Dan the Egg

 In English 'Dan' is a nickname, usually short for Daniel if a man or Daniella if a lady. But in Chinese 'dan' or 蛋 means 'Egg'. A ginger, bearded, overweight man from Nevada Las Vegas, but apparently he was from the 'countryside' area. He was also the most popular teacher in the centre, as he seemed to 'wear' his weight well, combined with a certain American charm and humour for the students. It was easy to see how students were 'drawn' into his personality. 

Our birthdays were only two days apart, his was on February 25th and mine was on the 27th. It would be my first birthday in China, but for him, it was his third and he would turn 34 and me, 27. Since his birthday was close to the Chinese main holiday, Spring Festival, he decided to plan a two week trip to Japan and South Korea, as he said that he liked to visit at least one new country for every year of his birthday. The new country would be South Korea for him this year, bringing the total number of countries he's visited to 34, his exact same age. He seemed to think in terms of travel ambitions, which was common among the expat community. 

Andy, my manager, also took carefully planned extended diving holidays to Thailand, the Philippines, together with a few other countries on the Asian continent. He always took around two months, as he had been working for EF for eight years, so he had additional Annual Leave as part of his compensation package, though it didn't seem to be enough for him to do everything he wanted. Travelling was a 'hot topic' of conversation among expats, but not only the destination, it was also about how you got there, which airline provided the best service, and the types of activities during the holidays. 

When he returned from South Korea, I was surprised to find that he bought me a key ring with a compass on it. Only a small gift, it meant a lot and I keep it attached to my keys permanently while in the UK. Keys aren't used anymore in China, opting for fingerprints or the blue electronic key, rendering keyring surplus to requirements. 

Figure 1: Dan's keyring from South Korea

It was 'Qingming' festival, or 'tomb-sweeping' day in China, a public holiday, which Chinese spent visiting their ancestral homes, cleaning tombs and preparing to leave food at their graves. Although, originally, I thought this was a rather 'morbid' activity, there was no activity honouring the dead in the West, which explains the unkept, overgrown and forgotten graveyards that are commonplace in the UK. While Andy would be with family, and most of the Chinese staff also visiting relatives, Dan invited me to meet him in the centre and spend the day. I arrived at the centre where we spent the first ten minutes being totally indecisive as to what we wanted to do, as we had no plan. I assumed that he would have planned something, though, I think he was going on the assumption that I 'knew' what I wanted to do. After spending 10 minutes repeating 'I don't know what do you want to do?', we finally agreed on a walk around West Lake, though with his weight, I wasn't sure how far he would manage. Spending almost every weekend myself walking around it, it took me around 2 hours, but I walk fast. 

West Lake was busy, mostly with Chinese tourists visiting Hangzhou from other cities or the countryside, and it was also hot this time of year, at around 30 degrees. Dan noticed many Chinese taking pictures of us, as apparently, a 'white' couple was unusual, especially a male and female, though I really didn't notice, or mind the attention; we were living in their country and were guests. We walked around nearly half of the lake until deciding to head back and grab something to eat, which again, required another long 'whatever you want'-type conversation. I think this was because many of the Chinese restaurants were busy, and we couldn't competently navigate the menu between us, so we agreed on going to a bread cafe where we bought mostly sweet loaves of bread between us. Bread was predominantly sweet in China, filled with cream cheese, vanilla, matcha or chocolate fillings rather than salty-another of Dan's complaints. After filling up with all bread we decided to part ways and go home, and I took it as an enjoyable day with a fellow expat, who seemed to have a 'little crush'. 

This 'crush' would become more known once, after work on Saturday, while Andy was on one of his long holidays, he invited me to join him and Chris Yu to the Kerry Centre for a drink. He knew I didn't drink. But I liked the idea of the Kerry Centre, which was a newly built modern shopping mall, packed with designer shops such as Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton. The Shangri-La hotel was also located in a corner of the mall, together with a 'classy' looking brewery and venue for events such as wedding receptions. Since both Dan and Chris were going, I felt obliged to also join. Myself and Dan arrived at the hotel restaurant where Dan ordered beer, in fact several beers. Dan told me Chris would be late. I decided to order a mushroom and cheese risotto, perhaps the first 'Western style' meal in months, and Dan ordered me what he called 'milk'. It looked like milk, but I certainly didn't trust that this is what it really was-I know there was alcohol, but it seemed to taste more like an ice cream. When I grew into adulthood I just never liked the taste of alcohol, and that was the reason why I didn't drink. 

My mother said that its because I hadn't yet found 'the drink' I liked. At this time in the UK, drinking was a social norm, and was still 'a little odd' not to drink, though not unheard of. She suggested to at least order a glass of wine to just simply 'hold' and carefully sip to just look 'social'. Sometimes I would do this, sometimes I wouldn't. But it seemed that Dan had found 'my drink' and that was, when he finally told me, a White Russian cocktail or ji weijiu (鸡尾酒) in Chinese, which was a mix of vodka, cream, and coffee liqueur, very sweet, and around 600 calories per drink. But I loved it and, in fact, ordered another one. I had no idea as to the strength of the alcohol, forgetting all that PSE education about drinking safely in school, that proved useless. After two, or maybe even three White Russian cocktails, I was well and truly for the first time, 'drunk'. Dan didn't count the amount of beers he ordered, but it was close to single digits, and I stopped asking Dan about when Chris would arrive, as it was now close to midnight, and obviously wasn't coming. The bill came for around 1500RMB for the both of us, or 150 pounds, which was an expensive night out, even in the UK. 

