* * *
“Gan!! (dry it)”. Ruddy round expectant faces are eclipsed by glasses of clear, maliciously strong rice wine raised in a toast before the burning sensation kicks in running quickly from my through to my belly accompanied by the thought.. but I have to work this afternoon! What am I going to do when I get back to the office?? The piles of abalone and shark-fin soup on the heavily-laden hotel table swim in front of my eyes.
* * *
Quiet classical music plays and large dark eyes coquettishly catch mine beneath a sweeping fringe of lustrous black hair before glancing demurely away. My heart misses a beat and yet again the sentence I had in my head disappears without trace. She asks me if I have a reason to come back and I smile quietly.
* * *
Huge steaming pots of noodles are lowered over our heads onto the corner table around which we always sit. Zhiying (our secretary) is forced to interrupt her impassioned tirade on culturelessness of the Japanese for a breath to thank the proprietress, who acknowledges in her strong but comely Xi’an accent. Chopsticks are poised all round, other than those of Shijian, our senior programmer, who in keeping with the stereotype of his Hainanese heritage peers suspiciously at the northern chinese dishes, leery of anything that doesn’t come with rice. Andre, his massive German frame hunched over a knapkin where junior programmer Binyin is diligently tracing out the character ‘work’ for his benefit, carefully takes a pair of chopsticks and tucks in to his favourite egg and tomato noodles, dripping sauce across the table. Our only female programmer Zhang Yi grins cheekily as she glances sideways to catch Xiao’ou’s knowing glance… but quickly smoothing her features before Andre has a chance to look up. Our newest programmer Rongxing adjusts his glasses and looks around nervously, unsure whether he can start eating or not. I smile; these guys are my employees, my responsibility but also my friends, the closest I have to family here in Haikou.
* * *
Again we slam the drained-to-dregs mugs of northern porter back onto the little wooden table, the clanks mingling with the spattering of the mutton kebabs sizzling its center (throwing out drops of boiling oil in every direction) and peals of laughter from the girls. ‘You know, English character isn’t so different from Dongbei character’ booms little Bo. His deep resonant voice, befitting his work as a news reader and voice-over recording artist emanates from what can only be called his ‘Pavorotti’ chest. I can never figure why he’s called ‘little’. Dongbei is the ice-cold region north of Beijing up to Vladivostok and Siberia where temperatures regularly hit -40 at this time of year, but the inhabitants are incongriously famous for their hot tempers, warm hospitality and ‘Haoshuang’-ness, an untranslatable kind of machismo which involves fighting to the death for your friends, always draining your glass in a toast and telling the hard truth to your face. You put four Dongbei-ers together in a room with good food and beer and you get ‘renao’, the kind of noisy which takes a large bare empty room and makes it suddenly warm and cosy, makes a fire into a hearth and a house into a home.
* * *
Yes, I have a reason or two to come back.
PS I have a new year's resolution - a regularly bi-weekly posting schedule.
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