Monday, November 26, 2007

Russians and Pool

What a night last night.  It began at my buddy Richard’s place, where about 30 people of varying nationalities celebrated Thanksgiving.  Oddly, I think I was the only American (there might have been one more) out of the whole group.  It was more of a “let’s get fucked up and eat turkey” party than it was a real Thanksgiving dinner, but the food was fantastic.  Then, when everyone was suitably shithammered, we ended up at one of Beijing’s popular expat bars, The Rickshaw.  I was standing there drinking, watching some white guy get his ass kicked at pool by two smoking hot Chinese girls.  One of them was wearing a skin-tight black t-shirt which said in white letters LIFE IS FULL OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS.  After losing yet another game his partner had to take off so he asked if I’d like to play.  Sure, I said.  He introduced himself as Jeremy and said he was from England.  I responded that I was Lee from America.  (That’s the usual way people are introduced here:  name, country of origin, and how long you have been in China.)

Jeremy said to me, “Okay, these girls have been kicking my arse and acting like a couple of right cunts about it, so we have to show them who’s boss.” I told him to break, and then he ran the table, getting all the way down to the 8 ball, which he just barely missed.  One of the Chinese girls took a shot and missed, after which I sank the 8.  Game over, the white devils are victorious.

Of course, pool here is different than pool in the US.  When I was in the Navy I used to play a lot of pool, and I got to be pretty good at it, so I know the proper way to play.  If I may be vulgar for a moment, what they play here would have been referred to by my Navy shipmates using the charming sobriquet “nigger pool.” (It’s not a racist thing, it’s like people using the word “gay” to describe something dumb, like in South Park—“Dude, that is so gay.” The context threfore wasn’t really racial in nature, it was just “What kinda nigger pool are you playing?” Of course, since the guys who used that phrase the most often were all from the South, draw your own conclusions.)

At any rate, since there are so many Brits here, the rules are sort of a weird hybrid of snooker and pool.  Slop is permitted, so if you accidentally sink something you still get to take another turn.  The weirdest things are when you scratch.  If you sink the cue ball they put the white ball anywhere on the table, rather than at the end where you shot the break ball.  (This is a snooker rule, if I remember correctly.) Then, if you shoot and don’t hit a ball, the other player gets to pick it up and put it anywhere they like on the table.  Very odd. You don’t have to call your shots, either.  You just hit the balls and if something goes in, whoo-wee, you get another turn.

It kinda reminds me of the two-shots rule they have playing pool in Australia.  If you shoot the ball and scratch, the other player gets two shots.  I remember being in Melbourne, playing pool in a dodgy bar in St. Kilda’s, and we almost got in a fight with some guys over this stupid rule.  I was with a couple of other Americans, and we were like, “What kinda fucking dumbass rule is this?” Lesson learned:  when in Rome, play pool the way the Romans do.

So, after a while at the Rickshaw drinking and playing pool, Richard and I decided to take off (it was about 2 am by this point) and go somewhere else.  We ended up at some bar down in the Russian district.  Think of every stupid cliche you’ve seen in the movies about Russian gangsters and the women who hang around with them.  Well, it’s all true.  Every Russian mafia cliche was present in that club—dark suit and sunglasses, big buff guys in black t-shirts with gold chains and goatees, tall lanky blondes wearing skin-tight clothes and too much makeup.  They were playing pop music but it was all in Russian.  The signs for the toilets were all in Cyrillic.  It was bizarre, but exactly the sort of amazingly cool experience which makes this city so much fun. 

Russian food is great, too.  Anyone who can take crispy chicken, mix it with lettuce and onions and about a gallon of mayonnaise, and call it a “salad” it okay by me.  You take that, smear it on some Russian black bread, and man, that’s good eating.

So I got home drunk off my ass at about 4:30.  God I love this life.  I could have done without the throbbing hangover this morning but, hey, you go to war you come back with scars.