A night brawl
       It was raining outside as we walked out of the Long Bar out onto the multi-colored sidewalk that had dirt wedged into cracks
from the engraved patterns that were standard for sidewalk designs.  The dirt began to come out and wash away as the amount of
rainwater increased, only to settle back into place later when the rain would stop. The side street had no one on it except for us,
Alex from Ukraine, Bernd from Germany, one Russian girl, the two young Russian men Alex was concerned about, and I, because it
was very late. The Russians were very fit and strong. One of them had short brown hair and wore a white tank top shirt that
exposed his hefty build, and the other had short blond hair and wore a dark red cut-off shirt. Neither of them looked afraid of
confrontation as they prepared to “discuss” matters with Alex. None of us thought about the rain as it was pouring down on our
heads from the sky and distorting our image of what was happening even further after the alcohol had done its work.
       The Russians began yelling at Alex and putting pressure on him and circling around him like dogs. They were very nervous
about Bernd and I, and tried to push us back several times to keep their own sense of safety. I was trying to keep everything
peaceful, so I absorbed their pushes with no problem. It’s not easy to help settle a conflict where the people involved are not
speaking the same language as you, yet you are bound to the situation out of friendship with one of the people involved. It wasn’t
like I could tell them, “Can you guys speak English, please?” The Russians didn’t even know how to speak English. I tolerated their
pushes for a while, but then lost my patience, and then pushed the blond haired Russian hard enough to make him think twice about
pushing me again. Before I knew what was happening, the brown haired Russian started punching Alex in the face, and Bernd ran
over and grabbed him, using his colossal frame to put him easily into submission on the ground with his arms and legs locked up
and looking like a son sitting between his father’s legs at a picnic. The ground was very dirty, but no one was thinking about that
because it was time for action, not thought. Bernd would not release him just because the situation was uncomfortable, so he
remained sitting down on the wet and dirty sidewalk while bear hugging the Russian to keep him from attacking Alex again. The
other Russian pushed Alex onto the ground and held his fist up in the air over his head preparing to strike. I was watching carefully
from behind like a tiger stalking its prey from behind the bushes, waiting for him to swing. The moment he threw the first punch was
when I was going to pounce on him. So I waited, and waited while they were still yelling at each other as the rain kept pouring
down on all of us, with Alex underneath him on the ground … but the moment never came.
       I went over and helped Alex back up onto his feet and Bernd let go of the other Russian, convinced that he was no longer in
the mood to fight. I started to see human logic and understanding appear on the Russians’ faces as they continued arguing with
Alex in Russian. I kept saying to them, “Come on” and tried to signal them to go back to the bar out of the rain and forget about the
conflict. The dark haired Russian must have understood and respected why we were there with Alex, because finally he said to me,
“Come on” just as I had said to him, and we walked back to the bar shoulder to shoulder as comrades do.
Arm-wrestling
       When we got back into the bar, there were only a few of us left there. It was about 4:00 in the morning, and most of our friends
had gone home, including Masha who slipped out while we were outside. I was surprised she left her own birthday party in that
manner. Bernd, the two Russians, and I sat at a booth near the window together and continued drinking as a way to put the situation
behind us. Bernd knew just a little Russian, and tried his best to talk to them from across the table. The dark haired Russian’s name
was also Alex, but the blonde Russian’s name was not easy to remember. They were both some kind of dancers in Hefei and knew
some of the language. They did a lot of pushups every day, which is why they appeared to be so strong. I’m not sure whose idea it
was, but we all started arm-wrestling with each other, Bernd and I against the Russians. They had such great technique. Neither
Bernd nor I could ever beat them. Bernd still lost to Russian Alex even though he was bigger than him. Bernd chuckled to me and
said with his thick German accent, ”Yeah, but you remember who had him on the ground” and then we both started laughing. Even
though I couldn’t beat them, I refused to give up. Each time I arm wrestled them, I could feel my stomach start to grumble,
reminding me that I didn’t eat dinner that night, yet had plenty of alcohol. I felt the fuel meter go from full to empty in a second. “You’
re a little drunk, huh Andrew?” Brian said from behind the counter with a smile. This situation wasn’t going well for me, and got
even worse when the blond haired Russian demanded that we buy a beer for them every time we lost. He said while laughing a
little, “Yeah. One, two, three times, yeah, buy me a beer!” while doing an arm-wrestling motion on the table and looking at his friend
Alex for support. It wasn’t the best time for me, but at least we saved Alex from Ukraine from a severe beating. When the sun began
to come up, the two Russian men went outside to have a last word with the Russian girls, but then they both walked away quickly
down the street without further incident. The threat was gone, and it was time to go home. I mentioned what happened to Spela the
next day, and she wasn’t surprised. “Russian men are raised to have a very strong and hard attitude” she said.