At almost 1am, it was almost closing time, but we had gotten lost in the hotel on finding our way out of the hotel and crashed what was the aftermath of a wedding party. The maintenance guys were packing away and cleaning up. In the middle of the stage we saw a makeshift 'pond', which we decided to start dancing in, with our clothes on and feet wet, while listening to music from Dan's phones, and the guys packaging away turning a blind eye. After failing to draw any attention from the workmen, Dan asked the guys for a cigarette, which he successfully managed to 'bum' off of him. Moving away from the stage we continued to find our way out when we came across a grand piano which we decided to start playing, very poorly, and that's when we attracted the attention of a member of staff notifying us that the restaurant was closing and we had to leave. We successfully found the exit on the third attempt, after using the bathroom, Dan suggested that we leave and go home. 

Making our way to the main road, Dan ordered to Didi (taxi). To my confusion and shock, he opened his hoddy to reveal a one foot tall red British telephone box. It took me a while to process that he had managed to steal a miniature-sized red telephone box from a bathroom in the Shangri-La hotel. I remembered thinking 'I will never be able to go back there'. While waiting for the taxi to arrive he gave it to me as a 'gift'.....I was still totally confused as to how he managed to steal and hide it, or actually where he got it. Once the taxi arrived, it started raining, as we shared a crazy kiss, tongues just before he got into his taxi and we parted ways. 

It was Dan's day off the next day, while I had to go to work, looking worse for wear. The Chinese staff thought that something was 'wrong', as my energy and mood was low. I asked Chris where he was the other night and mentioned that he never turned up at the Kerry Centre, and replied "I didn't know....I wasn't invited'. That's when I felt really stupid. Dan had planned the whole event, or was it a 'date'? I'm not sure. It confirmed my suspicions that Dan had a crush. 

When I saw Dan a few days later he said, though not sure if I really believe him, that he 'can't remember' what happened the other night and that woke up with his feet wet and a wrench in his hoddy. Where did he find a wrench? and why did he also steal that too? The only place he would have found a wrench was when the maintenance guys were packing away, and needed various tools to take down the fixtures, which is when he must have picked it up. 

He was shocked when I told him I was 27, he thought I was older, as he was 34. I had never really received such attention, being a shy student at University for most of my adult years so far. The atmosphere was also slightly awkward, but I think I made it that way. 

In the three years Dan had been in China he had never returned to the US and expected people to visit him. He complained a lot in the office about the inability to drink the water, the lack of a dryer for clothes, and food that he wasn't able to find. He occasionally voiced complaints while in the office, and revealed that his hopes of returning to America were his priority. When he announced that he was returning home in April permanently, I understood the reason why I was originally advised to find 'local' friends during my training in Shanghai. 

This was my first negative experience of expats in China, but also a reminder of the impermanence and fluidity of life in here. People, especially expats, would 'come and go', some here for one year, some longer, if lucky, but I arrived at the general assumption is is that they would eventually leave. Chinese people were also reluctant to make friends with expats as they also knew such friends would leave too, and so kept their distance. I identified patterns as to when expats would leave, they would normally spend in China with around 2 years or three years the average, and if they didn't leave then, they would stay for five years, and then eight years, with few expats leaving at their sixth and seventh years, and others staying for longer to as much as 10 years, sometimes 15, and occasionally 20. 'How long have you been here?' was one of the most common questions to ask an expat upon first meeting, with other 'time-based' questions being 'How long do you think you'll stay here?', as the follow-up question. It was always a given, that expats wouldn't be here to retire and assumed they would eventually leave. The conversation almost sounded like it was a serving a prison sentence 'how many years' until you get out. 

I had never considered the question myself. I gasped in shock when someone suggested they had been living in China for longer than two, and couldn't imagine my life here beyond that. Andy's eight years was inconceivable to me, despite the fact that I still hadn't had a conversation with my family in months, and I had taken to life in Hangzhou naturally, and unexpectedly, too occupied and too excited to be caught up in the adventure of China, I never fully considered staying or leaving. 

I was sad about Dan leaving, as I felt my 'security' blanket leaving. Andy had been here so long and spoke Chinese, he practically was Chinese, while Chris Yu was also a native to Hangzhou, making Dan my friend that was closest to Western 'normality'. He couldn't picture spending more of his life in China, having ambitions to start a career working for the US government or the military, and wanted to settle down. Despite Andy trying to convince him, he wanted to leave and submitted his resignation. 

Upon leaving, Andy gave me a gift, from Dan, that was a large bottle of bailey's. It was the first bottle of anything I had received, and I loved it, learning to drink it straight and learnt that it was great with coffee too. Thanks to Dan, I found both my cocktail and my 'bottle'. Indeed, I had an alcoholic sweet tooth.