Around the World in 80 Dates (31 page)

“No, no, sorry,” I protested. “He's upstairs, waiting for us outside, trying to come to terms with how little sleep he's had.”

So Rob and I went upstairs, slightly awkward introductions were made, then the three of us set off together to walk to Tsukiji-shijo market, for my date with Rob.

All was fine: We chatted generally about Tokyo and what we thought of it. Rob had just got back from Beijing and I said I was going there in two days; Garry talked about his love of Japanese cuisine and the places he'd eaten.

We arrived at Tsukiji-shijo market and spent a couple of hours making our way through the crowds. I'd been to a lot of food markets in Asia, and they were invariably the
Apocalypse Now
of the culinary world. Tsukiji-shijo was no exception. Twelve million people came here every day to buy over four thousand tons of seafood: It was an incredibly busy place with porters racing around, trucks piled high with dripping boxes and wilting fins. The vast warehouses were dark and noisy; we waded through blood and melting ice as all around us band saws screamed through huge tuna carcasses and octopuses lay on their sides, one dark eye sadly following us from shallow plastic trays as we walked by.

The conversation got a bit bogged down. I'd ask Rob a question, as per my dating MO, but Rob, being polite, would address his reply to Garry as well as me and then they'd end up disappearing into a big chat together. I wanted to make good on my plans to date Rob, but, slightly hungover and surviving on thirty minutes' sleep, it was too complicated. I walked a few paces ahead and left Garry and Rob to their own devices, sensing that before I could get anywhere with Rob, the guys needed to scope each other out.

And, without my input, they did this in no time at all. Thankfully, Rob then suggested coffee and food.

We found a tiny sushi bar—about eight by four feet—in the outside part of the market (fresh air, thank God) and crowded in around the counter. Rob spoke excellent Japanese—he was one of those people who spoke any language you could think of—and Garry was delighted to be able to quiz the sushi chef with Rob acting as interpreter. Just as we'd finished ordering the food, Garry fell into conversation with two Canadian women, and I could finally get on with the date.

We talked about living overseas and the chance it gave you to reinvent yourself. We also talked about Japanese culture, the subculture of the Burning Man Festival, and, of course, love and how sometimes it's easier just to work harder and forget all about it.

Three hours later, we stood on the steps of Rob's office, saying good-bye with real affection. It had been a unique and special morning. But just as Garry and I turned to go, Rob called us back. “Come with me,” he said in an almost guilty whisper. “There's something I think you should see.”

He took us into the building, through the lobby, and into the lift, and forty-five floors later we stood in front of a vast panoramic window surveying the Tokyo cityscape.

It was a clear, sunny morning and both Garry and I gasped in awe as we looked out across Tokyo: built-up and bustling as far as the eye could see. But, looking more closely, we realized that that wasn't quite true. Beyond the landmark Tokyo Tower, Fuji TV buildings, and a jumble of greater and lesser structures, rising up from the horizon, marking the limit of the city's relentless urban ambition, Mount Fuji loomed majestically over the city, its roots seemingly in another world.

I looked out across the cityscape to the mountain and was struck powerfully, not for the first time, by what an incredible experience this all was. Time and again, the dates had given me a perspective that was unexpected and poignant. As I looked over to Garry shaking hands with Rob and thanking him once again, I knew today was no exception.

 

The next three days passed quickly, but in between the basketball games, where Mimi and Missy once again schooled me on play and players, we crammed in as much as we could.

We walked through the serene gardens of the Imperial Palace and watched a delicate geisha girl in traditional dress walk in tiny steps over a wooden bridge, hand cupped to her mouth as she talked into her cell phone. Late at night we ate at one of the small, anarchic yakitori stalls under the arches of the Yamanote subway line. Then, going into the station, we watched in amazement as scores of businessmen dropped dead-drunk onto the floor. They collapsed on top of each other and gathered in drunken piles, like an impromptu flea market, on the entrance steps.

It was wonderful to be able to share this time and I was thrilled to see Garry curious and energized by the surroundings. One of the main reasons Kelly and I had stayed together for so long was our compatibility as traveling companions. It wouldn't have been the end of the world if Garry hadn't been enthusiastic about traveling, but that he enjoyed it so much was great: Like showing him my life in London, this was another important part of who I was.

Because although it sometimes exasperated me, made me tired, meant I missed my friends, and liposucked all the money out of my bank account, leaving it svelte and lean, I loved traveling. My mother had traveled solo through Europe in the fifties (unheard-of then); my father had worked in China and Russia when they were closed to most of the world.