Watching the World Cup & betting
       The World Cup was starting, and all the foreigners in the city were massing together at different locations in the city to watch,
though still only an insignificant number of foreigners. Many Chinese also did the same. It was a new experience for me because
back in the United States, no one I knew was interested in the World Cup, only the NFL or NBA. But football was an international
sport drawing in the interest of many people, similar to what the Olympics can achieve. There was a hotel we began going to just
past the end of the walking street. It was a cylindrical Holiday Inn hotel of about 20 floors. On one of the floors, there was a small
bar called “Charlie’s Bar” which was named after Charlie Chaplin, and had several pictures of him on the walls. They had a
rectangular counter in the middle, and a pool table on one side and small tables all around the room. There were several foreigner
bartenders there, a young woman from Russia, and a man from The Philippines, as well as some Chinese bartenders. The man from
the Philippines, named Rico, was a heavy man who looked like a bit of a trickster. I made friends with him quickly and began to bet
on each game with him, 100 yuan per game. I wasn’t so familiar with the teams, but at the beginning of the game, he would always
smile and ask me, “So which team you gonna bet on?” and then I would choose a random team and hope they would win. All of my
foreigner friends and others gathered together on chairs and watched the games on a projection screen, laughing and cheering for
their favorite teams and drinking pitcher after pitcher. Whenever Sweden’s team played, Pondus would always shout, “Sverige …
Sverigev ... ... Sverige!!!” in his native language. He even dressed up in a Swedish football uniform and carried his country’s flag
several times. Whenever Germany played, there were always many German foreigners there to watch. Pondus would sometimes
mock them by mumbling something in German and putting his two fingers under his nose to play like he was Hitler. It’s a safe thing
for him that they were sitting in front of him and  didn’t see him doing that, because I think they could have taken Pondus easily. A
couple more new foreigner friends turned up for the games. One was a young man from Italy named Tom. He reminded me of what a
fusion between Bruce Willis and David Beckham would be like in personality and looks, and was quite an energetic
conversationalist. Florian from Germany and I were the only ones in the group that could speak Spanish, and we tried to see how
similar Italian and Spanish were with Tom. Some words were similar, but when he began to speak full sentences, that was when I
began to get lost. Luckily, Tom could speak English well enough. Tom told us that Italian is such a difficult language to learn that
most people born in Italy don’t even speak proper Italian. He also told us that there were no illusions about the dangers that lie
there.
       Another foreigner from Syria named Saadi came to the games. He was a heavy man with dark hair and glasses, and he was
always very happy and excited, though sitting in a very relaxed posture with his beer in one hand. He and Rico were old friends,
and when he found out I was betting against him each game, Saadi encouraged me to beat him. He would say things like, “Yeah!
Kick his *$#! Beat him and I will call him at 2:00 in the morning and say ‘Hahaha! That’s right, you lose! @#*$ you, Rico! Hahaha!’”
When he got very excited, his voice would climb to a high pitch. No matter what mood I was in, Saadi always lifted my spirits with
his joyous attitude. It was like he existed in a world of laughter and light spirits untouched by the concerns of others, though in no
way was he ignorant.
       Besides Charlie’s Bar, there was another place on the other side of the center of the city that was part of a shopping center we
went to. They had two large projection screen T.V.s to broadcast the games, and many Chinese spectators watched from their seats
drinking beer. It was an outdoor café sheltered by part of the shopping center called Sinabucks, which seemed like a rip-off on
Starbucks. A couple of security guards wearing turquoise army fatigues paced around the area and watched the games when they
had time for it. We all had a great time watching the games, sometimes talking so much that we didn’t even know what was
happening in the game.
Dancing and drinking
       At Best Beautiful Club, more foreigners continued to come through the exciting and changing place. Umesh from Nepal, and
two of his countrymen, Ashish(Asseess) and Minku, came in. Ashish was a little husky looking, had glasses and medium length
hair that was wavy, and he usually sat around and observed what everyone else in the club was doing quietly.  Minku was a wild
and careless dancer, and he would often dance with his arms flailing around and legs moving like a cowboy trying to dance after
riding a horse continuously for 24 hours straight. He would often hit other people as they were dancing or walking through trying to
get to the other side of the bar, but I always kept a careful eye on him and moved out of the way when I got the feeling he was going
to be swinging his arms in my direction. His eyes were a bit dark and penetrating, and he would always take special notice of me
when I would come in his direction with kind of a wicked looking smile and masterminding eyes. I didn’t feel he was a threat to me,
but I felt he could be a threat to others if they crossed him.
       Dushan continued to entertain and inspire us all with his unique dance music. I never knew what the Chinese bar patrons
thought about his music, but some of them seemed to like it, and danced with us occasionally. Most of them were unconcerned
about dancing, and just concentrated on having fun with their friends loudly or quietly. I also wondered what they thought about us
foreigners because a lot of them seemed very deep and enigmatic to me. But it was always great to come to Best Beautiful on the
weekend no matter how the week went. We always had a great time together dancing to the music and talking to each other.
