like she was paying Nathan much more attention than me. She would always help Nathan with something, and her sister Amy was the one who would come to help me. It didn't seem right to me, so I told Summer that if she didn't want me around that I would just leave. The tension level between us increased heavily after I said that to her. I'm not interested in trying to control anyone, but I'm also not trying to be ignored by the person I like. She looked like she was about to start crying, but then she went away to a different part of the arcade away from me telling me that I didn't understand. Her sister Amy approached me from the side while keeping her eyes on Summer as she was walking away and said to me, "I know my sister, and I can see that she is angry." I was angry too, and the situation was about to explode if something didn't happen quickly. I could lose her by putting too much pressure on her, or lose my temper and thus lose her in the resulting emotional combustion, but I decided to talk to her one more time. Summer asked me to turn around while she explained her reasons to me because she was embarrassed to face me. She started studdering and discouraged me from turning around every time I tried to look at her. She said that liking someone makes her fearful of that person, and that it was easier for her to talk to Nathan for that reason. A serious relationship was something too deep for her light-hearted and childlike nature to endure. She was also a traditional Chinese girl, and the customs and attitudes that she was raised with are something much different from that in present day United States. She was raised with an emphasis on being very kind and polite to other people, and also to be very careful about selecting a boyfriend or marriage partner. It was hard for her to just "Give it a try" because she had the idea that her "Mr. Right" was someone that destiny would bring into her life suddenly and without any doubts about who he would be. She followed her parents' words about life like most people follow the law, which was probably the thing that was most unlike the way things are in the United States. They didn't want her messing around with boys unless it was the right place and time when she would be well on her way to financial stability. I didn't want to sit there like a helpless victim and watch her possibly end up getting closer to Nathan, but it seemed like my only choice was to continue to sit in the backseat and suffer in silence, or else risk bruising her fragile feelings beyond any undoing. We were both in over our heads for different reasons. Amy took bus 122 home from San Xiao Kou by herself, and the rest of us met Jackie later that evening. We decided to go to a small bar called American Pie that was located a couple of miles south of the center of the city on a dark and quiet back road. The place looked just like a small U.S. bar on the inside. There was a very small dance floor near the rear of the bar, and a small service area on the left near the entrance. There were also some tables to the right where groups of people were playing cards and drinking games. The second floor was divided into two parts with separate staircases. The left staircase went up from next to the service area to a lounge area with chairs and tables where we went to have a seat and looked at the drink menu. The right staircase went up to a pool table across from us on the other side of the bar that was crowded and smoky all night. I temporarily went back to my idea of abstaining from alcohol, so I ordered a soda, but the others ordered alcoholic drinks. Nathan told me I should watch Summer since she was drinking, but I already knew that because she can't control herself even when she's sober. She had a lot of energy with no discipline to keep calm and steady. But she behaved herself pretty well that night. She asked me what personal changes I had experienced since coming to China, and I told her that being disconnected from all of the things that I grew up with my whole life had forced me to become more realistic about myself. I had begun to get outside of and detach myself from other people's ideas that had influenced me up until that point, and could just be what I am with no strings attached. Nathan looked down at the bar on the first floor and noticed there were some foreigners drinking there, so we both went down to find out who they were. As though he was waiting for me to arrive, a fairly strong young man wearing a baseball cap stood at the bar drinking a bottle of Heineken. We introduced ourselves, and he told me that his name was Elvis, and that he was from Cameroon. It made me wonder about a broader connection of events since my friends Franklin and Caro from the summer camps were also from Cameroon. I talked to Elvis for about 15 minutes, and he told me that he was in China for business, and just came to Hefei after being in a rough part of China where there was some kind of incident that he was trying to escape from, similar to why I was now in Hefei. There was another foreigner drinking at the bar from a European country, but he didn't seem very interested in talking to us. Nathan suspected that he was harboring some feelings of enmity towards the U.S., probably because of recent political and military actions that had been taken. Without any other matters of significance, we left American Pie after about two hours. I said goodbye to Elvis, not knowing if I would see him again after that, but I didn't know the greater plan that existed within the sphere of Hefei city that I was slowly being pulled into. The next day was our last day before we would go back to Xuan Cheng to see our students at the summer camp one last time. It was also Nathan's last day to be in Hefei. Summer took us to her home to meet her parents. Her family lived in one of the only houses I had seen in any city in China. It was protected by a small external gate, and was located in a back alley somewhere near south-central Hefei. Her mother was in the front porch area inside of the gate hanging clothes up on a line. Summer taught me how to say hello to her in Mandarin, which is "Ni hao." In the Mandarin language, there are four different tones, so each word can have several different meanings depending on how you say it. That is one of the greatest challenges that any foreigner will face when learning the language, how to perfect the usage of tones. Summer's mother offered to wash our dirty clothes if we brought them next time, but it wasn't necessary for Nathan since he was leaving the next morning. There were many pairs of shoes and slippers sitting on the tiled porch, and we had to find slippers that were an appropriate match before entering into the house. Nathan and I were the first foreigners to ever visit Summer's home, and her father was very kind to us, offering us a bowl of mixed fruit while having a conversation with us on some extremely thick wooden chairs that had been beautifully varnished with a dark reddish brown