Saturday, February 21, 2009

THINGS I HAVE SEEN IN BEIJING PART 2

NUMBER TWO: THE BILL

Two women fight in a restaurant over who is going to pay. This is a big issue in China. It’s all about face, see. At home you might say ‘I insist’ a couple of times, before having a recap on who paid last, how much money you’ve got, whether you’ve got a job, how the recession is likely to affect your industry, that sort of thing. But you can normally sort it out without violence. Here, it’s a matter of pride.

The women wear black and white striped jackets. It starts with one of them getting up, and walking towards the till at the back of the restaurant. This is a big restaurant, with a large main area and booths running down both sides. Perhaps 60 people are here, so it’s big enough for the staff to pretty much ignore you, and just fling chopsticks at you, or give you the menu three times, even when you’ve already ordered. This information is by-the-by. It’s just so you can imagine the din and the size and the conversations that are happening.

Anyway, she gets up to pay, and the other woman realizes what’s happening in the nick of time. She jumps up too, blocking her friend's path to the till. First woman puts her arm out to say, no, don’t be daft, I said I’d get this. Second woman keeps pushing, trying to get to the till first. First woman grabs her by the lapels of her jacket. Second woman gets her own hold, and starts pushing back. By this point they’re pretty much screaming at each other, and it looks almost inevitable that one of them will go flying over the table like in a Western, before the whole place erupts into a brou-ha-ha, a melee of flying fists and broken glasses. However, Woman Number Two clearly feels like she's made enough of a fuss now. She lets go of the first woman, calmly sits back down at the table, and finishes off her drinks. The first woman pays.

No one in the restaurant pays any attention to this at all. The table behind is a family gathering, where the dad’s evidently got too drunk. He turns his head to look at every member of the table, and his eyes seem to take a while to catch up. When he gets back to the start, he looks like he can't remember why he’s here or who he is. He looks at the drink that he's holding. He peers into the cup to try to remember what it is, and whether it's his. Yep. Definitely his. He keeps drinking.

No comments: