Repeating Themselves Beyond Cognition

“Two blocks north, take a left on Jiu Jiang Lu, and go past the adult toy store.  We always call it the Irish Bar.  They’ll definitely be a Shamrock.  I’ll arrive there around five thirty.  First round on me.   Timing hadn’t allowed me to do this earlier in the year with another course I taught.  And though, they’re probably all old enough to drink in China, I don’t think it’s good-form to invite the class of undergraduate students to a watering hole.  It’s a nice tradition though with the graduate students.

The two barmaids are the same gals who’ve poured the drinks here for the last few years now.  They both recognize me, and we start chatting amiably in Chinese.  One young lady reminds me that she hails from Guangdong and in the same second apologizes for the fact that she is still working here and I seem to remember a conversation from some eleven months ago where I’d chided her to push herself to consider work beyond the Irish Bar.

I ask her to let me know when the tab reaches fifteen hundred renminbi.  They don’t seem to have Murphy’s anymore, so I ask for a Guinness.  It’s on the house as I’m the last of the big spenders and as I thank her and take my jet black pint over to table of students, it occurs to me this was basically Irish pub behavior.  There isn’t much beyond the Guinness and the shamrocks that speak to Eire in this joint. Certainly it is owned by a Shanghainese kid.  There are a few other vaguely Anglo- Australian looking men at a table, who are complaining about business among themselves.  I keep an eye on them so they don’t help themselves to a drink on my behalf. 

Students are from so many remarkable places.  Next week they’ll all be somewhere else, in London or Boston or the Bay Area.  I try my best to mix it up and get some time in with everyone who made the effort to stop by, though my tendency is to want to just sit in one place and relax.  Somewhere in the distance I can make out something vaguely familiar.  Bar chords are repeating themselves beyond cognition, above the din and as I turn my attention to them I realize it is 'Gimmie Shelter', playing on their infinite classic rock loop.  They barmaid from Guangdong needs to see me and I excuse myself.  We’ve exceeded the tab, and she helps me to add up the few people left at the bar who haven’t yet been served and consider the cost. 

Sunday, 7/21/19