Chapter 107

I woke up around 9, well rested, and took a quick shower. The day’s festivities were to start only in the afternoon, so I looked for something to do in the meantime, preferably involving nourishing food. I messaged my Venezuelan friend from Nanjing asking if he wants to get bagels, and he said that he already got invited to brunch by other local capoeira peeps and I was welcome to join.

So I got a rent-a-bike and slowly made my way there. Those little bicycles appeared on the scene a few years ago and I love them, they cost a ludicrously small amount of money per trip, and can be found all over the place. The problem is my phone was on the 2G network rather than the 3G I’m used to, must be something about my China Unicom package that only gives me access to 3G when I’m in my home city. 2G is fine for instant messaging but is excruciatingly slow for maps or sending pictures or in this case accessing the bike app, and I let out some choice swear words as I tried to unlock the little fucker and the app kept not responding. I eventually got it and rode away.

I stopped at a pharmacy to get medical tape to mend my foot, yesterday I ripped a sizable chunk of skin from my big toe from the friction of doing spinning kicks on a wooden floor. There was a man of about 150 years old talking to the pharmacist in the Shanghainese language, which some refer to as a dialect but is so damn far removed from the Mando I know, so might as well call it a whole different language. It went almost extinct for a bit, with the only speakers left having a lot of grey hairs, but now is experiencing a revival apparently. Good for them.

The brunch place was in a courtyard somewhere in the French Concession, I got there early and sat down in the sun, reading my Kindle. Then someone from our party showed up, an attractive Chinese girl who goes by Borboleta “Butterfly”. A part of capoeira culture is that all practitioners receive a nickname in Portuguese, a relic from the turn of the century when capoeira was illegal and underground in post-slavery (but still extremely racist and segregated) Brazil, and capoeiristas hid behind their pseudonyms. There are people I’ve known for years but only know by their apelidos. We chatted for a bit and then the rest of the gang came, and we had a nice brunch like the urban hedonists we are. I had an open croissant covered with a poached egg and big slices of salmon, accompanied by a grapefruit juice (my favorite non-alcoholic and non-tea beverage).

One guy from the group was Russian, and noticed the Russian army badge I have sewn on my backpack.

“Where did you get that?!?!”

“At an army surplus store in Ussuriysk” The second-to-last stop on the Transsiberian, just before Vladivostok.

That confused him even more. “Why on Earth did you go to Ussuriysk?!” Russians are very puzzled by the fact some people want to visit their country. Hey, I had a great time there, though it was rarely above -35^oC.

We walked around for a bit and got to a subway station, where I had to fish out my dirty SLUGF (Stupid Little Useless Glass Fogger) out of my pocket to be granted entry by the 95-pound female security guards. As much as I acknowledge how efficient it is, I hate taking the subway, but now on this Saturday midday it wasn’t too crowded so it didn’t trigger my claustrophobia and misanthropy. I even got a seat, and the ride was quite short, just under the river to the Pudong side. Pudong is where the iconic skyline is, with two skyscrapers among the world’s tallest and several more enormous phallic ones, and the vibe is night and day compared to the vibrant streets of the French Concession, here the boulevards and sidewalks were wide but nearly empty, as it was a weekend and the office drones were away. We got to a huge tower and took the elevator to the 39^th floor.

Capoeira annual events are called batizados (“baptisms”), in which newcomers get christened with their nicknames and people of all levels who have been training well get graduated to a higher belt. About 100 people were present, first we had a warm-up with samba steps (there is quite a bit of overlap between capoeira and other Brazilian styles of music and dance), then two workshops held by instructors, and finally the graduation ceremony. Green belts were first, and then the level of skill and intensity kept going up, and at the end the roda was open to everyone and I got a few nice games in. Great energy and vibes.

The after-party was at a Brazilian restaurant back in the non-soulless part of the city. Some went back to their homes or their hotels first to refresh a bit, I just splashed water on my face and torso and applied deodorant. I wanted to go as soon as possible, I tagged along with a group of Chinese capoeiristas who proposed we take a bus instead, as it’s a more direct route than the subway. The problem is they misread the map and we went to the wrong side of the road, so we had to backtrack several hundred meters to cross it again, as there was a tall barrier between the middle lanes. Hakuna matata. I was hungry and aching for a cold beer, in that food desert with not even a convenience store anywhere, but life goes on.

We got to the restaurant, which was in some kind of dining/nightlife complex. Hundreds and hundreds of expats were sitting at the breweries, the taco stands, the pizzerias, there were more long-nosed barbarians there than the total number of foreigners in my whole city, even if we include the “undercover laowai” from the sizable Japanese and Korean communities. I ordered a caipirinha, Brazil’s national drink, made with cachaça (similar to rum but with a more, ahem, wild taste to it), lime juice and sugar. It was very strong and hit the spot immediately, on my then empty stomach. We got three drink coupons for 130 yuan and 10% off all the food, hardly the deal of the century, but still a nice little discount and no doubt the Paulista boss made a killing that night, with the size of our group. The food was a bit expensive but I just went with some of my favorites, the pão de queijo (cheese-filled tapioca bread balls), coxinhas (deep-fried little triangles of chicken salad) and empadas de camarão (shrimp pies). This is bus station food in Brazil, and all stuff I missed quite a bit, especially the pão de queijo. I ate a whole bag nearly every day when I was over there, it is pure crack.

The drinks kept flowing, everyone was friendly and having fun. Then a DJ came in, and the tables in the middle of the restaurant got removed to create a nice dance floor. I’m not a dancer but the vibe was too good, and at some point a roda de samba opened, a circle in which a couple dances under the hoots and hollers of everyone outside, until one of the partner changes. The only little criticism I had is that most of the music wasn’t Brazilian, more Latino and American top 40 stuff, but the DJ still put on some tunes that got peoples’ hips swaying. There were stunning female specimens left, right and center, even more so now that they changed from their baggy capoeira uniforms to more flattering clothes and put on their make-up.

At some point, a bit after midnight, I sat on a stool watching the crowd as my desire to get fresh air and quietude outweighed my FOMO and party mood. So I bade my farewells and retreated to the hotel. Some more Nanjing capoeiristas came, and they had an empty bed in one the hotel rooms that they offered me, which I gladly took. The shower felt good, and so was slipping under the bedsheets.