Big Boxer Rebellion Descendent

“I will treat you to lunch.”  My colleague had been to this part of Jinan more often than I had.  It’s like a cafeteria.  With that my expectations sank a bit.  I hopped over a cardboard box and made my way to the back of the line.  I considered the people in the queue before me and the people serving portions from behind the counter.  I imagined everyone as distant relatives of my wife; everyone somehow stereotypically “of” Shandong, “of” this border area of the former Qi kingdom. 

“I’ll have the eggplant.  What is that, bai cai?  A dish of that as well please.  Thank you.”  Up behind the woman with the white hat was a sign designating this restaurant as a distinguished eating establishment of the city of Jinan.  It must be a chain.  This isn’t he physical location that earned any such distinction.  We’re way out in the newly developed part of town.  This was sheep grazing turf thirty years ago. 

“You must try the “ba ge rou.  It’s their famous dish.”  It sounded like he was saying “eight pieces meat” but clearly different characters were in his mind.  “I’ll take a ba ge rou.  Yep.  Right there.”  It looked like a big cut of hongshao rou, Mao’s favorite.  “And throw in a lion’s head ball, if you would.  That is a shizi tou, isn’t it?   Before I ordered the rice, I looked instinctively for baozi.  “Excuse me, are those baozi or mantou?”  “Mantou.”  Local starch then over the southern stuff. 

Later we’re up on the second-floor ticket window at the Jinan West Rail Station.   “You stand in this line, I’ll stand in that line” suggests my colleague as we try to game the crowds.  The lines are each forty people deep.  We’ll be here for a while.  The men’s room sign calls to me from the back of hall.  I have a bit of diarrhea after the distinguished local lunch.  It strikes me that this would be a bit wimpy though as we’re both here fighting the good fight to get our tickets bought ASAP.  Be a good Shandong soldier, now.

Up in front of me is an older man (read peer) who has a “Maldives: Eat, Drink, Relax, Repeat.  Scorpion Dive Team” shirt on.  One presumes he like thirty million of his countrymen has visited the tropical paradise in the last few years.  Perhaps someone brought him home the shirt.  He and his wife discuss their tickets and abandon the line.  Now I am behind a number of young men.  One of them has beefy arms and he is holding a toddler, presumably his daughter in his hands.  These men are shorter than me but they are all big fellas.  I note that I ascribe to them the brushstrokes of big, Boxer Rebellion descendent Shandong stock, where as I prejudice the Maldives shirt guy as not from Shandong.  I then note that this is ridiculous.  

It gets tense as we get close, some thirty minutes later.  Now the hustling begins.  Person after person with their hard-luck story of a train leaving in five minutes try to cut the line ahead five people up ahead at the window.  My anger builds.  I imagine all the tough things I’d say in Chinese to anyone who tries to elbow in front of me when its my turn.  “You’re more important than me?  Who are you?”  New York-ish translates effortlessly into Chinese.  But before I need to embarrass myself and my civilization, my colleague reaches the window before me and gestures for my passport.  And then for cash. 

Monday, 8/07/17