Faces at a Banquet

It's been over a month now since I've arrived in Ala'er, and I've got little to show for it. Frankly, the pattern's a familiar one, and one readily detectable in the other scribblings I fuss over by way of acting the "young writer." I begin with a hearty spasm of throat-clearing (such as the reader is currently enjoying), then proceed to describe the setting or the season in excruciatingly fine detail (as evident in the last post). It's a lousy trend, and once the phlegmy expectoration is wiped away, I'm left with an opening line often little better than that prototypical paradigm of purple prose, "It was a dark and stormy night...." The stage set, I begin racking my brain for the characters that need populate and act upon it, a demand that, given the proclivities of my generation, sends me forthwith to the internet in search of archetypes. After an hour-long lesson on stock commedia dell'arte figures by the "experts" at Wikipedia, I am, of course, irremediably distracted (a click on Scaramuccia, for instance, will lead one to wonder why exactly Scaramouche would even want to do the fandango, an irresistible existential question that will result in one learning that Freddie Mercury's real name was actually Farrokh Bulsara...wow!) In any case, my first weeks here have been largely defined by the company I've kept, and I'd be remiss, or simply impolite, not to introduce my new friends and colleagues properly. Impelled by some vague discomfort, I've changed names in most cases to allow me to write more freely. In other cases, I've translated last names literally to heighten strangeness, and to lend to the events herein presented an aspect of what I titter to call the "Pynchon-esque." So, without further ado, I'd like to invite you to dinner.

Another American has arrived at Tarim U, and in order to welcome us, the school has arranged a banquet. She is a woman named Mary Willard, in her mid-forties, short and trim, with glacial blue eyes, graying hair, and a friendly manner (and accent) that marks her immediately as a Michigander. She's taught for years throughout China, and while she's remarkably kind and affable, has about her a well-earned air of weariness. While I was initially bothered at the thought of another American on campus (it spoils all of my best fantasies of demagoguery, after all), our meeting in Akesu was characterized by an immediate and casual intimacy, and precipitated a torrent of commiserating jocularity that only two people from the same country and exiled in another can enjoy. Mary lives downstairs in the same apartment building, and we are already in the habit of having lunch once a week to bitch about the inanities of teaching and campus life and "plan" for our ludicrous weekly lecture series known quite inappropriately as "English Corner."

The banquet is being held at a hotel restaurant on campus. As usual, Ma Ming in the administration seems to think that I am incapable of doing anything by myself, and has sent over my "personal assistant," who goes by the English name Sam, to escort me to the dinner. Sam is a junior here at the University, and a computer science major. He is small and has beady eyes that I find nearly impossible to read. His voice is quite distinctive though difficult to describe in adjectives; I can say only that it is a voice perfectly suited to the sorts of circumlocutions and platitudes he is constantly feeding me. While seemingly extremely friendly, poor Sam is chronically suffering and is that sort of pathetic character which seems so unfit to shoulder the burdens, however meager, he's been given that we have no choice but to feel pity about almost action he undertakes. I'm still unsure about the capacity in which he is "employed" by the foreign affairs office (and whether or not he's tangibly remunerated), but he has been chosen, in any case, to assist me in any and all manner of preparations, which often, it seems, include activities above and beyond those that any reasonable person ought to do for another. While he is at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day, I have been reluctant to call him for anything, since any plea for assistance is interpreted by Sam as the most dire emergency imaginable. Here's a sample transcript of a phone conversation:

Sam: Hello?
Me: Hi, Sam, how's it going?
Sam: Ahhhhhhhh...nothing much. How are you being?
Me: I'm good. Hey, listen, I've got a little problem with my internet.
Sam: Oh my Got!
Me: It's not a big deal. It's just I can't seem to get on the broadband network.
Sam: Oh no, you know, I have a many classes today...
Me: I'm sure. Listen, don't worry about it. Anytime, tomorrow, or the next day. Whenever you're free.
Sam: If I run very fast, I will there in five minutes.
Me: No, Sam, you don't have to...
Sam: I'll call Ma Ming and tell him!

