FIRST NIGHT IN CHINA - YOU HAD ME AT NI-HAO

                                                                      (HIT PLAY FOR FULL READING EXPERIENCE) 

Nobody goes to China to vacation. Mandarin is impossible to pick up quickly and the pollution is tangible. China’s pollution is so tangible, it's hands could reach out and choke you. Then there’s this massive population problem. China is as crowded as a Pearl Jam concert, full of the same kind of rude and loud behaviors. You don’t really think of noise, when you think of China, but China is noisy. People push, spit and fall asleep on you. You don’t go to China to vacation. You go to China to disappear and wear ear plugs.

When I stepped foot into Beijing, my skin was on fire. It felt like I was perspiring watered down acid. I wasn’t there to sight see. I was there to have my thoughts drowned out by traffic. The Great Wall isn’t really that great and it doesn’t keep your feelings out. I flew to China to forget myself and to forget Sarah. Sarah wasn’t even my girlfriend, she was just a girl I got a crush on at a hostel because she was really fucking memorable, which is weird because I find 96.9% of people forgettable.

My first night in China, I just remember seeing all these ugly, red neon lights and my roommate wasn’t home. It wasn’t beautiful in Tangshan. Tangshan was mostly concrete and alcohol stores. When I finally met my roommate, she was this ugly little dirty blond, with glasses. She had horrible hygiene. The schools we taught at even sent her home for being too dirty. She let the toilet cake up in our apartment, with shit so bad, it looked like a shit sculpture. She even had the nerve to tell me, Chinese toilets where just like that. She never cleaned the damn toilet and she had been living there almost two years before I arrived.I never saw another toilet in China half as disgusting. 

Too make matters worse, this ugly little pig faced roommate of mine, was named Sarah. I fucking packed my bags, got a passport and took a teaching position in China to escape memories of the Sarah I knew. I figured the only way I could move on was if I never heard the name ‘Sarah’ again. Hearing the name Sarah, was fucking driving me insane. I can’t move on hearing that name. You don’t constantly expose heroin addicts to heroine when you want them to get better. I was love sick. I needed the heroine out of my life.

In America, you can bump into a Sarah as easy as a Tree. Sarah’s are everywhere, behind the bar, at the church, behind the ticket counter, on the bus, in the movies. Records indicate that 1,049,376 girls in the United States have been named Sarah since 1880. Sarah is a very popular name in America. It’s logical to conclude, you won’t run into a Sarah in China, when they have names like Jing-Wei. When I was looking at this ugly, little white duck faced woman, I hated her irrationally for not allowing me to escape my pain and I let her know I hated her for her filth and her name because she reminded me of my love at first sight, the one i let get away, the one i drove away, the one i ignored, and ran away from, the one i was almost killed over, my true love.

My roommate situation was shitty as the shit sculpture in the bathroom. My job was demanding enough to offer me some relief from my heartache. I was overworked and underpaid and my boss Dan was real dick. He was this twiggy little British guy with bad teeth. When I asked him where I could buy new clothes, he told me I was going to have a hard time finding them because I was big compared to Chinese girls and he constantly tried to act superior. It wasn't that i was a fat girl. It was that i could have plumbed that little twig. Nothing worse than a twink trying to act macho. 

On the bright side, I had Chinese assistants. They were hot, friendly and sweet. These girls would order lunch, show me around, get my phone turned on, and help me translate. They would do everything, but have sex with me. I was also lucky enough to meet Nicky, a down to earth black American, who introduced me to Chi-Chi. 

Chi-Chi worked at bar and when I first met her she showed me her tits. I am so clueless about love, that I asked Nicky if Chi-Chi liked me. Her showing me her tits right away was the answer. I pretty much started making out with Chi-Chi right away like a horny high-schooler, but it never went anywhere because she had a boyfriend. It was fun though. She gave me free beer, and she hosted a lot of lively music nights. I once sang a song she wrote for a live audience. Chi-Chi was the best part about China and hearing the name Sarah was the worse.

Trying to out run the name Sarah is how i ended up in Thailand (to be continued)

From Excerpt One Night in Bangkok by Lyon Amor Brave