Male sexual prowess, being jobless and...tequila!

So ol’ Joe falls sideways on the bed after the most marvellous sex and sighs. His lady companion Roxanne asks him, “Do you still smoke after having sex?” Joe’s eyes twinkle and he gives Roxanne a crinkly, mischievous grin while he lies there with his arms behind his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never looked.”

Trust you got that one. If you didn’t, ask a blond. Still no? Let me spell it out. It’s comparing male sexual prowess with serious firepower. Hoo aah. (Wait till you hear my episode with free bottles of tequila given to me recently, just bear with me for a bit.)

But ol’ Joe’s smoking rifle barrel punch line reminds me of the other department of male prowess I am currently richly learning from: being almost jobless and its effect on masculine identity: Being the hunter, the bread winner. Two blogs ago, in “How do you cope with suddenly being jobless?”, I wrote about being given four days notice by a Chinese school as casually as if that information were as ho-hum and common as flies around horses’ posteriors and swishing tails. Like a fly I was just swished off. “Perhaps,” the reader might be thinking, “it is time to get away from anal gazing and look at all the opportunities”. Oh, agreed. But this time of year in China (Spring Festival is approaching) is equivalent to the Western festive season. Everyone is on holiday. The powers that be only start crying for teachers in Shanghai near the end of February.

This blog may on the surface appear introspective (what creative writing is not, to some extent?). But I think it is appropriate to blog this as many of the readers out there know what it is like to go through unemployment and it often leads to a crisis in meaning. We are just conditioned to feel so worthwhile when we work. It is a great opportunity to look at what one’s life is all about and what should matter … and what one is basing one’s identity on.

Marion, the Chook, my missus, got the sack a week or so later — same reason as given on my blog — but it really does not seem to bother her. “We seem to have enough money, we have our part-time jobs and I could use the break,” she murmured, lighting up a smoke and squinting across the kitchen to see how the roast chicken was doing.

A time for enormous reflection, this jobless thing. You don’t feel like going on holiday — at least responsible me does not — as there ain’t much money coming in. Also, I have not done that wonderful motivational tool: The Timetable. In other words, a meaning-inducing rhythm:

8am Gym

11am — 1pm Study Chinese with appropriate breaks.

Lunch. Go for a walk, perhaps.

2pm — 5pm. Write, with appropriate breaks. (I am working on a sequel to Cracking China: a memoir, other book projects, these blogs).

I never wrote down that timetable, because I knew I wouldn’t stick to it and I was right on that one. Yep, I just got the “appropriate breaks” thing spot on for two weeks! I think I just needed to get away from all those structures in which we hide and define our identities without questioning their validity.

A life of focusing on endless goals can be very artificial and strenuous sometimes. I have just mostly sat at home and listened to music (Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd coming out tops at the moment), occasionally joined the fellow ex-pats at pubs, done my part-time work and given studying Chinese and writing a break — both big parts of my identity. Studying Chinese is part of my identity? I have lived in China for five years now and would be most embarrassed if I could not at least proudly say I am at the intermediate level. My heart and head swell with pride when I chat in Chinese while foreigners, fresh off the aeroplane, listen with great respect. Or they watch me in wonder as I send off a text message in Chinese. See? “Great respect”. I need respect. So what I have done is given striving for a sense of “meaning” through pursuing “worthwhile goals” a break.

Boy, talk about no structure. Here comes that free deluge of tequila episode. As I write, just a few days ago we were all having Sunday roast lamb British style with Yorkshire puddings and Bisto gravy at one of our favourite pubs in Shanghai: Oscars. Altogether I had my roast, half of Marion’s, and both her and my puddings. Yeah, I can pig out after a few beers. It was a real breath of fresh air to get out the apartment and lave a laugh and chat with the lads, network for job opportunities.

Have you heard of angelic appearances with messages of wisdom from the Beyond? Mine came in the form of the first bottle of free Tequila Gold. Our Chinese bartender, Frank, put an entire bottle of that fine gentleman, Pepe Lopez, in front of me. “What’s this?” I asked him. He grinned. “For you. For free.”

