Minku was still very sick and only half conscious when we got him back into his apartment on the second floor of his building. Their
apartment was on a narrow residential street that also had the north gate of Anhui University situated near the beginning of the street. On
the right, there were many apartment buildings with some restaurants on the bottom level. At the beginning of the street, the ground level
was down a steep drop-off with stairs leading down to each entrance from the sidewalk above. We put Minku on his bed and took off his
outer garments which were now a bit unclean from his vomit, leaving him in a white tank-top and boxers. Minku had a very thin and frail-
looking build, as though he spent most of his time exercising his mind rather than his body. We also kept a bag for him whenever
something else inside him decided to come up. Ashish and their other roommate Rashes (Rossess) were surprised by all the commotion,
and Umesh explained the situation to them in Nepalese. As Minku started to regain consciousness, he also started mumbling about
something, or someone. It became clear to me that he was talking about a Chinese girl named Darcy who he had met through Ashish’s
girlfriend, Joy. He started crying and hollering about how she doesn’t love him, but moving and twisting on his bed like a marionette
because he did not have full control of his senses. Vincent, Ashish, and Rashes were very quiet, sitting and lying on the other bed that
was across the small room listening to Minku, while Umesh and I tried to calm Minku down and hope there was enough of his true self
present to be reached. Minku said,”I want to take a gun and shoot her, and then drink the poison to kill MYSELF!” Minku had quite an
accent, and the way he spoke English was different from most people I ever heard by the grammar he used in his sentences. I thought his
style of speaking was very interesting, and it denoted a clever and individualized use of English. Umesh picked out a photo of this girl
Darcy and showed it to me, and I told him not to worry about her. Her eyes looked like the kind of eyes that someone would have to
connive and kill someone in their sleep, but maybe it was just the camera angle that gave it that effect. Minku blamed Ashish for his pain
about the girl. “You knew! ! You knew she did not love me, but you did not tell me!” He shouted. Minku said to me, “This man Ashish, I
treat him as a brother. He knows me better than I know myself, but he betrayed me!” Ashish remained quiet because he didn’t want to
aggravate Minku further. He looked a bit worried, but at the same time, he and Rashesh tried to keep from laughing while they suppressed
any humorous urges behind a mask. When people drink and have a serious problem on their mind, there is a tendency to speak in circles
about ideas that seem to have no end. Every time Umesh and I calmed Minku down, it seemed like he was going to be OK, but then
suddenly he would perk up and yell angrily as his eyes returned to a state of ferocity, “But this man Ashish……!!” and point to Ashish with
his index finger across from him on the other bed and continuing his drunken rant. It happened like that exactly the same way at least
five or six times over an hour. But finally, Minku’s angry spirit settled down enough to allow him to fall asleep, giving the rest of us much
relief. Vincent lived within walking distance of the apartment inside of Anhui University, and walked home. Umesh prepared a bed for me
in the other room, and I fell asleep there. Ashish later confessed, “I didn’t know if I was going to survive that night.” Minku often had
repressed violent urges that seemed to come out whenever he drank too much. He didn’t learn his lesson from this one.
      Minku wasn’t the only one to have problems with a young woman. Pondus from Sweden’s girlfriend Gao Feng turned out to be
exactly the kind of girl that I first thought she was. I knew that there was more than friendliness about the way that she would treat the
foreigner men in our group. It came out somehow that she had an affair with Jiels from France. Jiels was always very polite and friendly
to me, but he was a sly wolf with the ladies. To make things worse, Jiels said he wanted to marry Gao Feng. I can’t imagine how terrible
Pondus must have felt through all of that. Since we all spent time together in a big group, it was only a matter of time until the two would
have to face each other about it.
      There was a new dance club in town called “The Spanish Habana” about three miles southeast of the center of the city on a block
that had several lively clubs of different styles. It was a Latin-style dance club, and the owner was from Cuba, though he always managed
to stay hidden when we were there. It was a bit of a disappointment though. Almost no Chinese were going to the place, and it was
mostly just us foreigners. The dance club 39 degrees was just around the corner on the same block. Since that place was so popular, I
suppose no one else would come to that area for any other reason but to go there. Either that, or most of the Chinese in the city could
not adapt to the music style that must have been so foreign to them since there is a great lack of any Latin influence in China that I
could see. We had a great time though. It wasn’t very often that we got to hear a variety of music at the dance clubs since over 90
percent of the places in the city recycled the same old music CD every night. People would have to get one step drunker if they wanted
to enjoy the same music they just heard the night before. Even though the music wasn’t always fantastic, it was still very exciting to go
out to the dance clubs for some reason. These were not the ordinary sit down and have a drink with your friends after work kinds of places.
They had a stellar quality about them, making it easy to be a place where people wanted to get away from the mundane world outside
where nothing out of the ordinary ever seemed to happen much. People were looking very elegant and stylish, yet it didn’t seem like
anyone had their noses pointed too high in the sky, and were usually approachable. Only the people who thought they were, or actually
were gangsters walked around proudly, but it was very easy to avoid confrontation and even eye-contact with those people. They had no
time to pay attention to unimportant people in their lives. They were not the young street-looking gangsters, but the older and heavier
organized-crime wearing business suits looking gangsters. There was definitely an atmosphere there that was still very new to us
foreigners. Even if not drinking, it was still fun just to be there and dance seeing so many people whose lives I could not yet fathom.
