livin' on a prayer

So, besides helping old men with their English, what have we been up to since returning to Beijing? Quite a lot, actually. Let me first rewind a little bit from Maya's post: While we were in Datong, we talked to these two girls from France who were part of our tour group, and they told us that when they were in Beijing, they actually had a taxi driver pull over to the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere and tell them that if they didn't pay him more money, he was going to just leave them there. So they got out of the car, and, as promised, he left them there. Hearing this horror story, Maya and I both thought, with some relief, that while numerous people have tried to scam us while we've been in China, all in all, the taxi drivers we've ridden with have been not only honest but actually relatively helpful. You can probably guess where this story is going... When we got off our of bus back from Datong to Beijing on Thursday afternoon, we had no idea where we were and we didn't have a hotel booked for the night - we pulled out our Beijing map and were immediately assailed by numerous cab drivers eager to take us wherever we needed to go. All seemed to know just a single word of English - "Taxi!" - except for one person, who also stuck out of the crowd because she was a cute Chinese chick instead of a grizzled, chain-smoking Chinese man. She started asking us in ridiculously good English where we wanted to go. She even offered to help us find a hotel. If there was one thing I (and Maya, at least, I thought) had learned so far about China, it was that no stranger here offers to help you without expecting something in return. And that the only Chinese people we've met so far that spoke this good English were either scammers or metalheads (this chick was no metalhead). I whispered to Maya, "Don't talk to her," more than a few times, but Maya's a very sociable being and she started talking to the girl, asking her if she could show us on our map where we were. The girl did so, and when Maya mentioned an area where we might want to go to find a hotel, she mentioned that she had a cab and would take us there. I said to Maya, "Don't talk to her. We don't know if her cab even has a meter." (There are a lot of unmetered car drivers who are constantly offering you rides, always for more than the fare should be.) The girl must have read my lips or something, because she immediately said that her car had a meter, and since Maya persisted in talking to her, I finally relented, plus my sense of morbid curiosity was kicking in, and I decided we might as well play along with this girl and see what her scheme was. So we follow her away from the bus terminal and to the edge of the highway, where a white car pulls up, driven by another Asian chick. "My sister," says the original girl. This "sister" gets out of the car, and this stocky, buzz-cutted Chinese dude appears, seemingly from nowhere; he gets in the driver's seat, while the "sister" opens the trunks for our backpacks. I know better than to go for this - "We'll keep out bags with us," I say. So we slide into the backseats, our packs in our laps, and look for a meter. At first we don't notice it, and Maya's like, "You want to get out?" I'm about to say yes, when we finally locate the meter. Then, much to our surprise, the original chick pops into the passenger-side seat - apparently she's going to ride with us(?) - and we set off. She starts talking to us as we rumble through the rush-hour traffic, asking where we're from and why we were in Datong. I can see on Maya's face that she is finally coming around to the fact that there is obviously something awry. "Where is this going?" I mouth to her while the girl upfront continues to small-talk. Maya notices it first: The fare count on the meter is increasing by leaps and bounds, at a much, much faster rate than any cab we've been in so far in China. For the time we'd been riding, the fare should have been maybe 12 yuan; the meter already read 35, and as Maya looked at it, it jumped up to 36, 37, 38... "That meter is moving way too fast," she said to the girl. "We're getting out." The girl protested, but Maya and I were both adamant: We're getting out now (we could see plenty of legitimate taxis in the area that we could easily hail). "There's a subway coming up," the girl said, "How about we drop you off there, and you give us 50?" "No, maybe we'll give you 40 and you stop the car right now," Maya generously countered. "No, 50." After they went back and forth like this for a while, the girl finally agreed to just pull over and let us out - along the highway where there was basically no shoulder and bumper-to-bumper traffic all around. So we got out, and the girl lept out, too, expecting her money, but we weren't planning on giving her shit. While Maya argued with her, I took out my notebook and wrote down the car's license plate number. "I have your license plate number, and I can report you," I said. At this point, the driver comes bounding out of the car, as Maya will later tell me, with a rather murderous expression on his face (thought I doubt he would have actually done anything with so many witnesses around); he starts yelling to the girl (and us) in Chinese and, according to Maya, looks like he's about to start throwing fists, while the girl holds him back and tells him that she's taking care of the situation. She says to us that we need to give her some money, any money, right now, and when we decline, suggests to drive us back to the station! She also says something like, "We took you all the way here, we deserve something," and gets agitated. Maya decides the best way to shut this all down for good is to give these con artists a little money, so she pulls out a 20 yuan bill - not too much more than the fare for our trip thus far would have been - and gives it to the girl. "You really shouldn't do this to people," Maya says to her. The girl stills feigns innocence, but probably eager to cut her losses, she takes the bill, gets back in the car, and they drive away. As for us, we find a legitimate cab almost immediately, and safely inside, I give Maya an I-told-you-so look, and we both chuckle at the experience. "I hope you learn a lesson from this," I tell her. "Trust no one," which is a mantra we had been repeating since our first day in Beijing, "except for Brandon," I add. "And maybe Eveline. Maybe."