For people of my parents' generation, travel was a hard-won opportunity. My generation just assumed we would do it, we saw it almost as a right. But I cherished it anyway. It might make no sense to some, but it spoke to me and I couldn't be without it.

It was the reason I'd met Garry. And—as I prepared to go to China, Garry back to the States—now it was the reason we had to say good-bye again.

“So, let's see how we get on, but maybe there'll be time after New Zealand for me to pop in and see you in Seattle,” I told him, a brave stab at nonchalance as we stood in front of my packed bags in our hotel room.

I had a round-the-world ticket and was flying east all the way. The grand finale of my International Tour of Shame was in New Zealand, so I'd fly over the U.S. on the way back to the U.K. But time was tight: I was godmother to Toz's son Michael and needed to get back for the christening.

“And you'll email me when you get to Beijing?” Garry reiterated.

I was staying with Hector and Ang and didn't really know how easy it was going to be to phone or email from there. Also, two days ago they'd had a baby daughter, Grace (or Haixin, her Chinese name), and I was anxious not to get in the way of their parental learning curve.

Suddenly it all seemed very tentative. Every other time we'd said good-bye, we'd known when we were going to see each other again. This time we didn't, and I felt unsettled and a little scared by that.

Walking down to reception together, Garry carried my bags out to the shuttle bus as I hugged and kissed all the Seattle guys good-bye. Then Garry reappeared in the doorway and we held each other close one last time.

“Thank you for inviting me out here,” I told him.

“Thank you for inviting me on a date with your Date,” he replied with a cheeky smile.

For some reason that made me tearful. “I'm saying good-bye now,” I told him firmly, “or you're going to have to put up with me crying again, and, for once, I'd really like not to.”

Garry smiled and walked me to the bus, his arm tight around my waist. We kissed good-bye and kissed good-bye, then I boarded the bus and found my seat.

“Call me from Beijing,”
he mouthed as he stood on the pavement below my window.
“You want to hear me sing?”
I mouthed back teasingly. He smiled, then took a step back as the bus started up noisily. Looking back up at me, Garry pressed his fingers to his lips. Then the bus pulled away and he was gone.

Date #66—Paul in Beijing
…it all started so well

Hector was an old friend of mine. I'd known him originally through work: He was news editor on one of the papers and used to interview me whenever a travel story came up. He'd traveled a lot himself and he was a huge music fan, too. We quickly became close and had stayed that way ever since.

Another thing we had in common was a suspicion that hard work had taken over our lives and that travel had the power to put things back into perspective. In some respects, Hector had achieved by chance what I was trying for via my complex geo-social engineering. He'd left Britain for a job at
China Daily
in Beijing and met a gorgeous Chinese woman, Ang, virtually the day he'd arrived. They'd dated and fallen in love, and now they were married.

In the early days, as the romance had developed, Hector had emailed pictures of them both to us back at home. He was clearly besotted with her and you could see them growing closer and closer with each new photo. Instinctively I felt protective of him: When you see a good friend wholeheartedly fall for someone, there's always a part of you that's anxious on their behalf. You hope it really is as good as it looks and something isn't about to happen that will make it end badly.

But as soon as I met Ang at their wedding, any worries I had vanished completely: She was great and they were perfect for each other, total Soul Mates. Ang had a witty yet shrewd attitude that I particularly liked and respected. Whenever I emailed Hector as a Date Wrangler, I always asked for Ang's opinion and advice, too.

And they had both more than lived up to their responsibilities as Date Wranglers. I was arriving in Beijing, ready to go to work.

 

After the balmy sunshine and techno-opulence of Tokyo, Beijing was a shock to the system. China seemed everything that Japan wasn't. It was freezing cold and snowing; cars were full of dents and rust. They rattled down potholed streets at night with headlights switched off, bicycles pelting past them in their hundreds, equally unilluminated. Crossing the road was a perilous affair; it took the courage and faith of a fire-walker. Everything seemed chaotic. Tokyo had been busy, too, but there had been a sense of order and serene dignity to the place. Beijing seemed poorer, dirtier, and louder by far.

It was brilliant.

I flew into Beijing quite late, so after a meal at a local café, Hector and I spent the remains of the evening at their small apartment on Huixin Dongjie, in the northeast of the city. Like most of the expat journalists, Hector's accommodation was provided by the newspaper he worked for. He lived in an apartment building in a compound, the offices and cafeteria just a few steps away across the forecourt.

