Jonathan In China

On a Friday night, some time ago, I went out to meet some friends.  It all started around 11:00 at the Boxing Cat Brewery.  I began my night at the Boxing Cat Brewery simply because that was where everyone was and because my friend was trying to finish 12 pints of strong ale in 2 hours to get his picture on the wall (he failed).  As the night progressed the third floor of the bar, with its slopped red walls, seemed to turn into an impromptu gathering of the Americans of Shanghai.  In between downing pints of the brewery’s IPA, Helles, and Porter offerings (all tasty) I met some amazing people, all, like me, lost in this modern day China we live in.  Many people thought that I was still a college student, which made me both happy to have fooled them and to then be able to announce that I am in fact a workingman (heading nowhere).  At around 2:30 or so my friends and I realized that most of the people had left, so down the stairs we went to watch Charlize Theron pick countries’ names out of a hat to make the line up for the World Cup next summer.  The other patrons watching were a sofa full of young men; one was from France, another Mexico, and one from Columbia.  All agreed that Brazil would tromp the other teams in their bracket, though I have no memory of who those teams were.

Somehow more time passed and then I was in a cab stopping and starting towards another late night bar in an underground graffiti sprayed maze of rooms and music, all drenched in thick smoke.  I chatted with a man from Lagos (the “History of Nigeria” class I took two years ago in college has paid off more than one would expect here in China cities, where Nigerians seem to flock) and he was surprised I know so much about ethnic divisions in his home country, but I was too far gone to have much of a conversation and we soon went our separate ways.  I ran into the Belgian man in the hallway whom I always run into at that bar (I have no idea what the bar’s address is, I only ever go after 3 AM), his girlfriend is a bartender there and he waits patiently every night to take her home after the bar closes at 4:30 AM.  He seemed a little annoyed with the world that night and I didn’t say more than a cheerful hello and left him to watch his girlfriend serve drinks.  There was, of course, a full selection of late-night Chinese street food (aka: meat/vegetables on a stick, 烧烤) right outside of the bar, which a friend and I enjoyed for a bit while standing in the cold.  Thing is, that ungodly-hour street food didn’t feel like enough, so we moved on.

As is often sometimes the case, my night ended at a McDonalds.  A Chinese McDonalds at 4 AM is like a solitary light at the end of a dock, the myriad creatures of the night sea converge in its unworldly glow.  Outside the restaurant the six-lane street was as dark as a downtown Shanghai street ever gets and every store was closed – except for the McDonalds.  Upon entering the semicircle fluorescent glow that covers the recessed entrance, a visitor is quickly pounced on by the beggars who have set up their nightly traps.

From afar, this is going to sound bad, those beggars reminded me of the zombies from a Hollywood film.  In a zombie flick the characters always end up going to some supermarket to pick up the canned food that has survived the apocalypse, often the supermarket has a horde of the mindless dead waiting for prey outside it’s front door.  The characters ready themselves with weapons whose names always begin with “semi-automatic” and charge in, adrenaline pumping.  Walking towards the McDonalds at 4 in the morning I was filled with a certain dread (though no adrenaline) as I knew that getting to the door would mean telling the beggars that I would not be giving them any money.  That night there were three beggars: one old man with a worn winter jacket and a walking stick polished from heavy use and two pairs of mothers with their dirty infant children.

Upon walking into the bright McDonalds even my numbed senses were shocked awake.  The usual crowd was there.  A group of Europeans had just finished ordering and were snacking on French fries as they headed to a table, an African man and his Chinese girlfriend were at a table for two sat against the wall and seemed oblivious to everything around them, filling in the empty spaces was a collection of about half a dozen college-age Chinese students sleeping with their heads lying on their folded arms.  My friend ordered a huge meal for himself, which I would later eat from.

We ate at the long communal table along the front of the restaurant facing the sidewalk.  I was not that hungry so after finishing half of my friends Big Mac I stare at the street.  Soon one of the mothers with her infant child comes up to the window and begins to tap on the glass in front of me, her child watching me watching her.  After awhile she backs away, looks at me and walks off in another direction clutching her child’’s hand.  I then bring my attention back to the restaurant and realize that I’m thristy, but for all the food my friend bought he only managed to get one small soda, which he was drinking with gusto.  Then, while watching the two students next to us sleeping with their heads on the table (there must be better places to sleep, no?), a foreign man who looked to be from Europe stood at a seat next to one of the sleeping students and, taking his time, carefully dropped his tray of food on the table making a loud noise that woke up and startled the student.  The foreign man didn’t laugh or anything and took his seat while the student sauntered off to another table in the bright restaurant.  After that I decided to wait outside for my friend to finish eating so I could get some fresh air and escape the fucked up restaurant.

Immediately upon exciting McDonalds the old man with the walking stick came up to me begging for money.  I apologized and refused to give him any cash and after he had stood next to me for awhile, lightly tapping me with his empty paper cup while I starred off into the distance, he walked away.  A bit later one of the mothers came up to me with her son explaining that they needed money for food.  I looked around me and found no one nearby so I slipped her a 5 kuai note ($0.73).  She thanked me before catching, in the far right of her vision, a group of Europeans approaching the McDonalds.

The Europeans walked quickly towards the door to the restaurant in a riot of Italian leaving the old man in their wake, penniless.  Seeing me near the woman and her child they cautioned: “Don’t give ‘em any money.”  I nodded knowingly.  One of the Europeans, a young woman, stayed outside and squatted in front of the beggar woman’s young child.  Ignoring the woman at first she said “hello” to the child and smiled.  The beggar woman started to give her pitch in a sad desperate drawl, explaining in Chinese and sign language that she and her child were hungry.  The European woman told them that she would not give them money but then offered to buy them food inside the McDonalds, opening the door and motioning them to come inside.  The beggar woman held a look on her face that seemed to say: “This is not what I asked for.”  With a kind of trepidation she and her child walked inside.  The beggar woman had noticeable fear as she entered the bright room, whose light seemed to show her poverty even more strikingly.

I stayed outside.  Like the beggar woman the light and motley makeup of the crowd in McDonalds was not what I wanted at 4 in the morning.  I waited for my friend to finish eating and when he was done we said our goodbyes and he got a taxi and I started for home.  During the dazed walk to my apartment I thought about how I had treated the beggars that night and then began to reminisce about the beggars I have come across in China.  The ones I remember are often the most shocking: the boy on the outskirts of Tianjin with a tumor the size of a volleyball attached to his hip and put prominently on display; the gang of young children who surrounded me and some friends in Changsha latching themselves onto our legs as we walked, like scuba weights, pleading for money; the man on the corner in Kunming his body so burned it was nauseating to look at him – his face basically gone, no nose, eye sockets replaced by cruel scars, no hands; the young boys roaming the late night bars of old South Sanlitun selling bruised flowers and drinking your half empty beers; the police officer in Kunming taking a kid, who couldn’t have been more than 12 years old and wearing an oversize patched suit jacket, and beating him on the sidewalk; most memorable was the woman in my Kunming neighborhood – her body so filthy that her skin was permanently the color of a mechanic’s grease smudged hands, she would always try and touch us as we went pass all the while muttering to herself.

I’ve never had a system for dealing with China’s numerous beggars, sometimes I give them some money sometimes I don’t.  Either way some of their faces and desperate situations wind up haunting me long after I walk past them.