I’m not an alcoholic, but ...

by William Clifton (Australia)

A leap into the unknown China

“I would like a glass of Merlot, please,” I said to the Air China flight attendant. “Sir, we only have red or white.” “Oh, ok, red then.” Well, what were you expecting on a A$580 return fare to Beijing, I thought to myself. Red was the colour of The Party after all. So perhaps this was a test to see if I was an imperialist pig. I must have passed. They let me in, after taking my fingerprints of course, as any traveller coming into PEK would know. I wasn’t here for a holiday. I was here for work experience. That part’s pretty boring, so I’ll just tell you about how I ended up in hospital twice. And took a shit on the side of a six lane highway during rush hour. Part 1: Hospital Visit 1 I was the only Australian in a group of about 60 kids my age (I was twenty at the time). The rest were poms, Canadians and Americans. There was one Canadian whom I fell for. This girl lit up whatever room she was in. She exuded a silent call to action: “let’s party.” And we did. PlayHouse is a nightclub set along a strip of similar venues just near the Worker’s Stadium. If you’ve ever been out on the town in Beijing, you’ll understand what a unique vibe it emits. The strong smell of fish balls boiling away in a street vendor’s cauldron is punctuated by the auditory assault of a Ferrari F12 as it races a chrome Lamborghini Aventador from intersection to intersection. The polity says equality, but this is a city of extreme breadth of wealth. Anyway, PlayHouse. What a time. You’ll find it by looking for the bright white “PH” sign. It looks like the PornHub logo. You enter on the ground floor. Straight ahead is the stage, to the right is the bar. Behind the bar is a fucking supermarket. I shit you not. A supermarket. Anyway, this Canadian girl was the actuator for all of the social endeavours we undertook as a group. PH was no exception. I blame her for my hospitalisation. When it came time to leave PH, I found myself separated from the group. This was a worry. I did not have DIDI and Uber was not a thing in Beijing. My Mandarin was limited to “I’m sorry, I’m Australian” and EVERY fucking taxi wanted to rip the drunk foreigner off. I can pass as an Asian at home. I’m a halfie, but I look pretty squinty. These fuckers knew my secret though. I hopped from one cab to another, recommending strongly that I would only be interested in a ride if they used the meter, rather than charge me 200RMB up front. I’m pretty sure all that came out was, “MetER¿” in drunk chinglish as I slapped the dashboard. I staggered between several cabs before trying to cross the road. It was at this moment I went to hail what I thought was a cab coming the other way. I woke up on the ground. There was a crowd of people around me, and some lovey British kids on their year abroad had already called an ambulance. I was fine, but I had apparently leapt in front of this vehicle in good faith that it was a cab, and would stop. It didn’t. Part 2: Hospital visit 2 The Canadian and I shagged. This didn’t happen immediately though. The Beijing extravaganza introduced me to the condition of “whiskey dick”. I had never had to deal with such an ailment, so you can imagine my surprise when my boy didn’t respond when called to action. I was shook and worried sick. I went to see Dr Hans at the international hospital near Jiuxianqiao. He basically told me I was a dickhead. “Happens all ze time wis ze touriszts”. I limited myself to six long islands the following night and had rollicking sex afterwards. Let that be a lesson to you kids. Part 3: Turtleheading whilst jogging Looks like we’re out of words! If I win the competition, I will tell this story x