Chapter 65

I woke up at 6:30, felt good to be sleeping in. Though it was Saturday, I had stuff to do, notably going for more goddamn driving practice. I rode to the driving school’s city office, listening to a Jocko Willink podcast. He was talking to a Vietnam War veteran, and the audio file kept cutting, as they edited out the names of soldiers and officers in post-production.

Sitting on the passenger seat on the way to the practice lot, I kept reading the book about overlanding in Africa, Dan Grec had reached Angola by now. One chapter was about the big Chinese presence there and elsewhere in Africa and I went "Boy, here we go again" but ended up very happy and dare I say surprised at the way he put it, given how much pure wet dogshit there is in most coverage of modern China by western media. As a long-time expat here with my eyes and ears open and boots on the ground I have of course a different perspective than many of those so-called journalists who don't even seem like they've even set foot in China let alone talked to a Chinese person, and I'm saddened and angered at how the issues related to China, including the presence in Africa, are portrayed. So props to him for being nuanced and rational in his short exposé in there, showing how the legacy of colonialism and especially the debts imposed on newly independent African nations in the 1960s have pretty much ruined the continent, and how politics aside, the roads and infrastructure built by the Chinese do have a net positive impact on the average African’s quality of life.

Not that I'm a China shill or unwilling to acknowledge the serious problems that come with the Chinese government, far from that. Saying that my relationship with my adopted homeland (and some of its people) is one of love-hate at times would be the understatement of the year! And in fact from what I've read and what I've heard first-hand and what I've seen when I went to Africa myself, it's a bit of a messed up situation, how some countries get embroiled in raw deals that puts them in serious debt when they can't repay the infrastructure. But for sure as he pointed out, the European powers have been and are still doing that (especially France, which still has a huge military presence there and pretty much controls the CFA currency), hence the hypocrisy of those expats in Africa who talk openly about "The fucking chinks and their neo-colonialism" (their words, not mine) as if it hasn't been done for 150 years already.

I did my practice, and then I drove the car back to the city. The car had a messed up gearbox and a flasher that would stay on even after bringing the stick back to the neutral position, but I managed.

On the way home, I stopped at a photocopy shop and had them do a high quality print of my homebrew labels. It cost me less than a dollar. When I came out and was ready to hop on my bicycle, a bus stopped beside me to queue at the red light. I knew what would happen then. Chinese people are fascinated with foreigners, but children and very rural people aside, they tend to keep a poker face in public and not stare or point, I am not sure if it’s done out of politeness or just being scared that the hairy barbarian will notice and fly into some kind of barbarian rage. Either way, when they’re behind a protective surface, like the window of a bus, this does not apply, and when I looked up, every passenger’s eyes were fixated on me. A gaggle of bespectacled teenage girls (“rainies” in Caucasian-Chinese slang) were pointing, and one was even fumbling for her phone to take a picture. I pointed back and made faces, and they all erupted in laughter.

I made it home before the time I would have been waking up on a normal Saturday, so I felt a sense of accomplishment having already done my day’s task. So I spent a lot of time sitting around, playing with the dog, listening to music, writing, and watching YouTube videos. For some reason, I felt like listening to Los Divididos, an Argentinean rock band I discovered when I visited that country a year and a half ago. I put on their album Amapola Del 66, and then a live set by post-metal band Amenra. In the middle of the set, their vocalist took his shirt off and had a bunch of bodyfication freaks come on stage and drive fish hooks through his flesh. This shit is pure squirm, one of my friends is into this bizarre sado-maso stuff, he even did a bungee jump held only by hooks going through the skin of his back.

Then I watched a documentary about underground indie pro wrestling. I can’t say I’m the biggest wrasslin fan in the world and find it hard to sit through whole matches after being so used to “real” combat sports, but I do think the culture behind it is fascinating. That doco was about a troupe of wrestlers going on a tour to remote places in Manitoba, we’re talking Native American settlements of 500 people separated by tens of hours of driving on narrow icy roads in the boreal forest. It was well done and showed the dichotomy between the highs (the feeling of entertaining crowds of people not used to out-of-towners coming through to put on a show, the northern lights and beautiful serene winter scenery, the camaraderie between wrestlers) and the lows (the novelty wearing off as they sit in a van for 30 hours, shows with less than 10 spectators, and the wear and tear associated with getting repeatedly body-slammed).

It got me musing, like yesterday when I was pondering why travel addicts like myself and Dan Grec put ourselves through hellish situations on purpose, why those guys and girls would risk (and often, get) serious injuries for such a bizarre carnival act with only the slightest chance that they’ll make it big, let alone make a living form it. Same reason why the Amenra vocalist and my Slovenian buddy drive needles through their skin, same reason why there are bare-knuckle boxers, same reason there are free climbers (rock climbers who forego ropes and all that stupid useless protective gear), and the list goes on. People don’t want to live in comfort boxes, and do get addicted to things that the average human would never dream about.

It’s been about 72 hours since my second shot of the ‘Rona vaccine, so it was about time I opened a beer. I started with one of my homebrews, a spiced ale I made with crushed mandarin oranges, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, Sichuan peppers, and other random spices that caught my eye on the rack. Felt good to be back on the wagon, the beer wagon that is. I also opened a black Kirin that I drank with a giant plate of reheated pasta.

I sat in bed and played a bit of GTA V before taking a nap, that got interrupted when someone outside our door made a sound above 10 decibels and prompted the dog to repeatedly bark. I got up, gathered my stuff, and went to the gym where I practiced judo moves with my eccentric Ukrainian homie. He got pretty badly injured playing soccer a few weeks back, so we went light and avoided putting stress on his messed up knee. I still had energy at the end, so I practiced capoeira moves and did pull-ups.

I made it home by 21:00, ate curry, drank beer, and watched a condensed 50-minute version of UFC 2, which took place in 1994. Let’s just say the sport of MMA has gone a long, long way since. I also watched the first episode of the series Age Of Samurai, and poured myself a glass of sake, to stay within the theme.

Throughout the day and evening, I also played four albums from positions 396 to 393 of the Rolling Stone’s Top 500. I barely remember anything about that mound of unsalted mashed potatoes from Todd Lundgren, and D’Angelo’s Black Messiah was just as boring. And just when I started wondering why the hell I’m putting myself through this exercise in tediousness, next up was Diana Ross’s eponymous LP, which was absolutely great. Taylor Swift’s album was also excellent, that surprised me.