While spending a great deal of time in The China, I made friends with a number of locals.  They were usually very interesting relationships because my Chinese was far from decent and the same was usually true for their English.  Conversations were usually a mixture of Chinglesh, hand motions and shoulder shrugging, followed by laughing and ‘Gam Bei’, or, “cheers’ing” a shot glass usually filled with cheap local beer.

One friend that I met along the way by the name of Tommy happened to be a medium ranking army official.  Tommy liked hanging out with me because I was white, knew how to use chopsticks and liked to drink.  The latter two are pretty important if you plan on doing any business in China.  Although Tommy did not speak the greatest English, we were able to maintain a friendship.  One of the most memorable moments I have of Tommy is when he invited me onto his army base to hang out at his office.  Needless to say I had a thought in the back of my mind that it was not a great idea.  The first thing I said to Tommy was ‘make sure I don’t get shot’.  He laughed.  I remember walking up to the army base after getting dropped off by my taxi and the guards had the strangest look of confusion on their faces.  The closest thing I can think of would be the look of group of gangsters in south central LA if a little girl scout from orange county was walking up to their door to sell them cookies.

After the guards realized that I was not a threat, they reluctantly lowered their guns and called Tommy to come down to get me.  As we were walking onto the base, Tommy then told me to make sure that I “did not leave his side and did not take pictures”.  All the while I am thinking to myself “this is insane”.  We proceeded to head up to Tommy’s office, where he introduced me to some other guys in the office.  They were all overly excited that they had the opportunity to hang out with an American.  After a number of ridiculous translated questions like ‘Do you like The China’ and ‘Do you drink The Beer’, they started to show me their gun magazine collections from the US.  They were all in envy of the guns in the magazine.  I thought to myself, well, at least we’re still ahead on technology.

At this point I told Tommy that I was hungry and wanted to grab a bite to eat.  There was a local area near the base called ‘Mei Lin’.  Mei Lin is an impoverished area of the city.  Being a vegetarian and a germaphobe, I had a feeling I would not be eating and would be drinking heavily to supplement.  We arrived to ‘Mei Lin Liu’, or Mei Lin Road, which is a long street with restaurant after restaurant.  Every restaurant looks exactly the same and looks to serve the same type and quality of food.  Each restaurant had plastic tables and plastic chairs you would see children sit in at a picnic.  The only difference I could spot between each restaurant was the color of the chair or the type of dead animal hanging from the window.

Tommy kept motioning me to walk on, as he wanted to go to the “best” restaurant.  As we walked up to the restaurant I noticed that this restaurant had wooden chairs instead of plastic chairs.  This was a huge improvement over the others.  I figured if they were willing to invest into adult seating that we had a shot at a decent meal.

We walked up to the restaurant and Tommy proceeded to let them know that he was in the police, so that they should arrange a table quickly – regardless of the fact that there were plenty of open tables.  We all sat down and proceeded to order.  Tommy knew that I was a vegetarian, so he handled the ordering for me.  He also proceeded to order a case of beer for the four of us.  The interesting thing about drinking beer in The China, as mentioned above, is that you do so out of a tiny shot glass, one drink at a time.  Its the most tedious and time consuming exercise, especially as you need to tap glasses with every person at the table prior to drinking.

We were about finished our dinner when I noticed there was a very loud, fat drunk man at the table next to us.  I could tell he was talking about me, not because I could understand his Chinese, but because he was pointing at me and making faces like a bafoon.  At Tommy’s request, I ignored him.  We were about ready to pay our bill when I looked over and saw the chair leg of the fat man completely break off.  He fell flat on his rear end.  I immediately broke into tears of laughter.  I couldn’t contain myself.  That’s when it turned ugly.

As I am laughing hysterically, I felt a rush of needles in my head.  I never knew what boxers were talking about when they say they ‘see stars’.  I finally got it.  The drunkard had not appreciated the fact that I had disrespected him by laughing at the situation and had proceeded to take the broken chair leg and smash me over the back of the head with it.

I stood up and realized that my head was gushing in blood.  In a matter of seconds, the rumble had started.  The rumble broke out into the street.  At this point, there were hundreds of bystanders, as it was a busy Friday evening.  I was thoroughly concerned as I was the only white person in roughly a 30 mile square radius.  I proceeded to start yelling in Chinese that ‘I am a friend of China’, hoping to win over anyone willing to show compassion and to come to my defense.

I was backed into a corner – it was me and roughly 5 people in front of me that had formed a line to protect me.  The fat man was directly in front of the people, yelling at me.  Tommy had ran off to call for back up, as there were too many people and he thought a riot was about to ensue.  I was angry, and wanted to get some shots back at the fat man.  I punched him in the face through one of the people that was protecting me.  He fell to the ground, got up and in a rage of fury tried to break through the men protecting me.  I went to punch him again, and accidentally punched the man standing in front of me protecting me.  Needless to say, he immediately turned around and became part of the mob.

Luckily, by this point, the police had arrived in masses.  They took roughly 20 of us down to the police station where interrogations started to take place.  I had managed to lose my shirt in the fight, and was covered in blood.  I told the police chief that I needed to clean myself up.  He directed me to where the bathroom was.  He spoke decent english.  I expressed my concern of going out to the hallway by myself, as the fat man was in the next room.  He told me ‘you are in a police station, you are safe’.  I trusted the police chief and proceeded to get up and try to find my way to the bathroom.  As I did this, the fat man saw me and came out of his room and tried to attack me.  Luckily, he was obesely fat.. I was able to trip him and he fell straight on his back.  Like a turtle, he was stuck, and I pinned him to the ground until the police chief came.

At this point, it was probably 3AM.  I headed up to the bathroom and cleaned myself up.  I came back down and the police chief told me that I had to wear a shirt in the police station.  He proceeded to take his police shirt off of his back and told me I could wear his shirt. I told him I could not accept it, and he insisted.  He had a tank top on at this point, and I was now apparently chief of police.  The Chief told me that the fat man was ready to negotiate.  I had no idea what he was talking about.  He said that he told the fat man that I was ready to press charges, and that the fat man was ready to negotiate my settlement.

I felt like I was in a movie.  I asked the Chief what sort of settlement I could expect.  Essentially, it was the equivalent of $300.  My concern at this point was that I did not want any paperwork written about this event, as it was important I retain a Visa in China so that I could grow my business.  I told the Chief that I declined, and simply wanted a ride home.  The Chief told me that he would take me home.  We walked outside and the Chief motioned me to sit in the front seat.  I proceeded to put my seatbelt on, at which point he told me “no need”, and pointed to his police badge.  I don’t think he realized that safety was the reason I wanted to wear my safety belt.

The Chief started to drive towards my house.  He then told me we had to make a stop on the way.  I thought to myself – this guy better not be taking me to the bar.  We pulled up to a fruit market, at which point the Chief popped out and left me in the car without giving me any indication of what he was doing.  He then returned carrying a giant basket of Lychee fruit.  He handed it to me and said “for you”.  I said thank you, and he continued driving to my house.  The Chief dropped me off at my house, and told me that I could keep his shirt. I thanked him for the lychee and proceeded to walk home.  I got inside my house, put the lychee down, took off this guys shirt and laid in my bed.  I started hysterically laughing thinking, “I need to write a book one day, and this is going to be one of the topics”.

The story was so detailed and unbelievable that I have yet to tell anyone the entire thing.  And now you know.

-Mike