Big Trouble in Little China

By Lloyd Nelson
July 19 2008

There is only one size of pijiu (read:beer) in China: Big.

Not that it's a bad thing, given that it's approximately 75 cents per giant bottle. But it's just as disorienting as the language disconnect and the currency exchange (which is phenomenal).

You see, as someone who enjoys a beer before, during, and after a meal, I have found myself, on occasion, drunk. Which in itself is not a bad thing. But when you have no idea where you are, no ability to communicate your confusion and need, and no understanding of what that need might actually be--well, the situation can be a bit troublesome.

But in my nearly two weeks here, I've discovered one rule: Just go with it. Drunk or sober, take the day as it comes. Because if you think any of it's going to be easy, it's not. And if you think it's going to be hard, it'll be damn near impossible. Exchanging traveler's checks at Construction Bank of China (whose sister bank is Bank of America) turned into an hour-long project which found me unable to sign my name to the checks in the exact way I signed them two weeks in an early Jersey morning. Never mind that I had my passport and several other forms of identification-- it's all in the signature.

Or a simple cab ride to WalMart that begins with American pop music ('NSYNC and the like) and ends, 20 minutes later, in a remote and completely wrong part of the city. It's easy to get frustrated. But it'll get you nowhere.

Like the famous last line of a classic Jack Nicholson movie: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."