“You joking,” I said in Chinese: Ni kai wanxiao. (See? Be impressed.)

“No. All yours.”

Now I do like a tequila or four after stuffing myself, preferably with lime, not lemon; it really is a great digestive after a gargantuan feast. But I had never been presented with a whole bottle of Mr Lopez, cousin to that other distinguished gentleman, Jose Cuervo.

“Who gave this?” I demanded. Frank ducked his head, pursed his lips and did the oriental mask of inscrutability thing. I had an unknown benefactor. Shrugging my shoulders, I proceeded with helping myself to the tequila and poured Marion a round. I announced the good news to the chaps and we shared a round or two. Slowly but surely the level of the bottle fell and I felt like ol’ Joe in that joke at the beginning of this blog, with his smoking rifle barrel; you know, solid male prowess. Hoo hah, bring me that liquid cactus. I don’t quite know where that bottle of tequila went but eventually, I kid you not, another bottle arrived, as if sliding down the rainbow of peace from heaven, in Frank’s angelic hands. Face starting to melt from the impact of a lot of liquid cactus, I stared at the fresh beautiful bottle of Pepe Lopez Gold with a curious mixture of delight and goofy bewilderment.

“Who is giving us this?” I asked the beaming Frank, who immediately froze his face and ducked his head again. Someone, somewhere in the pub, with a fat wallet, was having a good laugh. I have an idea it was one of the bar owners as tequila at retail per bottle in a Shanghai pub must be exorbitant. It is fifty RMB a tot outside of happy hour.

Man, we were sailing. I decided to record the event of angelic appearances (Frank’s beatific face arriving with gifts of liquid gold from heaven being one) by taking a photo of my face with the look of a cat who got the cream. Enjoy.

Then I proceeded to toast the whole pub, trying to spot my unknown liberator. I was now one huge smoking barrel of masculinity, giving my fellow poets Dylan Thomas and Roy Campbell a run for their money. My mind was “bee-loud” with honeyed creativity and male prowess, cheers to that mate.

The rest I don’t remember. Marion does, as she is usually more well-behaved than me. Usually. Apparently I simply walked to the pub entrance and fell out the door and could not get up again. Two Chinese bartenders carried me into a taxi. No easy task; they are slender people and I weigh 120 kilograms. When we got home I fell out the taxi. (Macho talk: My story equals my identity.) After sliding out the lift to our apartment on the 22^nd floor, I was apparently so bloody tired of falling, cursing and banging into walls that I crawled to our apartment on hands and knees, Marion giggling and coaxing me along. I vaguely remember that bit, because I still decided that I was a smoking barrel of masculinity and was associating myself with Springbok player James Small at the end of the rugby World Cup in 1995, where the Bokke won by two points. The crowds exploded and James Small was crawling along the field due to some temporary injury, pulling himself along with just his arms, if memory serves me well. Man, he brought down that giant Jonah Lomu. Hoo aah. James was in good company: Crowds up on their feet, cheering and roaring me on. Hoo aah. Vaguely I remember fantasising about the obvious similarities between me and that Bok player until the last fumes of my smoking barrel dissipated and I woke up the next morning in bed with no hangover and with the taste of raw and very prickly cactus in my mouth. Oral sex lovers of the world unite. Not. There was a mere pair of underwear between myself, decency, and our giggling maid, Tang Ying and the Chook. Marion then proceeded to tell me about my undignified behaviour. Which I nearly decided not to talk about in a blog, because, like, I have an identity, an image to maintain; I need respect and awe man. Meaning.

Sure, the episode was drunken, decadent, bacchanal, the whole nine yards. Every event presents a gift, some kind of lesson, and I loved the complete loss of structure, its limitations and I am off writing again, though I will be distancing myself from Mr Lopez for a while. Hoo aah.

I’d still love to know who my benefactor was, though.