Chapter 113

I drank tea and did yoga. While I was deep in a spinal twist, the girlfriend was brewing coffee and asked me “Why are you doing so much yoga now? Didn’t you use to say yoga is gay?” “I never said that! ...OK, I probably said that at some point” Only fools don’t change their minds.  

We went outside together with the dog. He ran into another little friend of his, a white poodle with a perfectly spherical hairdo named Pengpeng (“Fatty”). Pengpeng is also a common Chinese dog name, along with Xiaobai, Xiaohei, Doudou and of course Qiuqiu.

I rode to work, listening to a Jocko Willink podcast about the Korean War. He read excerpts from a book written by an American officer, there was a particularly harrowing passage about friendly fire, two Marines went to retrieve a rope the platoon used to climb a steep frozen slope and got gunned down by one of their own sentinels. The guy then went to the frozen bodies as they were about to be carried by “the gook train” (an hilariously politically incorrect way to refer to the Korean auxiliaries who supplied the front line) and was about to shoot himself with a pistol but got talked against it by an officer, who showed incredible leadership, restraint and psychological acumen.

I had three classes with eleventh-graders, and they went well. The weak class has students who are struggling hard but some of them asked me questions during the break, they’re really trying and I’ll do my best to help them.

I rode home, packed my bag for this upcoming weekend trip, and had a quick lunch of a tomato and bacon sandwich and a toast with cream cheese. I watched the UFC 261 press conference, the event will be held in Florida in front of a crowd, for the first time in over a year. Hearing all the derps heckling and yelling nonsensical shit made me miss those more intimate no-crowd days, especially with Jorge Masvidal present, carrying his pure cringe “BMF” belt and spouting dumb one-liners to his sycophantic fanbase. That fight is stupid, a money grab for Usman and not much more, and the attempts by the UFC at hyping it up as a competitive match-up are very far-fetched.

I went back to school, had a double with Attitude Class, promptly rode back home, changed, and took a taxi to the train station. I walked to the ticket window and it was closed for the day, I was very scared for a second. Filthy foreign scum can’t use the ticket selling machine, as it requires a Chinese ID card. Thankfully, the information counter also sells tickets, so I got a seat on the Shanghai-bound train that left a few minutes later, and could also purchase a return ticket there and then, something I can’t do with buses. So yeah, add that to the fact that trains are much more frequent and take half the journey time, and now I’m on Team Train. It’s just a bit annoying to be in a carriage with about 80 people, 76 of whom are watching shit on their phones with the volume on, but nothing a pair of earbuds and some loud music can’t fix. I listened to Nasum’s Shift, probably my least favorite of their full-lengths, but still one hell of a slab of grindcore.

I hopped on a rent-a-bike and went to my hostel. The one I stayed at the last few times was full, so I went to one in the artsy district where I stayed ages ago. It’s in a pretty cool heritage building with wooden furniture and a garden where Chinese hipsters with ponytails hang out drinking tea or cheap beer. They made me fill out a detailed form asking where I’d been, where I’m going and all that, anti-pandemic measures, the receptionist said. More like anti-drop-my-bag-quickly-and-go-drink-beer measures, if you ask me. I wasted a few minutes on that shit and then got given my keycard and shown to my bunk.

I got back into the traffic of the enormous and sinister metropolis. I took about an hour to make it to Lofas, a recently opened live music venue in the southern part of the city, where I saw a show for the last time about six months ago. Five metal bands were scheduled and I was pretty excited. The entrance was free, which sweetened the pot even more, so I grabbed a Brooklyn Defender IPA from the fridge and the festivities started soon after, with a newly formed hardcore band named Rat King, composed of four Shanghai-based expats. 

After their energetic set, I went to the snack bar next door, had onion rings and a kimchi hot dog (it was delicious), and came back as the melodic death metal band Blood Of Life was on stage. I wasn’t impressed, it was pretty generic stuff, but still somewhat competently played and their singer was a cute girl in a long dress. Warshaped took the stage, a furious thrash metal fivepiece. I saw them about a year ago, their drummer was extremely drunk and missed the beat, which got an attendee to laugh and ask if it’s math rock. Tonight he was on point though, and so was the rest of the band and their Italian frontman pouring Jim Beam into the mouths of people in the front row. 

Scare The Children was the most awaited band of the night, Beijing-based expat guys wearing long black robes and horror movie masks. Their performance was cool, very theatrical, with music that borrowed from different extreme music genres. Then the last band was Chimera Cult, a sludgy project born from the ashes of a few laowai metal acts that disbanded recently. Another sick show. It had been a while since I saw a good proper metal gig and it felt awesome, a fun evening complete with good beer and seeing some old pals.