While fixing the problem, he also noticed that my bathroom sink was apparently leaking slightly, and called a plumber. Sam is also frequently used by the administration to conduct an array of chores that probably ought to be done by someone else. I learned a few days after the fact, for instance, that it was Sam who was dispatched to the hospital across town to fetch the results of my medical examination, and who had to wait an entire day navigating the impossible bureaucratic channels to get satisfactory paper copies for my residence permit. He also once carried a brand-new microwave oven by himself from the administration building a half-mile away to my fourth-floor apartment for no really good reason. It went something like this:

(A knock at the door)
Me: Hey, Sam, you ready to go pick up that microwa...
Sam: Oh my Got!
(He rushes in to the apartment and drops the enormous box on the kitchen table)
Me: I thought you were coming over at two and we were getting the microwave together...
Sam: Ahhhhh...well...no...it's no...problem...
Me: Sam, this microwave weighs as much as you.
Sam: No problem...it is my...duty...you know...
Me: This makes me very uncomfortable.
Sam: Can I...have a...water?

You'll notice that Sam almost invariably speaks English with me, and while his accent is rather shaky, his comprehension is about the best of anyone I've met at the University (better, certainly, than most English teachers). Much to my delight, he is confident enough in his English to pepper our conversations with crookedly phrased idioms delivered with a charming air of intentional casualness. Upon leaving one of my classes (which he'd sat in on, the dear), he announced, quite lightheartedly, with the air that one of my generation always assumed of beneficent college-types, that he would love to stay and chat, but he "had some other fish to fry."

So, Sam and I and Mary and another "assistant" with the improbable English name of Penny walk together to the hotel. Penny is a kind young woman who always refers to me as "Elder Brother," an inappropriate translation that's not quite suitable in Chinese either. It is early evening in the middle of March and the peach flowers are just beginning to blossom. I've been finding it difficult to be hard-boiled lately, which is especially remarkable in March, a month that I've always found hard to take. I had thought that there was simply something about the word "March," as a phoneme or as an idea, that rendered those thirty-one days (and one twelfth of my life) irrevocably lost, as days that, because of their middling "March-ness," lacked some essential flavoring, some alchemical quintessence found in, say, the months of June or October whose very names positively ring with the possibility of life. However, as someone for whom inner and outer weather are almost coextensive, the constant sun and mild temperatures here in the desert have induced a change in mood, if not in character, that has been remarkable. These days we discount or render into scientific language the effect of climate upon one's health, and then, having "explained the matter thoroughly," will try and replicate its effects medically or artificially (through light boxes or vitamin D pills), without taking the less material causes of one's malaise into account. In perhaps the same way that a consumptive patient of old would be directed by his doctor to travel to the resorts of Crimea or the Riviera, I feel as though this year I've left March behind altogether, and landed right in April (the kindest month!) It is very difficult to be hard-boiled in April.

Chinese banquets are quite a formal affair, with a deeply prescribed order and hierarchy. Everyone sits around an enormous round table, with a large glass "lazy Susan" in the center. The person with the highest rank (or the most "face") sits in the "seat of honor," or "high seat," and the guests radiate outwards from him or her (usually him) in descending rank. As the "guests of honor," Mary and I are invited to sit on either side of the University Vice-President, who will be holding court in the high seat. Sam and Penny, both students, are positioned at the opposite side of the table, and an array of teachers, deans, and administrators fill in the space between. The Vice-President, a Mr. King, has just returned from a trip to the 2009 session of the NPC (or CPPCC...no one seems to understand the difference, or feels much like explaining what it was he was doing in Beijing.) I expected the middle-aged Mr. King to be any other Party-level administrator, that is, a stuffed-shirt with nice shoes and no personality, but he has a rather interesting background. He introduces himself in English and, upon talking for a few minutes, I learn that he once studied botany at the University of Winnipeg, and that in order to support his studies, he worked as a cook in a traditional German restaurant. I didn't think it proper to ask just how he had risen to the rank of Party bigwig, but after communicating a fondness for German food, and German beer, it becomes obvious that Mr. King and I are fast friends.

