As many of you know, my birthday was on Wednesday this week. However, since I was going to be away on the actual day, we decided to have an early celebration the week before. The celebration coincided with the arrival of my first visitor of the year; to protect his privacy he cannot be directly identified, but we’ll call him Tim.
Tim had only arrived the afternoon before and was finding China to be a bit of a culture shock. He was not impressed by the accommodation (direct quote upon walking into the apartment: "You live in squalour") and he managed to get chilli in his eye on the first night. China is quite the adjustment, so I had planned for us to go out for a quiet-ish dinner with the other laowai. They, however, being extremely excited about the arrival of a new foreigner, had other ideas.
They showed up at my apartment with wine, a new nickname and a massive cake that was about 80% foam icing.
In retrospect there was clearly only one possible fate for that cake, but I was oblivious to it at the time. We had a quick game of chilli chocolate Russian roulette…
…and then headed out to one of our favourite restaurants, where we introduced Tim to dumplings, and the Chinese tradition of toasting.
After a few beers and an encounter with a table of Chinese men who wanted us to wear their hat, we decided to head to Barbara, the club where all the magic happens and white people just get handed drinks. The guys drank with the bartenders and I ended up playing a dice game that I didn’t understand with a Chinese man. Very standard Barbara.
Back home in the early hours of the morning, the others decided they wanted cake. We hadn’t quite got around to cutting it when Chrissy put her face in it.
Nobody can be sure who threw the first piece but in a very surreally slow and hilarious
way, cake went everywhere.
Mostly on us, but nothing in the room was unscathed.
Terry and Jav tried to eat Tim.
Even the donkey took a hit.
After deciding to shower in my apartment, the others left, strewing cake and shoes up the stairs. They returned apologetically the next day to help clean up but, as it turns out, cake does not come off walls once it has dried. An amusing lesson to have learnt, but Bob was not super pleased when he came over to drop off some pay.
One of my students also came by to give me a birthday present of a giant bear, which inspired jealousy all round.
So now I have a sticky apartment, and a giant bear. And that’s how we do birthdays in China.