color in the living room. He also gave both of us a box of black tea as a gift. He couldn't speak English, so he had Summer translate everything he wanted to say to us. After about one hour, Summer's uncle came to pick the three of us up and go to her grandparent's house. Her family must have been wealthy to own several houses in the middle of a big city like Hefei, though some people from larger cities refer to Hefei as the countryside. Summer's grandparent's house was an old two-story wooden house that was not very big, but they owned a huge land with a few farm animals and several pools for fishing enclosed by metal fences. We went fishing with some old wooden rods and used worms for bait. Nathan caught a fish, and Summer teased me. "Oh! Andrew! Nathan caught a fish before you!" I didn't know it was supposed to be a competition. I was just enjoying the freedom of not having anywhere important to be. Several moments later, a fish managed to steal my bait without getting itself hooked. "That fish stole my bait!" I said. "I don't know, Andrew. I think that says something about your mind." Nathan replied in a cocky manner. What did he mean by that? It was only my third time fishing in a period of 20 years, and I knowhe had a lot more experience than I did! Summer continued to talk to Nathan as though I wasn't there, and I was burning with jealousy on the inside, as my blood steadily climbed up to the boiling point. It was possible that I was the one with the problem, and was taking the situation too seriously, but that idea would never stick for very long inside of my head because I could never find a solid reason why she would behave that way. Normally, I would have already cast the situation to the side and moved forward with my life, but Summer was different than other girls I had known. Her heart seemed to be much more pure, which made it impossible for me to consciously take action that would cause her grief. This is exactly the problem that I tried to avoid by keeping my feelings for her hidden when I first met her during the first summer camp, but now there was no way for me to escape the situation. We decided that we wanted to go dancing that night, so the three of us went to a popular dance club in Hefei called "2001" located somewhere on the eastern rim of the downtown area. It was on the fifth floor of a building that had many colorful neon lights running up the outside wall to attract attention, making it look like a movie theater. We bought tickets at a ticket booth to get into the place. After climbing many stairs, we came up to the fifth level where there were about 10 security guards wearing turquoise hats and turquoise uniforms with black pants facing each other in two separate lines at the bar entrance. We gave them our tickets and walked in between them as they welcomed us to enter into the club. The bar was very dark on the inside, and there were walkways with rails and green neon floor lights that ran parallel to each other around a dance floor in the middle. There were two service areas on opposite sides of the bar in the front and the back, and small three or four-person tables that were mostly occupied everywhere else around the walkways. Some of the tables that were next to the walls had transparent silk curtains draped on the wall behind them and also in between to divide them from other tables. Facing the dance floor was an elevated stage that had a large stone head with glowing eyes that reminded me of an ancient Aztec statue with a projection screen behind it. The dance floor was empty, and there was no music playing or lights flashing. Several security guards were patrolling the walkways of the establishment glancing around briefly at what everyone was doing. They looked almost as serious as army soldiers, but they were unarmed and not very big. Most of the people there were dressed very elegantly and didn't seem interested in the fact that there were foreigners among them. 2001 didn't seem to have the same friendly atmosphere that most of the other places had. Usually a place has that many guards for a reason. While no one looked very intimidating, there was a great deal of arrogance in the air, especially from the men. We sat down at a table just behind the dance floor and ordered some Pepsis. Summer was feeling sad because we had an argument earlier in the day about the fact that she was always walking with Nathan and talking to him like they were the couple, leaving me behind like a spare tire on a motorcycle. It seemed that she didn't know or didn't care how easily two people can develop feelings for each other, but I would rather suffer and reason than try to force loyalty out of someone else since it wouldn't be genuine loyalty anyways. Finally, at 10 p.m., the dance floor lit up, smoke started spraying out of jets, and the music boomed out and caught everyone's full awareness. This was the chance I was waiting for, to keep myself so occupied that I didn't have time to think about the awkward situation I was in. The floor instantly got crowded and the three of us squeezed our way into the middle. The atmosphere livened up profoundly after the show began. There were videos playing on the big projection screen behind the stage to go along with the music as people danced in crowded lines facing the stage, and waved their hands around in the air as though they had all been put under a hypnotic spell by the music. It wasn't unusual for people to be a little bit faded even at this early hour. A few people went up on the stage and started dancing in front of the crowd. I decided to go up on the stage and dance with them to take a break from Summer. When the people you are with aren't talking to you, then what is the point of staying there with them? While I was up on the stage, I noticed some girl slip through the crowd of dancers up to Nathan with a video camera and a pink wig. She asked him to put the wig on and say a few words for a gum commercial that was supposed to be aired on television, though I never saw it. The few of us who were brave enough to dance up on stage were able to dance for about 15 minutes, while the crowd of dancers on the floor threw green neon rings up at us, but then the security guards gently ushered us off to prepare for the next phase of that night's scheduled plan. I went back to our table where Nathan and Summer were having a conversation. She told me I was crazy for going up on stage to dance. Then she asked Nathan a question, and he must have sensed my frustration about being excluded from conversation by this time, and said to her, "Why don't you ask Andrew?!" Then she turned to ask me the same question, but what was the point if someone else had to tell her to do it? At least this would be my last night of constant emotional torture on my heart that was more painful than any physical punishment I had ever received. |
| China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling Oh, Summer! |
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