To my right are two male administrators, whose names I don't remember, or didn't learn. They were introduced to me by Ma Ming with an unjustifiable amount of reverence and seemed generally indifferent to the proceedings of the banquet, talking to each other, exchanging phlegmy laughs, and smoking through most of the evening. Both were physically almost interchangeable: they wore gray suit-jackets and slacks with white shirts, and I seldom looked their way to see either without a sort of venal smirk in which I couldn't immediately read the six figures of his salary.

To the right of the Two Administrators sits the dean of the economics college, a woman whose English name is the wickedly appropriate "Brandy." She is in her forties, but has about her a certain litheness and confidence of body, as well as a perpetual expression of incredulous and jaded amusement that I cannot help but find at least vaguely erotic (picture the way Anne Bancroft always raises her eyebrows slightly in The Graduate, and you'll get the idea). I saw her once riding through campus on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket, though when I asked her about it later, she denied owning or even ever riding one (I am, incidentally, certain that it was her, making her denial all the more attractive). My naughtier thoughts aside, we've actually gotten on rather well. In compensation for a guest lecture I gave in her economics class (yes, about economics - as a white American, I am, it seems, an expert on everything), she recently invited me to a wedding, about which I've written a short post, unpublished, as it was written immediately upon returning that afternoon, and is therefore mostly a blithering panegyric on the virtues of being delightfully drunk at 3 PM. I'm not sure I wrote anything about the wedding, come to think of it. Just fustian and thinly veiled Mrs. Robinson references. You won't be reading it any time soon.

Next to Brandy is Ma Ming, the foreign affairs officer, who I've already introduced. Like most Chinese people I've met here, I vacillate between liking him immensely and mistrusting him completely. In the middle of a friendly conversation, for instance, his demeanor will turn somewhat serious, and he will instate some ridiculous taboo against taking my bike off campus by myself, or getting too close to the river. I'm often taken aback at his attempts to curtail these elementary and harmless freedoms, and mostly assume that the enjoinments he makes are not indicative of Mr. Ma himself, but of the overbearing system of which he is a representative. Nonetheless, I feel needled by betrayal when, in the midst of a good round of drinks, he will broach sternly and with an air of what I can only really call smugness, that I oughtn't to hang around Uighur men, who, despite being Muslims, are always drunk, and looking for a fight.

Beyond Ma Ming sit Sam and Penny, and just to their right, the lovely Almagul, who arrived to dinner a moment late, after we were all seated, and so was only introduced to me indirectly. Almagul is a Uighur English teacher here, and it would be difficult to describe her without lapsing into the worst sorts of poetic vagaries. I won't subject you to them, and it will suffice to say that my Moleskine is strewn with short lyrics often involving almonds (this is beginning to sound Fobertsian...). She has straight black hair and dark eyes and pale skin and she throws her head back when she laughs. The first time we had lunch together, she mentioned that she had read Walt Whitman in college (pronounced Val Veetmun...I turned to liquid quicker than Sappho transposed into a Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting). I've gotten to know Almagul rather well in the last few weeks, and she will certainly be featured in greater detail in posts to come. She has since introduced me to many Uighur and Kazakh students here, and we go out to lunch or dinner two or three times a week. Hints of romance have begun to circulate amongst a number of the teachers, who have nothing better to circulate in this one-horse town. Given the circumstances, I am rather certain that any attraction I have will remain patently aesthetic, for better or worse. Almagul invited me to lunch at her home, where she still lives with her mother and father. I learned not only of the deliciousness of lamb manta and the hilariousness of Uighur dubbed American B-movies on XJTV (it was a rip-off of The Fifth Element but featured a guy with a mustache and a fat stoner with a rasta hat...JPat, you must know this one), but also of her brother Hosayn, also in attendance, who is a local police officer with a very strong handshake and a knife on his belt. Also, she has a crazy boyfriend, who is, you guessed it, a police officer - I'm in way over my head. Anyway, it seems to me she's one of the only teachers here who actually cares about her students, and my heart always races when I see her walking on the sidewalk under the willows.