Sometimes we would go up on the small dance platforms that were meant for the dancers that worked there when they weren’t
dancing, and we would all cheer for each other at those times. The bartenders would do things like juggle large bottles of alcohol
and stack up many martini glasses full of alcohol on the counter and set them on fire when the formation was complete. Then they
offered a glass to each of us foreigners. The waiters there all dressed in identical uniforms and went to and from each table and
sometimes disappeared into the kitchen to get snack orders, usually looking very serious, but there were a few of them that played
and danced with us. There were some other men wearing white shirts and ties that walked around with earpieces and kept in
communication with the bosses, who would often walk around the club carrying walkie talkies. Next to the DJ booth, there was a
back door that led to a small room with a couple of couches and another small counter for ordering drinks where the music from
the main room could still be heard vibrating through the walls. Connected to that room was a long corridor where many young
women dressed very elegantly in long dresses attended the customers that reserved the VIP rooms along the corridor. Everything
looked so dark, modern, and polished in the place.
       One time, Lucky invited Dushan, Spela, and I to one of the VIP rooms where there was a man who claimed to be a descendent
of Confucious. We sat down with him, and he asked which one of us was the best drinker, and they both pointed to me. So he
opened a beer for me and had a cheers with me with his glass of whiskey, and we both drank them down quickly. He gave me the
thumbs up after we both finished. Ting Ting from my neighborhood often went to Best Beautiful Club and tried her best to
communicate with me, even though there was nothing we could say to each other. Lucky started getting concerned because I
would sometimes meet with her outside of the place and have Lucky act as the translator. She said to me, “I don’t think Ting Ting is
the right girl for you. She has many rich friends who are older men, and she will be with them so she can get money from them.” I
got the impression that she would do a service for them so they would give her the money, but I didn’t understand why because
she was very beautiful, and it seemed like she could have found a regular boyfriend instead of living like that. Maybe it was
because of what Lucky told me about her. Lucky told me that she had a boyfriend before, but she got hurt very badly, so she didn’t
want to have anything serious like that again. I already suspected that something was going on with these older men, but after
Lucky told me all of that, I made sure to keep a safe distance from her (not really).
       Jiels from France and his friend started coming along with a couple other girls from France, both named Julie (Zsoolie). One
was short, and the other was tall. One of them was a bit serious and big-mouthed, but the other was carefree and wild, but cheerful.
They all made a big impact on the group from my standpoint, causing a lot of drama, except for Jiels’s quiet friend.
       One night, after dancing at Best Beautiful, a large group of us, Dushan, Spela, Lucky, Alex, Sara and Amanda from Chicago, the
short Julie, Jiels and his friend, Umesh, Ashish, Klose, and several others walked to another bar not far away called Babyface. As
we were walking down the walking street, between all of the empty shops on the deserted street, I was so amazed at all of the
different elements that were present to make the situation what it was, the mysterious old Chinese culture of thousands of years
being masked over by big city ambitions and modern desire of development of technology and comfortable living, and all of the
others from different countries walking together through this place. Why were we there? What exactly was the force that united all
of us here in a strange land we know nothing about? Sometimes the sky seemed limitless with possibilities. I noticed Jiels talking
to Julie, or rather trying to smooth talk her, and she pushed him away with all her might. He looked like he wanted to strangle her,
but then went back to rejoin his friend walking elsewhere in the dispersed line of us. I was introduced to her, but I didn’t know
what to think about her. It seemed as though there was something ugly about her on the inside that seemed a little repulsive,
regardless of how she looked on the outside.
A kiss and ... I was angry
       When we got to Babyface, everything was so bright and flashy. It looked like there was a lightning storm inside of the dancing
bar because they had very small white light bulbs all over the walls that flashed on and off. It was easily the brightest room I had
ever been in. We all ordered more drinks and started dancing. After a while, I sat down next to Julie and began to talk to her. I must
have had too much to drink, because I told her she was beautiful, even though I didn’t think too much about her when I first saw
her earlier that night. She said, “What are you talking about?! Before when I first met you, you looked at me like I was a piece of
garbage, and hardly said anything to me! So why did you change your mind now?!” “Because I thought Jiels liked you, so I wanted
to be respectful to him by not talking to you too much.” I said. This girl had a short temper, and a very colorful mouth. She was
taking no nonsense from any man. But she also must have had too much to drink, because before long, we both ended up kissing
each other. But then moments later, she pushed me just as she had done to Jiels earlier, but then she wanted me to dance with her
after that. She said, “You must pass a test first.” I think we both had very different ideas about each other, but she made me very
angry. When it was time to leave, and we walked out onto the street, I lost my temper, and began yelling at her. I said, “Go away!
Get out of here! I don’t want to see your face anymore!” But she just stood there and took it without flinching. She must have been
used to that kind of reaction, and coming soon were more things to get a reaction from.
China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling

More anecdotes about Foreigners in
China: Of girls and boys