It was good to see him. The two of us sat and caught up on everything: the new baby, Garry, work, friends, obscure Scottish bands…As we chatted, Hector noticed I was cold. He apologized and got up to fetch me another sweater. “The good thing about living in Communist China is that it's cheap,” he explained mildly. “The bad thing is that the government doesn't turn the city's heating on for another three weeks.”

Ang and baby Grace weren't at home. As is common with new mothers, they were both staying at her parents' house about an hour across town. Hector had been staying there as well and I felt bad that he was forced to play host to me rather than be with his family. But first thing the next morning, we went visiting.

Ang's parents lived in a development over in the northwest of the city, although, as Hector and I walked to the subway, it quickly became apparent that the entire city was a development.

China had been a closed economy to the West for years, but winning the bid to host the 2008 Olympics was confirmation that both China and the West wanted that to change. Although fifty years of Communist rule had kept China isolated from the financial and social growth the West had experienced, China was grabbing it now with both hands. International money was pouring into the country, and rural Chinese were moving in their millions into the cities (354 million over the next twenty-five years, according to the experts), where work, opportunities, and a better standard of living would, theoretically, be found.

But there was no infrastructure to support them, not enough housing, roads, shops, restaurants, schools, or utilities. There wasn't enough to support the 2008 Olympics, come to that, so China was working at fever pitch trying to get it built in time.

Consequently, Beijing was a building site: Deep ruts of dried, frozen mud ran through the city like streetcar lines. The noise of jackhammers and cement mixers, like industrial elevator music, was persistent, irritating, and intrusive. On the way to the station, Hector and I constantly shielded our eyes against swirling eddies of dust and grit kicked up by the drilling and digging going on all around us. On construction sites, men dressed in nothing more protective than slippers and suit jackets hacked at the frozen earth with spades.

Ang's mother spoke no English but managed to make me feel very welcome anyway. She retreated to the kitchen to prepare a big meal for us; she'd never met a western woman before and was shy but extremely curious. When I saw her again later in the week, she got Ang to ask if—since they were
so long
—my eyelashes were real. I put her fingers to my lashes and let her gently tug them, which caused no end of giggling. Despite being kept up all night by the baby, Ang was obviously pleased to have company. Grace was cute as a button and we cooed over her.

It was funny hearing how much of each other's language and phrases they'd adopted in everyday conversation. Hector's English (Scottish) was now peppered with Mandarin; Ang's English was excellent, and even more authentic now that she was using an increasing amount of slang. The baby had a cold that was giving her some difficulty breathing. It was clearly a worry and Hector had been to the pharmacist. He gave Ang the drops he'd bought. “Grace's congestion is caused by snotters,” he said gravely.

“Ah, yes,” Ang said, peering up Grace's nose. “I see snotters too.”

Ang's favorite word seemed to be
dodgy
(in the sense that the subject was suspect or unreliable). She pronounced it
dodtchy
and it always made me smile. Suddenly missing Garry with a sharp pang, I thought how our language had started cross-pollinating too. He loved the British
cheers
but, like Ang, also seemed to enjoy saying that things were
dahgee.

Promising we would meet up the next day, I managed to persuade Hec that I'd be fine on my own and he should stay here with Ang. I'd be perfectly happy spending the rest of the day exploring.

It was easy to find my way back to the station, which was just as well since no one would have spoken English had I needed directions. This was a Chinese residential area and not a place tourists would ever come to. There were no other westerners around, and everyone stared at me quite openly. People had done the same in Japan, especially as I was so tall. On more than one occasion, someone had reached over and touched my face or arm, wanting to know if my skin felt the same as theirs. It wasn't frightening or hostile. Clearly, foreigners were still a relative oddity here and everyone was just curious.

I was curious too.

I poked around shops and food markets; walked thoughtfully around Tiananmen Square, watching clouds of ornate kites skate across the air in front of the Mao Mausoleum; explored the Underground City, where volunteers had built a secret city under Beijing in the 1960s, scared of a Soviet invasion.

It was dark by the time I took the cold, dusty walk from the underground station back to Hector's flat. Street traders sold potatoes and apples from huge mounds laid out on cloths on the irregular pavements; a woman sat before a sewing machine in the middle of the street, a pile of repairs and alterations folded neatly in a plastic sack by her feet. In the doorway of a DVD shop, the owner was engrossed in an American workout program blaring out of one of the TVs. As he watched the perfectly toned, heavily made-up, lightly dressed Californians stretch and jump in time with the music, he jumped and gyrated along with them. Completely absorbed in what he was doing, he kicked his leg out and one of his slippers shot off his foot and lay unnoticed in the road, only to be run over a few seconds later by a stream of bicycles. His body might have been in Beijing, but his pounding heart and mind were pure Beverly Hills.

