We're playing basketball

I bought a basketball on my first jet-legged shopping trip. I had noticed a basketball court half a block down the small hill I live on. Day 2 came around, and I laced up the sneakers and chugged water to prepare for the muggy 96-degree weather. Mom, I drank lots of water. 

The court lacks nets and has smoothed cement in heavily trafficked areas like the lane and free throw line, yet despite imperfections is respected by locals as a sanctuary. Trees provide shade on one side and block the main highway that runs through Beibei. Although the court is flat, it is still on a slope, and a nice restaurant is built into the corner of the hill 20 feet beyond one baseline. The opposite baseline is underneath the first row in a series of multi-storied cement apartments. Old men and women play mahjongg on outdoor tables at the base of the apartments while roosters lounge nearby like unleashed cats or dogs in the States. Trees also shade the other length of the court. A 15-foot path weaves through the trees and connects the court with a public open area, where Tai Chi takes place every morning at 6am and a “jazz-ercise” (think 50-70 year old Chinese women and Michael Jackson) begins at sundown. 

I shot around at one end of the court with a fellow American teacher, but we were quickly invited to play 3 on 3 with the four Chinese guys shooting on the other end. We had no ability to communicate besides our hands. The tallest could have been 5 foot 8 (with high heels). We played a half court game, and my team won as a result of my god-like post moves. The guy guarding me might not have been five feet tall. The air quality is so poor that it felt like playing while smoking a cigarette, and on top of that, the Chinese all smoked cigarettes between games. Although they lacked height, it was clear by the constancy of their unorthodox shooting methods that they practiced and emulated certain NBA heroes.

One player stuck out from the rest. He is the Sichuanese Kobe Bryant. He mimicked Kobe’s moves perfectly from the forward between the legs followed by a quick pull up jump shot to a disorientating headshake. When he scored, and he did quite often, he celebrated by pumping his fist. Unlike the rest of the Chinese, he was not shy. He goofed around, laughed, and loved trying to talk to me about NBA players. He called me out to guard him one on one between games. His confidence was not quite cocky, but what one would see between friends in America. We played until we couldn’t see any longer and he communicated that I should come back at 5 tomorrow. “Jazz-ercise” was about half way done.

So I played the next day. Kobe saw me walking down and yelled “Michael Jordan”. We played basketball. There is no language barrier in basketball, and although it sounds cliché, it is truly a beautiful form of communication. I began making other friends, but Kobe continued to goof around and gave me “knucks” and handshakes like an old friend.

So I played the next day. More bonding, loads of craic. After the games finished, he communicated that we should grab a beer together. I showered, and another teacher and I met him at the basketball court. He was with someone he introduced as his best friend, who was equally extroverted and entertaining.

My Chinese friends flagged down a taxi on the main road next to the basketball court. The taxi took us to downtown Beibei, which is less than a ten-minute drive. Neither of us teachers had been there before. I had been told that Beibei was a suburb of Chongqing, and it is, but is a suburb with between 5-7 million people. Surprise! Downtown Beibei is full of shops, apartments, and large European-esque public squares where people of all ages visited with each other.

Surprise number two quickly followed. We were not going to a bar, but a club.

Snapshots of first Chinese night out:

Our friends bought rounds of beer. Each beer is served with a tumbler glass, which is filled and drank like a shot, over and over again. We drank enough beer to be drunk over the course of the night, but the strength of the beer is roughly the same as a 3.2 beer in the states.

TVs showed a concert of Beyonce, while music ranged from Blacked Peas to Justin Beiber to Partyrock to Reggaetone (in Spanish).

Dancing takes place on elevated stages around the club. Of course, as an American, I was forced to dance.

Will, Kobe’s Chinese friend, is a high-energy womanizer. He spent the entire night talking to girls in the club and running back to me and saying that they loved me or thought I was handsome. The girls were very shy, but Will would literally drag them over to our table and demand they shake my hand. He would tell them they had to kiss me, which inevitably led to nervous laughter and a frantic run for escape. He would dismiss each girl with a wave of the hand and tell me “no good!”

Note to reader: The very fact that Will could say “no good” makes him one of the best English speakers in Beibei. Besides students at the University and a random resturant worker or two, nobody speaks ANY English. My friend Kobe probably knows about as many English words as he does basketball players or terms.

Another guy I recognized from basketball met us at the club. His English name is Crazy. I asked him how he got it, and he simply responded, “I’m crazy.” I just smiled and nodded- those moments happen all the time in China.

Everyone smokes cigarettes.

Go-go dancers and singers perform sporadically throughout the night. One singer  who wore multiple gold chains, fake diamond earrings, and a du-rag sang Backstreet Boys songs in perfect English. I approached him afterwards and chatted with him. Initially I thought he was American because of his lighter skin and good English, but I found out later he was from the Philippines. He came over to our table and joined us for the rest of the night, rounding out a table that had become the main attraction of the club.

The next day we played basketball. Kobe said “You are my brother” through his thick accent. Pretty cool.

Class begins Monday! A bit nervous, but actually a little excited.

More soon,

JCM