A relaxing night out

The ground felt slimy and gritty at the same time. I felt it against the palms of my hands and the left side of my face as I pushed against it in an attempt to right myself. I hadn't been drinking that much, really. A friend was showing me a couple of expat bars in this tiny Chinese burg of around a million people. We had a couple of drinks at each place, a number not well evidenced by the forest of bottles on our table. Nevertheless, I only remember having a few.

The first place we went that night was the place I'm currently writing this blog post. It's an Irish pub right on the main thoroughfare through town. The guy who owns the place goes by Sean, though I suspect that is not his given name. I met him the other night shortly after he returned from a vacation in Thailand. He says he hasn't traveled much, but he's also been to Australia, which makes him seem fairly well traveled to me. In any case, he has a fantastic Irish pub right in the middle of China. And he does it quite well. The beers are fairly cheap and the food is fantastic. If you pop in, though, don't expect black pudding, shepherd's pie, or Irish stew. Everything on the menu is distinctly Chinese. Except the Thai spring rolls. And everything on the menu is ridiculously spicy. This is Hunan province, after all. They have a reputation to uphold.

I somehow managed to bring my feet underneath me and rise erect again. At first, I thought I would simply dust myself off and not mention the incident to my friend, a Hawaiian Sinophile who's lived in China for several years. But as I raised my hand to clothes to 'dust off'', my hand stuck. I had some difficulty freeing it from the thick, black goo now coating my left side, nearly head to toe. My friend emerged from Mr Mustache.

Mr. Mustache was the second bar that he had taken me to. It seems the expat bars, at least, in this town must have a theme. Sean's is an Irish pub theme. Mr. Mustache seems to have a 'gay bar' theme. Not to be confused with and actual gay bar, or maybe it should be. I'm still not completely sure. I've been told that it is a gay bar. I've seen no actual evidence that it is. It feels like a gay bar, and is accessed via a creepy back alley off the main road. It's too dark to see anyone else, and almost no one socializes with anyone outside the group they came with, so it certainly seems like a gay bar. I've also noticed that plenty of younger Chinese people who aren't gay frequent the bar. I'm not sure why, but it seems a popular thing to do.

In any case, my friend warned me, and I later confirmed, that some of our students frequent the bar and that it might be awkward running into your high school students at bar. Which it would. I asked if China didn't have an age limit for drinking alcohol. The answer was a distracted 'probably'. It was one of many 'Welcome to China!' moments. Not surprisingly, the kids here have no 'go wild' moment when they can start drinking and I'm told that kids getting sloppy drunk isn't really a thing here. The kids who go out to drink have a couple, then head home. It doesn't seem to be a point of fascination for them.

My friend ran out to greet/assist me. "Oh my god! What happened?" My cover was blown. No getting around it now. Also, was I standing up yet? Oh yes, I'd finished that part.

"The ground slid right out from under me." My tongue was overactive in every word. He began to escort me out of the alley. "We've got to get you a cab." I thought the suggestion was ludicrous. I couldn't have been that bad off. After all, I was walking, if not directing myself, under my own volition.

"Oh?" I protested as vehemently as possible. He continued to direct me out to a cab, which he flagged down almost immediately. Without much cognizance of my surroundings or immediate happenings, I was ushered into the cab and he chatted with the cabbie in, for all I knew at the moment, could have been English (but I'm sure wasn't), then I waved goodbye and was off, through the streets of an unfamiliar city, trusting the man behind the wheel to do his job and see me safely back to my new home. I couldn't have communicated with him, even if he spoke English. I wouldn't have known which bus to take. I was completely unfamiliar with the city, so I wouldn't have been able to find my way back on foot.

But I wasn't worried about any of that. The stress of an international move planned in less than a month, along with the stress of starting a new job, one for which I have no qualifications, and (of course), the stress of adjusting to a culture as different from our own as any I can think of, were being dutifully dissolved by the magic of just enough alcohol. Some people think you shouldn't turn to alcohol to deal with your problems. There are times when that is true. But really, the proof is in the pudding, isn't it? Alcohol isn't meant to solve problems. It's meant to alleviate temporary stress. And it does so beautifully.

I just hope that strange black slime/grit comes out of my shirt.