I popped into another of the countless CD and DVD stalls that lined the road and browsed through copies of pirated films yet to be released in the cinema. As I flicked through the racks, I half-listened to the old woman behind the counter talk to a young man I guessed to be her grandson, busy taking cases from cardboard boxes and arranging them on the shelves.

The cadence of their conversation seemed to jab and twang sharply, rising and falling atonally like a Japanese lute. I've often noticed how the singsong sound of certain Asian accents could make a perfectly ordinary conversation sound like an argument. And as I thought this again now, there was a loud crash. To my astonishment, the old lady came careening out from behind the counter, brandishing a long stick like a samurai sword over her head. Her face brick-red with rage, bellowing and swinging wildly, she proceeded to chase her grandson around the small shop, flailing as she ran.

But she couldn't catch him. And as grandmother and grandson ran around the shop shouting angrily, with each dodge the stick whizzed past the agile grandson and smashed instead into the racks of DVDs. They went flying off the shelves, skidding across the floor and scattering their contents under boxes and life-size cardboard cutouts of Jackie Chan. There were three Chinese men in the shop along with me, and we all stood frozen in disbelief as the scene unfolded around us. But as an airborne DVD caught one of the men painfully in the neck, we exchanged a quick look of
No DVD is cheap enough to be worth this,
and all made a beeline for the door and dashed out into the safety of the street. I walked briskly away without looking back, the sound of people shouting and DVD cases splintering clearly audible all the way down the street.

Happily, both my cell phone and email worked in China, so as I walked, I rang Garry and told him what had just happened.

“What's all that noise?” Garry shouted a few seconds into the conversation.

“That's China!” I shouted back, as all around me the sound of drilling, driving, sewing, and shouting filled the air.

We talked on the phone all the way back to the apartment, then—fearing my phone bill—spent another hour instant-messaging after that. I had so much to tell him, there was so much going on. I really wished he was here; I missed him terribly. He would have loved this.

 

The next morning Hector and I met early and ambled along the painted corridors and temples around the vast Kunming Lake in the grounds of the Summer Palace, before heading back to Huixin Dongjie. We were having lunch with a group of Hector's fellow journalists at the Great Wall of China, a landmark restaurant just down the road from his flat.

The restaurant was fancy, friendly, and insanely cheap. Hector's friends—Siobhan, Marta and Paul—were already seated when we arrived, so introductions were made as the waitress passed the menus around. These were huge: over thirty pages of dishes, each with accompanying photo and description in Chinese and English.

We randomly ordered so we could talk. All his friends loved living here, though it could clearly be quite challenging. Marta had broken her hand that morning when a bike had pedaled straight into her on the road. We talked about running to destress; Siobhan got up at 5 a.m. to run on an outdoor track. But there was no lighting; she had to shine a flashlight in front of her as she ran so she wouldn't fall down the potholes.

Paul was an early-thirties Australian. He was tall and handsome, also quiet and a little shy. I chatted with him, asking how long he'd been here, where he'd worked before, where he'd lived in Australia…. These were actually highlights from my
don't worry it'll all be fine
warm-up date questions; and as if reading my mind, Hector leaned across the table and said: “Jen, you do know that it's Paul you're dating tomorrow?”

God, was it? Why hadn't he told me sooner? I was appalled.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I was actually very pleased: He was sweet and I already felt so comfortable and curious that I knew he'd be a good date. But I'd been asking him
the date questions
already. What would I talk to him about tomorrow?

“Paul, I'm really sorry,” I told him, in a tone that almost certainly sounded like a guard telling passengers they couldn't board the train even though it was standing at the station with the doors wide open. “Do you mind if we don't talk until tomorrow? I don't want to peak too soon.”

Hector rolled his eyes and sighed. Paul was too much of a gentleman to show any of the misgivings he now had about dating me; he merely smiled and nodded.

As it turned out, though, everyone talked nonstop, including Paul and me. It was an entertaining and companionable meal—Chinese food is sociable and made for sharing, quite the opposite of Japanese food, which is either in
meal for one
bento boxes or means bending low over bowls of
no eye contact
ramen noodles—and the food was extraordinary. Dish after sumptuous dish arrived: salted fish in black-bean sauce; shredded potato with chili; aubergine in sour sauce. It was piquant with attention-grabbing flavors and textures. I was amazed at how much I loved it.