Pondus and Jiels met each other one night at Spanish Habana, and decided to go outside to have a talk man to man. The last time I
was in a situation like that, it was when Alex from Ukraine had a problem with the two Russians over some girls at the Long Bar, so I was
ready for the next episode. Mike from Australia and Florian from Germany also went outside to make sure that nothing got too serious
between them, and luckily, they had a conversation without resorting to violence. Pondus continued on with his girlfriend after that, but
then later broke up with her permanently because she would go to parties and not answer his calls. Elvis once told me, “It’s not hard to
get a Chinese girlfriend, but it’s hard to keep them.” A lot of them I had met liked to keep their options open and rush off quickly when
they saw “Flash in the pans” that were more interesting to them. Yet they still wanted to remain friends with their ex long after the
relationship was over, making moving on extremely difficult at times.
      One such person that liked to keep their options open was Chad’s old friend, Bluestar. After Chad went back to America, Bluestar,
Kingwater, Lucy and several of their friends began to spend time with me instead. They would often call me “Elder brother.” But Bluestar
started to show interest in me even though she already had a boyfriend. That nearly got me into trouble. One night, Bluestar, her
roommate Julie, and I went to the Revolutionary Bar to watch more of the World Cup. She tried to make me put my arms around her
even though I didn’t want to as we walked into the place. There was a table of about five young Chinese men sitting around that we
passed, and suddenly I felt something light tap my shoulder. I turned around just in time to see a piece of popcorn slide off my shoulder,
and I looked back at the guilty ones. Even though there were five of them, they all looked away from me as though they wanted nothing
to do with the situation. They must have been jealous. Some Chinese men resent seeing foreigners with Chinese women because they
can’t even find a Chinese woman their own selves. In the whole country, there is said to be about 300 million more men than women, so
many men are going to be struggling to find girlfriends and wives. Also, some people think that a Chinese woman who likes a foreigner
must be involved in some scandalous behavior and try to ridicule them in public places about it sometimes, whether or not it’s true.
Bluestar, Julie, and I then went to a table next to the pool table after I finished staring down the troublemakers and met Dushan, Spela,
Tom from England, and others who were there to watch the games. Even if something would have happened, my friends would have
come to help me  … I think.
      Many things were finishing after the school year ended that summer. The foreigners who were teachers and students at the
universities were preparing to return to their home countries or else go traveling elsewhere. Also, it was time for the final game of the
World Cup. It would be a night full of confrontation, both on and off-screen.
      I went to Charlie’s Bar to watch the last game of the World Cup because that’s where all of my foreigner friends were planning on
going to watch it. There were several people there in the beginning, mandatorily Rico and others, but then the French Julie walked into
the place. I had seen her several times since our first meeting and had since apologized to her about cursing her out because of her
rude behavior, but it was not a big deal to her anyways. She was one of the foreigners that was going back to their home country, and this
would be the last time I would see her. Many other foreigners showed up, and we watched the last game together. Julie left before the
game finished, and said to me, “Ok. See you next time.” And then disappeared. I wasn’t sure when next time was going to be, maybe
another life she meant. Near the end of the game, the famous incident occurred when the French player Zinedine Zidane head-butted a
player from the Italian team. Og said, “I’m not trying to say he did a good job or anything, but if you’re gonna head-butt someone, that’s
the way to do it right there.” I walked out of the bar to go to the bathroom, and as I was walking back, one of the waitresses passed me and
said, “There’s a fight.” I thought, “Yeah, I know. I already saw the man get head-butted.” But that isn’t what she was talking about. When I
got back inside the bar, I saw Australian Dave and Australian John looking heated and in each other’s faces. I had come to know both of
them through playing football with the international football team, John was the referee, and David was a fellow
defenseman.                         
      Apparently, John said something rude to David’s wife, and he responded with a beer glass to the face, and David had a big knot on
his cheek from either John’s left or right hook. But the violence seemed to be over even though they both still had excitement all over
their faces. Actually, I was wrong. A minute later, they both went out into the hallway and started again. I remember John yelling at one
of the security guards, “Why didn’t you do anything?! You saw him hit me and didn’t do anything!” Finally, they both got escorted out of
the building to a fate unknown by me, but there was talk of some kind of police action being made against one of them. At the end of the
World Cup, I almost broke even with Rico, not bad for a person who never bets and who knows nothing about football teams. Up there in
Charlie’s Bar, it was the last time I would see several of my foreigner friends, including Jiels. He was also on his way back to France.
When he said goodbye to me, he made a circular motion with his finger, indicating that he believed that everything comes full-circle
eventually. That was when the group began to fall apart, breaking down into smaller groups whom in the following days would struggle to
find happiness in the aftermath of a very exciting period.
China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling
Broken hearts