Day 4: Yiwu - Dinner and Drinks with Old Friends

This night felt as the most important since my arrival in China. 

I've been in a fog since I've returned each time I try to think about everything that happened, how it happened and the course of events that led me to embark to the other side of the Earth in search of something unknown other than an unrelenting urge.

Whatever Joe Pesci or the Universe was trying to tell me definitely made it's point because had I not taken this trip I could have never became the man I am today.

We take a short walk to a restaurant that's considered hot according to WeChat so in the lobby one of their friends takes the stroll with us. He's Chinese and speaks exceptionally well English and Arabic.  He's just going back and forth like a ping-pong ball with Dave and Shirley in their respective languages like it's second nature. To have the mental ability to speak 3 languages is something I think even the most brilliant admit it's no easy task to learn an additional one after hitting 20.  This guy just was so casual I'm sure people have friends that can do it also maybe with 5 languages but I'd never seen it and I consider it almost superhuman abilities!

We arrive, it's high up a newly built skyscraper. Rooftop restaurants, and ones that dangle. They love to dine in spectacular views.

This place isn't anything daring but it's so elegant, prestigious and just awesome.  They had a grand piano that sat in the center of the smaller tables of the restaurant. The bar was just off center to the center of the entire floor/restaurant and it's huge and the ceilings at least 40 feet high with all sorts of intricate artwork and masonwork it could have been confused as a church or long lost Da Vinci creation. It's not 100% open floor but damn close. It didn't even have many beams at all which considering the massive size of this skyscraper it would need a lot more so either they build shit better or have better materials to build shit with.

There's like a whole area of guys Dave's friends with including the two other guys I met the night before.  Dave's goal is to open up a furniture store for his son who's been with us the entire trip learning how to do everything just as I am. I haven't mentioned his son who's name is pronounced Who-Dup because he really never spoke much. He reminded me a lot of my sister's husband.

He was constantly glued to his smartphone. Playing Monopoly a lot.  He's turning 19 like just did or is going to by the time of this writing. He's HUGE. He's at least 6'4" 250lbs and built like a brick shit house but he's as gentle as a giant.  I saw so much of my son in him having many of those same characteristics I noticed during my time spent with and talking to his son.

This whole trip I got to live first hand like 80% of the current struggles I'm facing with my own son, life and daughter seeing it acted out right in front of you and once and awhile having the privilege to experience their stories that makes yours let you know you're not alone in the specific type of shit going on in your life as you'd think.

What that theory....If you give a single monkey a typewriter and infinite time eventually that monkey will use the typewriter and produce a word for word copy of Romeo and Juliet...eventually.....

After a couple of minutes of sitting back watching everyone chat, get up from one table and join a group of others constantly I understood what "this was."  These guys all run in the same circles. They've become friends who stay in touch and stay at the same hotels intentionally so as to possibly run into each other since they're older only a handful use WeChat for calls/texts the rest only use it for "swapping business cards" with manufacturers and producers and only because they have no other choice.

I was being brought into this circle of spontaneous travel companionship with people they've met over years of traveling all over Asia for business.  Because the Furniture Expo just ended in Shanghai their numbers are so many. It's like a learned behavior this event starts the travel to Yiwu for a yearly high school reunion.

If I had to guess I'd say everyone had at least 10 different large categories they bought/sold and within those the categories are seemingly endless.  They mostly do their own things but do often do deals together and no matter the nationality barter is the game that's played, always.

During the rotation of greetings the American friend of Shirley and Dave (I CAN'T remember his name but soon enough I'll know his pen name at least.

He is the absolute FIRST American I met in China. He's the first person I had the ability to speak freely and KNOW the other person's not going to get hung up on not knowing what I mean completely losing any focus to have a conversation of great importance.  I get the feeling he feels the same way.

We end up chatting for close to two hours.  Sure every once and awhile a buddy would come over and say hello but other than a bathroom break here and there we talked the whole time.  After about 20-25 minutes we're talking and at least a 6 solid coke and rum (since most of it was rum and Pepsi all but doesn't exist in China) he asks about when I arrived and where my first hotel was. I told him and he knew it.

Then I told him how I haven't really been able to think much about what I experienced at that church, and not because I felt moved by a God or anything but just how unsettling it's been in the back of my mind. I go into detail about it and me being me I didn't want to over do it so I kinda Cliff Notes it to him but he wanted to know more.

