China Part 3

Chris and I and a few others head out to the market after dinner. We discover cooked dog and donkey —all of the parts— for sale. The noodle man whacks and makes his noodles. After the others head back to the hotel, Chris and I venture down an alley and stumble into a pool hall. We laughingly try to play with sweaty hands and tiny cues (I notice later in the trip that players wear white cotton gloves so the cue slides easier). We are challenged by a local guy (who we see the next day on his motor scooter in the tourist market) and are promptly beaten, but not before he toys with us, missing shots on purpose. We head back to the market for a few beers and decide to patronize the guy who has been most diligent at hawking at us every night. We sit down at a table among all the other locals eating and drinking and the proprietor grabs us a couple of cold, tall ones and brings some winter melon as well. His wife comes over and hawks boiled soybeans and peanuts, we refuse —not in the program, but she still tosses a handful on our table for us to try. We want to try it all.


An older gentleman strolls over with an instrument in his hand and gives us a list of tunes, in Mandarin, to choose from. Of course we’re clueless and randomly pick 4 that are marked with either the + (plus) or a – (minus) Mandarin character. He beats on this dusty, cracked dulcimer thing with a thin mallet, click-clacks a rhythm with the other hand using 2 flat sticks. We discover that there are 2 categories of songs —those that cost 24 Yuan and those that cost 10. We choose one of the more expensive tunes and he begins to sing, belting out vocals past crooked teeth and spitting lips. I try to play the thing…everyone around us is captivated. More beers. The whole evening costs us $6 U.S.