Next to Almagul sits Jane, our mutual friend. Jane, her English name, is a Han English teacher who is one of the funniest and most easygoing people I've met here. With most of my Han "friends" here, I've had to abstract and distill the practice of friendship down to its culturally inert elements, relating to people with universally acceptable ideals and flavorless behavior. Jane, on the other hand, has the sort of whimsical, jaded, and self-deprecating attitude that one associates with Americans and other beings with a higher-order consciousness who accept irony as a fundamental element of life. (This is opposed to the vast majority of the students and other teachers here, who, I am increasingly convinced, because of their Orwellian education system and inordinately conservative political culture, have never had so much as a glimmer of independent thought. I will be more than happy to write about this at some length in, perhaps, my next post on teaching. If it tastes of cultural imperalism or neo-colonialism, so be it. I'm not a "racist" per se, the notion of race having been thoroughly deconstructed, but I'm more and more certain of the superiority of certain cultures, or certain aspects of cultures, over others. I'm more than sick of the postmodern and Panglossian neo-sophism that all cultural phenomena have a right to exist by virtue of their existing. Of course, I'm being a bit arch, but I also feel as though I've lost the reader's attention, and need to earn it back.) Anyway, Jane also has a taste and appetite for television serials from the 90s and "Sex and the City" on DVD, and as such has a delightfully one-sided view of American culture. As a result, she is convinced I am some sort of rakish libertine from the hyper-modern Babylon of New York City, a myth I am more than tickled to propagate. In short, Jane is a certifiable "hoot," and she has already announced that I am a member of the inner circle of her coterie here on campus (much like, I am tempted to think, the Verdurins' "little nucleus" in Proust), a clique which includes also Almagul, and a few other peripheral members.

Next to Jane and Almagul sit two other English teachers, Mr. Fish and Mr. Mild. Mr. Fish is a thin middle aged man with a large forehead, rheumy eyes, and a large, toothy grin. As the head of the Foreign Language Department (i.e. English...there are no other foreign languages here, but they refuse to change the name), Mr. Fish is responsible for scheduling my classes and giving me instruction and feedback about my teaching. In practice, this entailed his stopping by my apartment, handing me a thin textbook (the student edition, not the teacher edition) and a class list written in shorthand, then quickly backing towards the door, bowing, smiling, and shaking his hands. After trying in vain to interpret the hieroglyphs of my schedule, I called him back to interpret. He tried equally in vain to communicate with me in English, then gave up and nattered at me in Chinese (luckily I was able to figure out the important points, such as class times and locations). When I asked what requirements or oversight there would be for my teaching, he said simply that my classes were whatever I felt like teaching, and that he had no requirements whatsoever, a license I have since discovered is completely false. When I asked whether I ought to give assessments or grades, he looked at me quizzically and smiled, then beat a hasty retreat. There is something fishy about Mr. Fish.

Mr. Mild is a short young man with dark wet eyes, glazed with anxiety, set like little raisins in the plump dough of his baby's face. He is always well dressed, usually in dark slacks and a sweater vest, set under a somewhat professorial sportcoat, and his black hair permanently retains the neat rows of the harrow of his comb. He walks quickly, leaning back slightly, and stuttering from side to side, his hands thrust deep in his pants pockets, with his books tucked tightly under his arm. I see him most days in the teaching building where we work, and he smiles a quick and insecure smile while making some awkward gesture with his hand indicating acknowledgment before hurrying off to class. Mr. Mild has just arrived at the university, and as such, Mr. Fish has taken the tragic young man under his fin. What this means, in effect, is that Mr. Fish has detected in Mr. Mild a timid and servile character, and has cagily availed himself of an easily exploitable resource for performing administrative chores and busywork. As the equally exploited White-Guy-in-Residence, I sympathize with Mr. Mild. In any case, he's helped me to interpret some of the more recondite aspects of the Chinese classroom, and is a friendly face on a campus in which scowls and squints are universal.

