How Did I Get Here?

Gateway to the new

Thurs-Friday (24-25 May 2007)

The smutty “guesthouse” (frankly, it would make a crack den look stylish) where I crashed for my first night in Kunming, overlooked one of the busiest roads. Strangely, the traffic outside was like a murmuring stream compared to the beastly roar that I’m used to in Hanoi. I soon discovered why. Everybody drives electric bikes, pollution and noise-free. Why haven’t they introduced this in Vietnam??

Kunming is the provincial capital of Yunnan and is a modern, bustling metropolis. Towering billboards advertising everything from Luis Vuitton to lubricant decorate the steel and glass shopping malls. On ground level it’s more hum-drum: dumpling stalls emerge from clouds of steam, Yunnan Muslims with colorful scarves grill lamb kebabs, squatting men concentrate on a game of Chinese chess.

I walked into a bookshop where all the books were in Chinese but curiously the cover titles were translated into English. Most of the books were self-help written by financial gurus. I couldn’t help smiling at some of the titles: “How to be a perfect staff”, “The company is your ship”. With books like these, no wonder China is a booming economic hive fed by corporate drones.

It started raining, so I had to dive into a shopping mall. Every shop was a luxury label boutique adorned by immaculately preened shop assistants, standing at attention outside. As I walked past in my bedraggled cargo pants and day pack, they rambled off a long Mandarin greeting, delivered in complete unison. Scuttling from shop to shop I triggered off a reverberating chorus throughout the open-plan mall. Very unnerving…

In the afternoon, Elisa (French traveller I met in Hekou), went in search of Kunming’s renowned blind masseuses. We finally found them on a busy pedestrian walkway, where each one stood next to a chair, dressed in a white labcoat. I chose a male masseuse with the most beautifully serene face and sat down to the hardest and most vigorous massage I’ve ever had. Absolute bliss.

Feeling invigorated we walked further and discovered a stunning guesthouse/hostel (The Hump), with traditionally decorated rooms and a huge terrace overlooking Kunming (and cheap!). So we immediately got our stuff from the cesspit where we slept the previous night and moved over.

Later that evening, drinking a beer on the terrace, we met James, a Singaporean travelling around China. James turned out to be pleasant company: a health and safety officer working on board ships he has been to most parts of the world and consequently finds it difficult to settle down into a more conventional life in Singapore.
We decided to go to a very popular hot-pot restaurant, just down from the hostel. In a matter of minutes we were bent over an industrial-size pot of pig bone broth heated by a gas flame. Into this you put an assortment of other ingredients: mushrooms, dumplings, fishballs, and other unidentified foodstuffs. Extremely tasty. A tea waiter came over, and standing at the foot of the table, held up his tea pot high above his head and deftly poured the tea into our cups. Gimmicky but cool.

Tummies fed, we were ready to check out Kunming’s nightlife. Behind the hostel there is a warren of clubs and bars, all harking back to the huge, glitzy nightclubs run by the Mafia during their heyday. Fresh-faced boys dressed up in Greco-Roman gear lined the columnaded entrance to the “Crystal House”. After passing the “guards” we were ushered through a wide corridor lined with gold-dripping mirrors and ornate vases entrapping petrified flowers. Trying to avoid my “I’m so not dressed for this” reflection, I followed the hypnotic base and stumbled into a den of unabashed decadence.
This is the new face of China. I loved it instantly.

The place was writhing with bodies, drinking, smoking, gyrating. Crowds of friends grouped around tables groaning under a sea of beer and whiskey bottles. Girls with vacant stares perfected the “ironic slut” look while teetering on flashing podiums. On one podium a girl who was a guy pretended to be a dying swan.
Male waiters were dressed in Napoleonic broccaded jackets a la Michael Jackson. The girls looked suitably spaced out in their silver Star Trek mini dresses and knee-high boots. My personal favourites were the front-house managers: strutting attitude in white PVC lab coats and black ties…uber suave.
To off-set all this coolness, a bare-chested guy was slumped in a corner, with a shot glass in one hand and a cup containg dice in the other. I made a mental note not to play any drinking games with the locals. I couldn’t afford to lose any of my clothes.
Amidst all this mayhem I spotted a cop decked out in a black helmet and bullet-proof vest (I’m not making this up!), listlessly looking out over the frenzied mob. I couldn’t figure out why he was dressed as an Israeli cop. Maybe people have used his head as a target to throw their bottles at…

We were promptly escorted to a table by a little space cadette waitress and spent the next ten minutes trying to order a beer each. (even with James who could speak fluent Mandarin). The problem was that you could only order beers by the dozen and drinks by the bottle…

We had scarcely settled in when a guy from the adjacent table leaned over and offered us all cigarettes. Smoking, like drinking, is de rigeur in China. Being the only Westerners, Elisa and I attracted friendly curiosity. “Welcome to Kunming!” he beamed as he lit our cigarettes. That was the sole English phrase he knew, but somehow it was a lot more genuine than the usual small talk/chat up crap that one has to put up with in clubs. His friend who studied tourism at the University of Kunming, could speak more English. “Don’t you guys have to get up early tomorrow?” I asked, realising too late that I wasn’t in Vietnam anymore. “Yes, ofcourse! But we’re crazeeee!!! We dont care!” she gleefully shouted above the ear-bleeding bass. I know it sounds silly, but it was so refreshing to hear this. I was a world away from the zombie-like uniformity and unquestioning obedience of the Northern Vietnamese youth.

A group of friends from another table came over and said they wanted to drink with us. Beer (mercifully not vodka) was poured in small glasses followed by a roar of “Ganbei!” (Cheers). As I got introduced to the merry group, I nearly fell off my stool in delightful shock when I beheld the following individual: Grinning like Hugh Hefner on Viagra, was an army official, in full uniform! After my very recent experience with Chinese authority I didn’t expect to be partying with one of the cadres the next day!
Maybe going out in army uniform was his ploy to pick up chicks? But for a country so control-obsessed, I was dumfounded that it wasn’t an offence to go clubbing in uniform…as in most other countries. Puffing out his chest, the jolly soldier obligingly posed for photos, brass buttons gleaming and red cheeks glowing…

I had a feeling I was going to like China…a lot.

Tags: China, China and South East Asia, clubbing, Kunming, Yunnan

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