Author Archives: Jack

At “The Muze”, a local meatrack tavern

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Everyone tells me I need to share this one:

I went to one of the top night clubs in Guiyang a couple weeks ago, with floor shows, dancers, and women dressed to the max (not exactly Sunday best!).  I was with friends but I didn’t know half the people at the table. Everybody wanted my phone number because I was the only foreigner. People were friendly, even some of the men were so friendly, you couldn’t tell really if they were gay. They seemed like friendly “boys”. It was a little uncomfortable. Anyway, a good time was had by all, until I went to the bathroom. On the way back, a beautiful girl just grabbed my arm and wanted to talk to me.  She said she wanted to meet me and practice her English.

While we were talking, I got her phone number and her friend, a man, returned to the table. He didn’t look happy, and sensing an awkward moment, I immediately said (in Chinese), “Sorry, I don’t want to give you any trouble.  I can call you later.” She smiled and said “Keyi” (ok). I returned to my table, finished up with my old and new friends. Then I went home.

Imagine my surprise when I got a text message asking if I got home ok.  I said no problem, and what about her?  Does she still want to learn English? She messaged me back and said she did.  I suggested that we get together the next day. I was meeting a friend and two 9 year old girls who were teaching me Chinese.  We typically have dinner and then we take a page out of my vocabulary book and practice Chinese.  The kids have a great time and learn English while teaching me Chinese. So it was a perfect nonthreatening situation to meet a new girl.

We arranged to meet at the university gate at 3pm, and when I got there, no girl. Surprise, surprise . . . So I call the girl to ask where she is, and a man answers.  He can’t speak English and I really didn’t want to talk to him. so I said,  “What’s happening !”  He said they were at the university gate in a car.  Great, now I’ve got that sourpuss man from the night before going to my friend’s house for dinner, with the new girl and the two kids, right?

WRONG !

So this guy sees me and rolls down his car window.  It is one of those guys that I thought might be gay from the night before, and he had a girl with him, not nearly so pretty as the one from the night before. It took a few awkward minutes, with broken Chinese, to figure out that I had the boy’s  number in my phone, and the pretty girl really hadn’t sent me a text at all. It was the boy.  Anyway, I went to dinner at my friend’s house with the boy, the extra girl, a couple nine year old girls and had a passable, although somewhat disappointing evening.  I did learn some Chinese.  That’s all.

I realized my mistake. I had the two numbers mixed up in my phone, and the boy sent me a text to see if I got home ok.  You probably think that I went back that night and retrieved the correct phone number for the pretty girl right? No. No. No, and NO !!!.