Next to Mr. Fish and Mr. Mild sits Mary, and next to her, Mr. King, the Vice-President. After introductions are made, and greetings exchanged, drinks are poured, baijiu for the men, and sweet red wine for the women. Drinking in China is not a casual affair, and, like the banquet itself, follows a strict hierarchy and order. While in the West one might sip one's beer or wine from a large glass throughout a meal, liquor or wine in China is served in cordial glasses, and it is taboo to so much as touch your glass without first making a toast, at which point everyone, or the selected individuals with whom you will drink, will stand and listen, offer a response, and then drink, saying either "cheers," a phrase that has entered the lexicons of some of the more modern individuals to denote drinking only a sip from the glass, or the more traditional "gan bei," which translates as "dry glass," meaning, of course, bottoms up. It's actually quite a bit of fun, as it turns drinking into a central, rather than a peripheral, activity, though it inevitably calls to mind my recently vanished college days, in which drinking was not only the central, but usually the only element of the evening's activities. As such I can't help but relate the organization and ceremony of it with a certain puerility and insecurity over one's alcohol consumption, though it is perhaps reflective of the Chinese character as a whole: I cannot drink unless I announce it, and unless everyone else is doing it too.

Deeper reflections on alcohol in Chinese culture will have to wait for further posts, but I ought here to give a short description of the local firewater, baijiu. Baijiu, pronounced bai-gee-oh, is, along with tasteless, sudsy beer, the key staple of Chinese drinking culture. While liquors such as whiskey and vodka are available in big cities, they are generally associated with Western culture, and are only for the rich. I have found bottles of Russian vodka, labels written in Cyrillic and imprinted with the image of a snarling wolf, and bottles of expensive imported Jack Daniels whiskey for sale in Ala'er, but it is baijiu of every sort that literally bends the shelves here at every convenience store and supermarket. Besides being an indigenous tipple with a long cultural history, baijiu is very often dirt cheap. While baijiu can get very expensive for the connossier, my own favorite brand is a so-called erguotou from Beijing, a 500 mL bottle of which retails for RMB 5 (about seventy-five cents). Before you judge me for my skinflintery, it should also be noted that most baijiu has a considerably higher alcohol content than most American liquors, usually ranging from 52 to 60% alcohol. As a result, purchasing baijiu of a higher price ensures only a small step up on a scale of taste ranging from low-end lighter fluid (thanks, Foberts!), to a mid-range nail polish remover, to the very expensive and top-shelf diesel fuel enjoyed by only the richest gentlemen in town. The vitriol is rendered all the more inscrutable by the puzzling fragrance of sorghum (sorghum?) which can be literally watched as it rises in a haze off the miniscus of the cordial glass like gasoline on a hot summer day. Spending more than the bare minimum rings only of conspicuous consumption, and makes about as much sense as buying a thousand dollar toilet plunger. (Notes on Chinese wine are forthcoming in the unfinished post "The Great Chinese Wine Tasting.")

