Tim Drinks All of the Diet Pepsi in China Becomes Infatuated with a Chinese Girl

Those who know me well know of my 12-pack-a-day Diet Pepsi habit. I don’t smoke, I drink beer now and then, but never in excessive quantities, I have no other major vices except perhaps eating too much ( a behavior that bodes ill for the waistline of this chair-bound computer programmer ). Diet Pepsi is my great addiction, one I do not put aside just because I have temporarily migrated a dozen time-zones.

So it has been a happy surprise that I have been able to buy as much diet Pepsi as I have needed…until today. Apparently I have bought every last can of PEPSI light (as my libation of choice is here named) that is to be had in Dongguan, a city of some 6.4 million thirsty Chinese. The company driver was once again sent out to secure a couple cases of diet Pepsi, expected price about 95 renminbi (say a buck and a half) and returned with a scant 31 cans—all they had left. He had searched two stores including the local Wal-Mart, a two-story warehouse thronged daily with swarming shoppers pawing at heaps of neatly piled towels, books, and bamboo mats. No more Diet Pepsi was to be found.

I drank all of the diet Pepsi at Wal-Mart!? Bu-Hau! ( Not Good!)

But the more interesting story is my infatuation with a lovely young Chinese foot-massage girl named Ying Ying. A foot massage is something of an institution here, one goes and has ones feet bathed, ones shoulders, neck, back, hands, arms, and finally, one’s feet massaged deeply, sometimes painfully, but ultimately in a caring, indulgent, relaxing way. One buys a refreshment, sits or lays back in big, soft chairs, and is tended by a pretty young girl who smiles and laughs as she talks back and forth with the other girls in the room ( usually this is a group activity – so far I have gone in groups of three and four).

After committing the foolish faux-pas of inviting myself along to a foot-massage with the company owner, I found myself staring at the inviting face of Ying Ying who I simply could not take my eyes off of. She frequently caught me staring at her, smiled and laughed, and conversation ensued with her making comments in Chinese which I could not, of course, understand in the least. Compliments and expression of interest were passed back and forth through the intermediary of the company owner ( himself Chinese ) and this resulted—to my absolute surprise—with me walking away with Ying Ying’s telephone number.

The following week, after getting another foot massage from Ying Ying ( after only, with some difficulty, securing an appointment, since I had no idea where she worked ) a date was arranged for Ying Ying and I to hike up a local mountain the following morning. This has led, since then, to three dates, with us trying to communicate with pads of paper, dictionaries, and sheer persistence.

We have played go (in Chinese pinyin Wéiqí) , she has tried to teach me some yoga-like positions (which resulted in incapacitating giggles from her as my pendulous abdomen swung unglamorously around); On one outing we navigated a seemingly endless obstacle course of street-vendors that had carpeted the sidewalk so thoroughly that we often had to walk in the street, ending up in the local Chinese bookstore where I bought an English-Chinese dictionary and she an introductory text on conversational English.

My interest in her, I am sure, is obvious to all who see us walk by. Her interest in me is perhaps no less surprising to many. Westerners are rare here, and we attract more than a few stares. On more than one occasion I have found myself looking at an attractive Chinese woman and found her staring back at me with frank interest. (And let’s be clear about this—as a middle-aged, overweight man who rarely draws such interesting looks from young attractive women back home, I know the difference between being a curiosity and being a target of interest.) China and the Chinese are comparatively poor, even in this upscale-moving, growing metropolis. They say there are fifteen-thousand factories between here and the next big city up the delta, and the life of people here is not lavish as they walk daily from company supplied apartments to company supplied meals to work in rough, dirty factories, and back again.

Any westerner here is recognized as one who is comparatively wealthy, and so we, perhaps, are seen as a way up and out of a challenging existence. Chinese all want to learn English, seeing it as a ticket to a better life. Both of these make the westerners here attractive to the local young women who have come here seeking office work. (The local town is named ChangAn and is somewhat clerical and upscale for the region, catering to the management of the various local companies.)

And so, I suspect that the 21-years young, lithesome Ying Ying is far more interested in the pragmatic and financial aspects of my personality than in my winsome smile. We have been circling each other like an unstable, binary star-system, unable yet to determine if we will fuse and produce a greater light or speed off in opposite directions.

Tonight is Monday, May 5th and I won’t seen Ying Ying again (at the earliest) until Saturday.

I leave next Monday, the 12th.