Badminton Bothers

Activity-based fun for Wednesday was badminton.

I met up with Shuoyou, Guanchen and Xiuli at the dormitory where we all changed out of our sports shoes and into something less comfortable.

"You have to change when you get there. It doesn't matter what you wear, and you can even just pretend to change, but they don't like you wearing shoes from outside." Guanchen warned us, as he slipped out of his trainers and into some battered leather shoes.

We went to the campus badminton hall, but we were barely through the door when a stony-faced pensioner barked at us to stop.

"Post-graduates only today."

We all paused, just long enough to make claiming to be post-graduates unconvincing. The silence was punctuated by the distant and enticing "thwack thwack" of racquet striking shuttlecock.

Guanchen went to have a sneaky peek at the hall, pretending to need the loo. The rest of us waited - glowering at S-FP and trying to look like doctorate students. Frustratingly, mere metres away, beyond a featureless wall and a set of swing-doors, battles were fought, one game, one set, one match at a time. War waged with arms of carbon fibre and artificial catgut, bullets of feather and rubber.

Guanchen came back and tried reasoning with S-FP:

"It's not even full. I used to come all the time last term. Let us in, ok?

While absolute power might corrupt absolutely, it's a curious fact of life that possessing petty power will inevitably lead to petty powertrips. S-FP was having none of it, and resorted to tried and tested tactics of being rude ("Who are you anyway? You should know the rules") before ignoring us entirely.

I shook a mental fist in his general direction and we went off to play ping pong instead.

After another comprehensive beating by pretty much everyone present, I introduced everyone to an alternate version of the game in lieu of trying to improve my own performance. Equal numbers of players stand at each end of the table, and each player runs around the table in ay clockwise direction every time they take a shot.

It was an instant 'smash' hit, attracting the stares, then giggles, and finally participation of a group of five girls at the neighbouring tables. We soon had as many as nine people playing in one game, racing and sliding round and round and playing smash after spin after drop: Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong.

Guanchen suggested rearranging the tables so we could incorporate even more players. Great idea! He grabbed an edge of one table ... which promptly collapsed, the legs from both halves of the table sprawling and the net, under tension, flinging itself a good few metres to the side.

The attendant ran in and we froze, guiltily, feeling very much like naughty school kids. The fine for damaging tables was 10RMB (67p). After we'd paid though, and while the repair guy laboured away in the background screwing the legs back on, one feisty ping pong girl argued vehemently with the attendant that the tables themselves were already defective. Suddenly, FPPG girl-handled the attendant and snatched back the money! This incurred the wrath of PPRG who jumped up and joined in the argument before throwing down his screwdriver and storming off, shouting "Forget it! I'm not fixing it then" over his shoulder as he went.

An HIT teacher who had apparently been playing in the next room came over and fixed the tables for us instead, for free. Problem solved! By then, the fight had gone out of everyone, and we went our separated ways.

A few of us went to a local Sichuanese restaurant that specialised in 水煮活鱼片 (literally "water boiled live fish pieces") which is a lot better than it sounds. 活鱼 means that the fish are alive until they're killed (which, if you think about it, applies to most things we eat) and they're kept in big tanks at the front of the store, swimming round and round a little forlornly, which proves their freshness. The 水煮 cooking method, for its part, doesn't involve much water at all, but instead it does seem to require a huge amount of oil.

One of Sichuan's characteristic flavours is 麻辣 (numbing spiciness) which is imparted by the combination of some lethal red chillis and the addictive 花椒 or "Sichuan peppercorns".

The joy lies in the contrast of textures and flavours. Little clusters of smooth garlic paste mingle with the crackle of peppercorns, while the al dente crunch of the cabbage sits nicely against the smooth creaminess of the fish. The dish was painfully hot but irresistible, and soon, sweat was pouring off my face.

A quick aside about the concept of 面子 or 'face'. Certainly the concept exists in the West, but all too often it's taken to extremes here. One example is the notion that men must be able to drink (but not necessarily hold their drink). At meals, this manifests itself as continously accepting and giving toasts in a relatively complicated system of etiquette, where draining one's cup is a much higher sign of respect than taking a mere sip. At the same time, a genetic disposition to lacking the enzyme alcoholase means many Chinese are simply unable to drink too much or too fast.

Back to the restaurant, and we'd just about finished eating when a man burst out of a 包房 (private dining room) at the back of the restaurant, steadied himself with one hand on the back of a chair, then gushed copious amounts of vomit all over himself and a sizeable corner of the restaurant. The nearest two waiters looked annoyed but resolutely blase, and one set off, wearing a resigned expression, to find a mop and bucket. The two nearest tables immediately evacuated and we followed them seconds later. The whole time there wasn't a single word of surprise or disgust from either the staff or customers! What a country! What a culture!