The honor of the first toast goes to Mr. King, who rises from the "high seat" and lifts his glass. Everyone stands up and takes their glass in both hands. Mr. King addresses the group in Chinese, and while I am not sure of everything that he says, he is overall very politic and prescribed in his well-wishing. He finishes by turning to Mary, and then to me, and announces that we ought to have a successful and happy time here at Tarim University, which is the theme and occasion for the event, and a phrase that will be repeated innumerably over the course of the evening. The first drink is always a gan bei, and as everyone drinks and sits down, a parade of waitresses in matching lavender silk pajamas begin to file in, carrying dishes of all sorts, and rushing to refill our glasses. Most food in China is substantially, if not unrecognizably, different from the oily fare you order at the local Panda Express. The first dishes are appetizers, or cold dishes. There are plates of crushed cucumber, thin-sliced cold duck aspics, pickled eggs, shallow bowls of cold steamed spinach and bok choy, diced beef tripe in chili pepper and vinegar, a plate of salted peanuts (try picking those up with chopsticks!) and even a small tray of cigarettes, stacked in an attractive little pyramid. Each dish is presented first to Mr. King, who must eat first before others can partake. Since the food is slowly and periodically rotated on the "lazy Susan," it is assured that each person will get a chance to sample some of everything. The guests reach for the nearest dish with chopsticks and lift down a bite-size portion, which is either placed on a small saucer, or directly into a waiting mouth. There is no compunction against putting into the dishes, which are shared by everyone, the same chopsticks which were just a moment ago lolling across your tongue.

The first slug of baijiu still burning like a tire fire in the back of my throat, Mr. King turns to me and asks in Chinese, "So, Luo Ze Rui," (this is my Chinese name) "have you adjusted to life here in China?" This is one of the ten or so questions I am habitually asked by anyone and everyone on virtually a daily basis, and I have a stock answer well practiced, that I find both satisfactory and flattering. "Yes," I say, "I've adjusted quite well. Life here in Ala'er is very quiet, and very peaceful. However, I am not quite used to the climate in Xinjiang. It is very dry, and I hear the sandstorms are very terrible." The line works perfectly. Everyone loves thinking that the place which they call home and with which they identify is mostly hospitable, but to which full adjustment must require an induration that constitutes and defines its regional character. Mr. King smiles. "Yes, it is very, very dry in Xinjiang. The sandstorms especially are bad in the spring. You certainly don't want to be outside in a sandstorm. Even the people from Xinjiang find them very terrible." Mr. King has accepted my deference, and has made a nod of his own. "I'm sure they are used to them," I say. "I hear that people in Xinjiang are like cowboys." This is, of course, the perfect thing to say. The cowboy, or niu zai, is the hydrogen bomb of American coolness. Mr. King grins widely. "People in Xinjiang are different from people in the East." I deftly lift a peanut and drop it into my mouth. "I hear also that Xinjiang people drink liquor very terribly." Mr. King lifts his freshly refilled glass of baijiu. "I do not know about Xinjiang people being cowboys, but certainly they do drink liquor very terribly." I raise my glass as well, touch it to his, and, uttering "gan bei," down another glass of liquor.

The Two Administrators seated next to me overhear and, still puffing arrogantly on their cigarettes, begin chatting with Mr. King and chortling hoarsely while sticking their thumbs in my direction. My mind having temporarily achieved a state of satori courtesy of the aromatic hydrocarbon now breaking the dam of my blood-brain barrier, I am oblivious to their incomprehensible prating and can focus only on almond-eyed Almagul an immeasurable distance across the table as she reaches across her body to spear a slice of fresh cucumber. "Hey, Ze Rui!" I turn towards Mr. King. "They want to know if in your country they drink lots of baijiu." I turn towards the Two Administrators, nodding like supercilious pigeons. I take a sip of tea to clear my mouth. "In America they only drink whiskey and vodka, and not baijiu. But certainly, Americans can drink a lot of alcohol. Beer and wine also." At this the Two Administrators nod and snicker slightly. They are aware of baijiu's relative puissance and since red wine is considered a woman's drink, they seem to doubt my patriotic characterization. I decide to take them to the mat. "In America, college students especially drink a lot of liquor and beer." In China, students found overly drunk can be expelled by the headmaster. Their lips curl in distaste. Brandy, sitting next to the Two Administrators, turns my way and raises her eyebrows. "In America," I explain, "my major was English literature, and my other major was drinking alcohol." Mr. King laughs and raises his glass again, this time gesturing to the Two. The four of us touch glasses, and with a brief ode in praise of cultural exchange, we mutter "gan bei" and take down another one.