Friday night after our return, Eveline took us to check out the notorious Sanlitun bar area/"meat market," and the shit was pretty out of this world. Or rather, it was out of what you would think China's world would be: Just imagine the scummiest frat party strip you can, pack it with sleazy European and American ex-pats and some equally sleazy/slutty-looking Chinese, then throw in some ridiculously underage kids (like 15-years-old max) hanging out; a crippled, shivering elderly dude panhandling out of his wheelchair (and, as we passed, being chatted up by a drunk white girl apparently wearing a dangerously strong pair of beer goggles); and dive bars with mixed drinks for sub-Mars-Bar prices like 5 yuan (less than a dollar) each (Eveline theorizes that the liquors in said drinks are knockoffs). This area, incidentally, is where the drug raid I had mentioned some posts back had taken place - kicked off after some pseudo-celebrity from Big Brother: Australia or something O.D.'d on heroin in one of the clubs there. As much as I'm not generally in favor of the Chinese police raiding parties and busting heads, somehow the idea of the military cops cracking down on this shit doesn't make me feel so bad...

Another night Maya and I went to this punk show at a club called Mao Livehouse, which is in easy walking distance from our place at the 7 Days Inn. We paid our entrance fee (50 yuan, I think), walked passed the bar, around a pool table, and in through another door into the cigarette smoke-choked performance space, which was packed with Chinese rockers and hipsters, and more than a few white crust punks, including one in maybe his late-30s with a face full of tattoos. Onstage, we were amazed to find a Chinese skinhead band (we're still not sure how that works) with a beefy singer in full skinhead regalia: crisp white shirt, suspenders, high-waisted, peg-legged pants, and shitkicker boots. The band's bass player was also particularly awesome looking - the lanky dude was wearing an "Oi" T-shirt and completely gratutious aviator sunglasses that poorly disguised the homemade bandage - a napkin and an X of electrical tape - over his right eye. The band (have no idea what their name was) blasted out songs called "I am Skinhead, I am Punk," "Skinhead Girl" (a cover of The Specials' song), and the enjoyably irresponsible sing-along "Drinking and Driving." They ended their set with an extended ska jam session complete with confetti falling from the rafters! The next band - I think they were called Unsafe - featured a white singer and white guitarist and a Chinese guitarist, bass player, and drummer. As they soundchecked, the Chinese guitarist warmed up to a variety of Slayer riffs, and when he cranked out the opening notes of "Dead Skin Mask," Maya shouted out, like the true metalhead she is, "Sla-yer!!!" As if taking her cry as their cue, the band all joined in, playing the intro to the song, building to a feedback-soaked crescendo, and then blasting into their set of original material - which was thoroughly entertaining Oi punk augmented with some Iron Maiden-esque dual guitar harmonies and thrashy riffage. When we left the show, around 11:30, and walked back to the 7 Days Inn, Maya and I both felt strangely as if we were walking back to our home. We've stayed in this same neighborhood for most of our month in China, and it's our favorite area in Beijing, and it really has come to feel as comfortable and familiar as a second home. In two days we leave for Vietnam, and we will definitely miss our 'hood here in China.

A few days ago Eveline took us to a Korean hair salon to get Maya's hair semi-permanently straightened. Maya has been talking about getting it done for a long time, but the process is extremely expensive in the States (like $500 or something). Eveline's friend, coincidentally also named Maya (her last name is Rock!), had visited her in Beijing in August, and Eveline had actually taken her to get her hair straightened while she was here because it's much, much cheaper (think $80 or so). When Eveline mentioned this to our Maya, she decided to jump at the chance, and thus Eveline may be the only person in the world who has taken two Mayas to get their hair straightened in Beijing. As for the process itself, it was excruciating. First, Maya got her hair cut by this "Korean master" while the rest of the salon's staff - about 5 people - stood around and watched. Then one of the staff members brushed this follicle-relaxing chemical gloop into her hair, after which a shower cap-like thing was put over her head and a crazy rotating drying machine called the "Beauty Caller" was pulled up behind her and made to do its magic for 10 minutes or so. This process was repeated a few times. Then two staff members simultaneously straight-ironed her hair, then one of them brushed in more of that goop. Her hair was machine-dried again, then washed. Then this process was repeated. By the time, Maya was finally done, the ordeal had taken over 5 hours and we were both completely exhausted (her, much more than me, I'm sure). But she does look good:

Now, finally, an update on the subject that all of you really care about: Eveline and the bloody ghost. Though their last interaction had been awkward and not particularly romantic, Eveline has understandably felt an urge to keep someone she can refer to as "the bloody ghost" in her life, and so she texted the dude this weekend, inviting him to her friend's art opening. He declined, explaining that he had band practice. A few days later he texted her asking how the opening went, and she responded that it had been fine, how was band practice? She fully expected a mundane, barebones reply - something like "Practice was fine" - as has been the nature of their correspondence so far. Instead she got nearly a paragraph's worth of Chinese characters with two English phrases sprinkled in: "Pop rock" and "Bon Jovi"! Eveline (remember that she's basically functionally illiterate in Chinese - which has compelled her to ask friends to translate most of the ghost's texts for her before she could write back) roughly read this message to be "Practice was good. It was with a pop rock band I play in that sounds something like Bon Jovi, which I personally really like." After some deliberation about how to respond, she finally wrote back that this was cool and that she liked Bon Jovi, too - which isn't entirely untrue, since Eveline has been rumored to sing a mean version of "Livin' on a Prayer" at Beijing karaoke. The bloody ghost then wrote back that they should get dinner sometime. We all decided that the Bon Jovi thing must have been his "test": If she would have responded that she didn't like Bon Jovi, he wouldn't have invited her to dinner. But she had passed - though last I heard, the ghost has yet to set a date, time, and place for their meal. Eveline thinks his lack of initiative may be a "cultural thing." All I know is Jon Bon Jovi would have sealed the deal already.