Chapter 66

I woke up at 9 and rode my bike through a light rain to the driving school, I brought a bottle of my homebrewed IPA to give to the instructor, who’s been so patiently dealing with my shit. He sat on the passenger seat and let me drive the 20 minutes or so separating the city office to the practice field. At some point, I was going 80 km/h on a brand new country road and saw a bunch of debris falling from the truck in front of us, some curved filter sheets or whatever it was. I had to swerve to avoid them.

“Wo cao! Look at that truck, the tail gate is open, and shit is falling!”

“Yeah, don’t stay in the same lane as trucks”, the instructor laconically replied.

Sometimes I have people tell me that the idea that you should just accept the hazardous or anti-social behavior inherent to life in China and find ways around it rather than through it is racist, and... I agree, to a pretty big extent. It reeks of bigotry of low expectations. But at the same time, this type of stoic resilience didn’t appear in a vacuum, and I learned it from interacting with Chinese people who have had to put up with shit like that for much longer and oftentimes to a much worse extent. And as a soon-to-be newly minted Chinese driver as well as a “bike-and-destroy” cyclist, sharing the road with inept and dangerous motorists is something I have to contend with.

I have to get my license first, so I meticulously practiced. I put an earbud in one ear, and listened to the album The Head That Controls Both Right And Left Sides Eats Meats And Slobbers Even Today by Bleach, and then a Ryan Long podcast. He had Roger Stone on as a guest, I never heard of the guy before, apparently he was a Trump campaign strategist who got accused of collusion with the Russians. They had a great discussion about censorship, corrupt judges, and the Clintons.

On the way home I made a detour to Nongville, the quasi-slum sandwiched between luxury apartments and office towers, and bought sesame noodles. The friendly lady was happy to see me as always, and said it’s been a while. True, we should patronize that shop more often, those Wuhan-style reganmian are bomb. I got one serving extra-spicy, with extra mustardy pickles and cilantro, and one medium-spicy without cilantro, for the girlfriend.

I made it home in time to catch the end of the big UFC card, and the three championship fights. Piotr Yan was dominating Aljamain Sterling with his merciless and crisp boxing attack, but then had one of the derpiest moments in the history of the sport when he spiked the downed Jamaican-American in the forehead with a super illegal knee strike, losing by disqualification. I think it’s the first time a UFC title changes hands by DQ.

Amanda Nunes slaughtered her overmatched opponent in less than two minutes to the surprise of no one, and then it was the main event, a middleweight champ versus light heavyweight champ superfight. A very compelling one, as nobbody could really tell if the speed and unreal striking technique of Adesanya would prevail over the brutish size and legendary Polish power of Blachowicz, or the opposite. Well... turned out it was pretty evenly matched, the Nigerian New Zealander having his moments but never hurting the hulking Pole, who used a lot of jabs, turned it up in the latter rounds and wrestlefucked to victory. As far as personalities go, I was happy for Jan Blachowicz, he really endeared himself to the fans (me included) with his humble, natural and humorous demeanor, while Adesanya just feels like pure cringe at times with his forced swag and the uncharismatic clichés he spouts. He’s still a G though, and I see him stay champ at 185 pounds for a long time.

I was a bit buzzed by the time mid-afternoon rolled around, after imbibing a giant gin tonic, a tasty amber ale by Australian brewery 4 Pines, and a dark and stormy (rum and ginger beer). That seventeen-day period without a drop of alcohol (aside from a sip of the girlfriend’s gin tonic, that I mistaked for water) is in the rearview mirror now.

The girlfriend asked me for help, she wanted to move her desk where the dining room table is, and put the dinner table by the window. I initially disagreed, thinking it would obstruct the way to the kitchen, and joked that that’s the problem when you let a woman live with you, they always want to fix things that aren’t broken and move furniture around, because they get bored so easily. “That’s racist!” she retorted, a bit nonsensically. I still went with her plan, and it turned out to be a good idea, I like the new configuration.

Today’s music was an OK album by Ike And Tina Turner followed with one of my favorites thus far on that Top 500, Kaleidoscope by Kelis. I had never even heard of the name, a quick Wikipedia search told me she’s the chick singing the catchy and a bit overplayed “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard”, and her debut album was a great piece of R&B. The single Caught Out There had a surprisingly angry yelled chorus and was fucking awesome, I played it for a second time when the album was over. Then it was Pixies, with a good alt-rock record that clearly influenced a lot of big 90s bands.

We walked with the dog to the Italian restaurant and had a great meal. She had the meat ravioli (which she cutely calls “Italian jiaozi”) and I had the ham pizza, with a Ramazzotti aperitif, a glass of white wine and a limoncello digestif.

On the walk home, we spoke only in French. She wants to learn and I feel the best way would be through some kind of immersion for 15-20 minutes a day at least.

Back home, I watched a live set by Rodzeng, a rapper from Gabon. He used to study engineering in a Chinese university and I met him a few times, he opened for Quebec City rapper Webster when he came to tour China, financed the French Alliance. I’ve been following Rodzeng on social media, and he’s a sick lyricist. Then I saw a 40-minute YouTube video analyzing the Simpsons episode with the highest rating in history, the one with Frank Grimes. The analysis was quite deep and multi-layered, it made me appreciate golden era Simpsons even more and made me want to watch an episode. I have Season 6 saved on a hard drive and randomly chose the one where Homer is accused of sexual harrassment, I must have seen it five times back in the day but it’s so good, and more than 25 years later, the themes of media-driven smearing campaigns, fake news and defamation are more relevant than ever.