By this point, the main dishes have begun to arrive in quick succession. There are bowls of boiled lamb soup with radishes and potatoes, a full chicken basted in a syrupy demi-glace, a whole fish covered in oil and chili peppers, a heaping plate of roast goose pieces with green peppers and carrots, and a questionable looking aliment which I was told is stir-fried duck heart. At this point I am feeling very good and am wielding my chopsticks with a dexterity beginning to border on flashiness (peanuts, two, nay, three at a time!) I am a daring young knight in the court of Mr. King, whose tales of life in far off Winnipeg never seem to wane in interest. Brandy is just beginning to tell me of her trip to Texas, when Mr. Fish and Mr. Mild come over, each bearing a tiny chalice of baijiu. "Luo laoshi," (an expression meaning Mr. Roberts, or Professor Roberts) "eh...we would like to drink with you!" stutters Mr. Fish in English. I grab my glass and stand up, nearly knocking over a nearby tea cup with the hem of my corduroy jacket. "Eh...we want you...to..." begins Mr. Fish, in English. After pausing a moment, he slips into rapid Chinese and begins interrogating Mr. Mild, standing to his right. "How do you say that again? Sick-cess-ing?" Mr. Mild squints thoughtfully and turns his head towards the ceiling "Uh, it's successful, right? Successful?" Mr. Fish gasps. "Sick-cess-fool. No, that's not it, Mr. Mild. That's not it at all." He shakes his head balefully and turns to me. "Luo laoshi, we wish you be sick-sessing at my school!" Mr. Mild nods in obeisance, and the three of us touch glasses and drink.

Mr. Fish and Mr. Mild return to their seats, and Brandy continues her story of her trip abroad to Texas. I barely listen to what she is saying, in pitiful English, as I am busy watching her eyebrows dance up and down. She went abroad, it seems, to study for a semester at Tarim University's sister school around Dallas-Fort Worth. Brandy discusses the similarities of Texas to Xinjiang, in terms in climate and flatness, a resemblance I am for whatever reason overjoyed to confirm and extend to the American Southwest as a whole. "Our nations are very similar," I utter half-drunkenly in Chinese. "The area is about the same. In America, we have many different ethnicities, languages, climates, and cultures. In China it is the same. They are both very large nations and have many different kinds of places." I am the golden-haired poster boy for cultural relativism. I am the great postmodern promise of internationalism incarnate. Brandy nods at me, and smirks. I wonder for a moment how charming my American accent must sound in Chinese. "Yes, Ze Rui, you speak correctly, our countries are very similar, but also very different."

I nod in agreement and look over at Jane and Almagul. They are chatting secretively and pointing at me. Almagul is beautiful, with her black hair parted down the middle, and her smile, and her dark, almond-eyes. They catch me looking at them and, after a brief conference, stand up. "Ze Rui, we would like to drink with you," says Jane. I shoot upwards, raising my glass, just filled with baijiu. "We would like to be friends with you, OK?" At this the two of them set to giggling. "We would like to get to know you...better, and then we can be friends, OK?" I bow with a flourish, lifting my glass over my head. We drink, and sit back down. Almagul smiles at me, and for a brief, alcohol-fueled moment, everything makes perfect sense.

