The above photo is from yesterday’s dinner with my brother’s work associates and friends from all across the planet. Belgium. Canada. Shanghai. Sir Lanka. San Francisco. Portland. Decatur. After eating some sort of orange flavored, boiled catfish stew and playing game after game of "gom bui" with some “Chinese wine” made from black rice, we transformed to a dance club of sorts. The bar was an imitation-Western-styled-electronica-thumping dance club in a part of Beijing devoted to luring in internationals.
The dance club was seething with cloaked prostitutes. Prostitutes surfing the scene for a payday, marketing sexual favors to any welcoming, lonely drunk. Prostitutes are a new phenomenon for me to see in the flesh. I had heard whispers of their existence and myths of their exploits. The profession that never dies.
One lucky lady grabbed my arm with her money hungry hand. Please, no touching. I pried her soft fingers off and made a threatened dash to the dance floor to do my best impression of Mick Jagger from the music video for “Dancing in the Street”.
Appears that you are experiencing all levels of Beijing life. Peel back one layer and you find another. Before long you may be soaked into its reality, ready to sell your earthly belongings and make the move like your brother. I know a home for your dog.
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