He asked question after question and I had no problem saying what happened or spending the time doing so Dave and Shirley could use a break from me for a night after all they've done for me through this trip.

He then tells me the following:
(I'm going to be very careful what I say because of his profession, writings and desire to remain anonymous using a pen name to publish his books due to the direct conflict they represent to another)

He is a professor at an Ivy League college here in the US. He teaches lectures on every religion as though he is a spokesperson for that religions congregation.  He loves the passion in the stories and tries to inspire that into the student he lectures to despite being completely atheist.

His "other life" is being a NYT Bestselling author that writes about religion in truth and logical answers and even questions. He told me his next book is due out in about a year (he thinks).  He tries to explain the whole process of marketing and PRESALES....it's ALL ABOUT THE PRESALES and the numbers reflect interest/profitability in specific markets and give bargaining rights for higher percentages on each sale and then which markets he should do direct publicity in at a certain schedule ALL BASED ON PRESALES!!!!

But....he said about a year.  There was a whole shit-ton more to the process but I knew it's not something I want to water down my brain with with this new world I've been living in. At least I know the name of the book and he asks me if he can use my experience in it. I'm shocked.

This guys a notable author, that studies religion on BOTH sides of the fence to the level earning him the title master teacher and is so fascinated and never heard what happened to me in all his travels which that's what he does year round is travel the world studying religion for inspiration for his books.

#i_shit_you_not

We didn't drunk during our talk just comfortable. After Dave and Shirley walked over to us and asked if we were hungry.  Always hungry but constantly burning so many calories they need to eat often. At second thought Dave told his son and Shirley to go ahead without him he wanted to make sure I got back to the hotel room OK being that I've been drinking and all...

I think it just drove Dave crazy being with his friends for so long and because he worships his sons opinion of him he couldn't drink with him able to know. They are devout Muslim. They do the whole praying however many times to the East (I think) a day to praise God and I think I've previously mentioned that Dave loves the Koran so much that he's actively working aggressively on and close to completion of knowing it word for word as I'm told by Shirley during one of our long conversations we shared.

5 minutes later he's enjoying a scotch and a beer, Budweiser of course because it's everywhere.  This time by the evenings end which it ended up being a shorter night thankfully than the evening before it was my turn to get personal and I told Dave a lot of things that I've been through recently and why I'm in China.  Shirley has listened in on much of the conversation I had with the author and had at some point relayed it to Dave who I could tell had something he was eager to discuss.

Then he flat out said "I heard about what happened at the hotel, that's some crazy shit, a church like a church-church behind that place?" "Yeah, actually it was that same morning I met you guys in the hallway. It was my first morning here and I got curious and wandered."

Then his mind was completely blown.

"Wait, that was your first day here, and that morning you came back to the hotel to find me and Shirley?"

Yeah, unless you count yesterday when I arrived somewhere near 3 and immediately hit the bed until 6 am that same morning."

Dave's like "I got goosebumps" and lifts up his arms.

He goes on to tell me that him and Shirley had a brief talk about me. She mentioned to him that someone either American or Canadian is staying next door and I looked rough I seemed friendly. Dave was just as curious as he see's North American's in China here and there but it was more he had hoped I'd be American since he was missing home.

When I rounded the corner that day and as in rough shape as I looked Dave said before I even spoke to them he had this feeling about me that he was suppose to meet me and eventually felt this overwhelming instinct to take me under his wing while I'm here for the next 2 weeks.

So much of this type of shit has happened during my time before and after China that everything that transpired there is still being "unzipped" because the information is so much more than this shitty 37 year old processor can handle.  But I do have an initial emotional reaction to him.

**On a side note later in that conversation I ask about the Koran. I've been told it's a beautiful book that should be read and is better to be read in Arabic since the translations of many important things do not transfer over to English well causing complete points to be lost.

I told him that the only thing I knew about the church is that it worships Jesus, honors the cross and had pews but no saints leading me to believe that they were either Christian or Agnostic. Then he tells me some of the Korans story that I didn't understand.

In the Koran Jesus isn't god, he's only a prophet, like Muhammad. Because after all, how or better yet why would God give birth to himself and starts hamming out valid points. He then follows this by asking if I've seen Bill Maher's rant on the subject.

He opens WeChat and plays a clip of a Bill Maher talking about it and it has Arabic at the bottom of the skit for the Arabic that cannot speak English.  Either never saw it or don't remember it but honestly, in the standpoint of valid points.  +1 for the Koran before the exam even begins!