I continue to prod at the food, but by this point, the baijiu seems to have taken complete control. It is, to be honest, more potent than I am used to, by almost fifty percent, and as such still has a strange and very real hold on me. The faces of those I have met are beginning to swirl around me in a kaleidoscope of grotesques. "Hey, Ze Rui!" Another drink from Brandy, sitting now atop a white hotel blanket, snapping on her stockings. "I just want you to know that I'm available to you..." "What?" "I said, if you ever have any problems here at the University, I'm always available to help." "Oh, absolutely, you're very kind." The Two Administrators, now two barking, bobbing crows, cackle in delight, then suck deeply, and in perfect unison, on a fist-sized honeycomb of cigarettes. "Ze Rui!" I wheel around to see Mr. Fish and Mr. Mild wearing straw-boaters and peppermint candy shirts, with bright red carnations in their button holes. Mr. Fish is holding in one hand the teacher's edition textbook I haven't got. "Ze Rui! We would like to toast you again to your sick-cess-fool and haplessness!" "Eh, Mr. Fish, happiness, no?" Mr. Fish whaps Mr. Mild firmly over the head with the book, meanwhile transforming into a grinning bug-eyed perch, hair knotted into a long, oily queue tucked beneath a stiff black Manchu's cap. "Ya nincompoop! You'll never learn nothin' so long's ya live!" Mr. Mild, a whimpering doe-eyed Pekingese, shrugs and lifts his baijiu in his paws. "Ze Rui!" Ma Ming is goose-stepping stern-eyed in red-star cap and olive suit in bright red and gold glory flanked by Sam and Penny in matching blue-Mao's caps and farmer's denim trousers. "Ze Rui! Gan bei! Together our University will have a bright future and harmonious aspect!" "Ze Rui!" It is Almagul-Aphrodite skin blushing blue-violet Bouguereau on the fresh green breast of a riverbank about whom flutter a dozen milky cherubim, each with the twittering puckering face of Jane. I turn into wan Cupidon in exaggerated contrapposto and steal lavender-draped Almagul-Psyche into the rosy-fingered dawn. In a daze I look to the abstemious Blue Virgin Mary clothed in her luminous mandorla, and receive a graceful smile. The room is full of perfumes, my mouth full of the purple taste of baijiu and the wild chemical spice of chiles. I am awash in colors, in languages. The synaesthetic is alive in me again, the pitiful romantic, the heady sensualist. I am crowned Comus, belching Bacchus, panting Pan prancing through the tender Arcadian glades of spring. I smell lilacs blooming in the desert air. "Ze Rui! Ze Rui! Ze Rui!"

I look to Mr. King. He is rolling back and forth in his chair. As the "guest of honor" sitting in the "high seat," he is particularly subject to the desires of others, and is compelled to drink at every turn in which anyone invites him to do so. I too have accepted every toast, but Mr. King is a small man, and he has not recently graduated from an American college, placing him at an extreme disadvantage. He is reeling now, focusing intently on the carcass of the picked-over fish set in front of him, refusing to say a word to anyone. It is obvious that I, a Connecticut Yankee, have drunk Mr. King "under the table" in his own court. I am suddenly a god. No, better. I am an American in the full confidence of his youth. In my pride I rise with a swagger, and invite the entire table to a toast. I've been planning a rousing encomium for some minutes now, on the virtues of hospitality and friendship and just how delighted I am, and I clear my throat to begin, and suddenly the room goes black.

Everyone makes a shocked utterance, and then pulls out his or her cell phone. The table is, for a moment, dimly illuminated in the light of digital mobile handhelds, which give some sense of the contours of the plates, and who it is who is complaining about the lack of electricity. Within moments, the waitresses rush in with candles and assure us that it is only a temporary problem. However, while I am finding the opportunity to continue dining by candlelight delightfully colonial and romantic, the tone of the evening has changed completely. The conversation has ground to a halt, and everyone suddenly notices just how late it is. With a few sonorous grunts, Mr. King declares the banquet finished and rolls into the supporting wings of the still-smoking Administrators. Mr. Fish strides for the exit, with Mr. Mild puttering behind him. Brandy winks and goes outside to what might be her waiting motorcycle. I try and say a quick good-bye to Almagul, but she is quickly hurried away by little nurse Jane. Before I can follow, I am accosted by Ma Ming, Sam and Penny, who assure me they've had a wonderful time, and confirm our mutual friendship. I am suddenly drunk. My two assistants escort me back to my apartment in the dark.