At The Diner On The Corner...

As I sat looking out the window in the iLost cafe in Suzhou, China, l thought to myself, “China just may have more scooters than the US has people.”

I was about go down the Google rathole of finding out just how many scooters are in China when I realized country music was playing in the cafe and had been since I walked in. I mean songs straight from the Country Music Channel. I thought that was odd but was it odder than me sitting there? I was an hour outside of Shanghai and I hadn’t seen another black person in 3 days. In fact I can count the non-chinese on one hand. Including the 3 English blokes I travelled with. The whole scene felt like a simulation created to get operatives ready for the field. Like a picture they get to see for an instant and then must tell everything that’s wrong with it...

Operative: Black guy by the window, country music playing, the cheese cake the black guy is eating, the english novels on the shelf and I think the black guy was reading “The Sayings of Confucius” but oddly enough he was writing a bunch of sayings by someone called Dwayne-Fucius...

I definitely stood out but no one came up and touched me or anything like that. They get to see black guys play in the Chinese Basketball League. Since I stand at 5’10’’ and probably could stand to lose a few no one thought I was a basketball import. I remember when I lived in Boston this one white guy would be at every black club. The Chinese people who saw me must have felt the same way I did when I saw that guy.

EVERY ONE WHO SAW ME IN SUSZHO, CHINA: Hmmn that’s odd...oh well....

I felt like I could move there, if I had enough money to sustain myself, and just cruise. Even if I didn’t learn a millimeter of Chinese. (out of respect I went metric. Obviously “ounce” still works better.)

I want to learn another language but I’m simply too good at charades to be forced into arming myself with a foreign vocabulary. I could seriously walk into a restaurant and mime a request for Chicken and Broccoli and Shrimp fried rice with no onions and get it, no problem. You’re trying to picture how but trust me I could. Next time you see me ask me to act it out for you. Or, speak to anyone who’s played “Guesstures” with me. I’ve never lost. Yes, I had a get together and play board games phase. I don’t really like to talk about it too much.

I never did google “number of scooters in China”. Excuse me I’ve got some research to do.