When you are the source of a superlative comparison, it’s fair to say you know what you are doing, and it’s always amazing to watch people who are the best in the world at anything do what they do. What is the comparison I am speaking of?
One Drinks like a Sailor
Now that I have had the pleasure of plying Shekou with the crew of the Libra, a hip little corner of the Chinese megalopolis of Shenzen, the manufacturing hub of the modern Chinese Economic and Pollution Miracle, perched atop Hong Kong like Tijuana to San Diego, I will never take that comparison lightly again. Not only have I seen up close and personal what it’s like to see a Sailor drink, I also know what it’s like to haul one up a 5 story gangplank in such a state, and in some funny way, it was a pleasure.
My father was in the Navy during World War Two. He never saw combat, despite volunteering at 17 years old for the Navy only 2 months after Pearl Harbor, since he tested well for intelligence (still a wonder to all who knew him) and they sent him to learn engineering for the length of the war, but he did see sea duty around the pacific mopping up after the war as he described it, including years in the reserves doing his two weeks. He never had he distrustful edge of a cagey veteran, but he knew how to drink like a sailor. My curiosity about my father’s experience gave me an obsession with the Henry Fonda movie Mr. Roberts, a film about a supply ship stuck sequestrated from the war delivering to backwaters with a martinet captain played by James Cagney who keeps his crew from being able to recreate on shore for a whole year, and when they finally do they cut loose so wildly it becomes a night of legend and drama, for therein was a character played by Jack Lemmon named Ensign Pulver, and I knew he was the closest I was going to get to knowing what my dad was really like as a pipsqueak 109 pound 5’9″ ensign in 1945.
We all have curiosity about our fathers, and dreams of experiencing their glories, and that night in Shekou, just outside Chiwan Harbor where Deng Xaipeng opened China to the west after the travesties of the Cultural Revolution, I think I got a taste of his, and it tasted hilarious.
I had bought a copy of Mr. Roberts before my departure, and watched in enroute. About a week after I watched it, I started to feel like I was living it, as run arounds by Chinese port and customs officials kept me from going ashore in Xiamen, and only with great effort at Fuqin, and only under guard at Nahodka in the Russian Far East. I was enjoying boat life but it was hard to not be curious about these towns we visited, which in the case of Xiamin was a 10 million person monstrosity I had never heard of with a nearby whorehouse that the Filipino’s raved about, not that that was my plan, but it was starting to wear on me. The ship was plenty big, but it felt like incompetence, corruption, and xenophobia were keeping me in a big floating steel prison that night, and I wanted off. The crew caught wind of it, and told me something interesting. The captain himself said not to worry about it, the Chinese up here were just mad with ambition.. save shore time for southern China where they know commerce, have a taste of freedom, and know how to be polite. Our next stop was Chiwan Harbor, the site of the first trade with the west after the Culural Revolution, on the Pearl River delta where trade had china had been pried open 100 years before by the Portugese and English, and just a stone’s throw from Hong Kong. It will be worth the wait he said.. these people were like mad Ant’s.. curious perhaps, but not fun.
So I bided my time as we plowed south through hundreds of fishing vessels, warmer and warmer weather and a growing sense of impending arrival. The Crew’s mood was lightening… we were approaching the Pearl River Delta, the famed entrance to Canton, and the approach to Chiwan, it’s latter-day companion in history. Whereas Canton handled Opium and goods coming into China, Chiwan was it’s revenge, post Maoist china selling addictive cheap goods to the world.
I woke up early to watch us glide into the port and settle into a modern container port yet with a wind of history about it. We had spotted Hong Kong to our right coming in, our subsequent stop, and you could feel a slightly free-er spirit in the air. The second the gangplank was down, a pair of merchants hustled up to sell us wares, far from the wary hostility of Xiamen and the indifference of Fuqin. They were in business for any and all things. a selection of cheap tactical looking flashlights and gadgets were thought to be in demand by the crew, but I focused in on pirated movies, and one in particular: Captain Phillips ( literally, a pirated movie!). I thought it would be fun to watch that on a ship of exactly the same purpose, albeit about 4 times the size of the Maersk Alabama which sustained the real attack depicted in the movie. I negotiated the price down as far as I could see being fair, and hustled up to my room to kill time as the cranes swung into operation.. it was hilarious to me to watch the cranes working in the beginning scenes of the movie as the cranes outside cast shadows on the glass of my laptop screen from my window facing forward and real ones doing the work of unloading our cargo from North America and northern China. It seemed an almost perfect place to watch the film.
Eventually it was evening, Captain Phillips was saved ( USA!!) and I could feel the energy draining from the operations outside and a sense of growing mirth inside.. it was time for us to go ashore as a crew, one I now felt some membership of.. I wasn’t “The American Passenger” anymore, I had become Mr. Thomas, someone who got the jokes, knew the drills and could be counted on to not screw up the fun.
I scrambled downstairs with just Yuan and my passport, looking for the Germans. We met and they were proudly done with their work, ready to finally go ashore. I was invited along, and the entrepreneurs at the top of the Gangplank quickly arranged a ride. He drove us to the gate, where we disembarked to walk through, passports in hand, past the wary but not threatening gaze of the guards, and back into the minibus for parts unknown.. there were karst mountains and a semblance of country, but quickly the trees faded to residential towers, dozens of them, and the western outskirts of Shenzen.. finally I was in China other than alone, my third now visit to the mad but fascinating place.
With the Chinese there is always a plan, and the plan of our hosts in the cab was obviously to make more from us than a cab fare.. always more more more! but it was genial.. we were brought to a nondescript building and persuaded to “go upstairs”.. it wasn’t a whorehouse or anything excessively tawdry, but a private sailors bar, with as much character as a 1980’s interior can have.. two funny wired up bartenders with a healthy dose of irreverence for a place like China beckoned us to drink.. there was grafitti all over the walls in black ink, names of sailors from who knows how many places in what felt almost like someones living room gone wrong.. bottles and offers were flying, but the Germans wanted to stretch their legs.. it wasn’t even close to dark.. Drinking has a time but this wasn’t quite yet.. while salty dogs, they were all used to departing from and returning to the north sea ports of their own nation with rare exception.. this was the first project like this they would execute, and they were quite happy to explore instead of imbibe for a time.. Food became the mission, but we were rangy, just wanted to walk, so we careened around, towers and electric mopeds and brand new subway stations and a combination of grime and glitz that is modern china.. we made it to a portion of Hong Kong Harbor where we could almost see across to the New Territories.. Towers lined the shore and regular buildings filled in behind..
traffic rules were suggestions to the delight of the Deutsche.. China China China!! First we saw a Senor Frogs.. I was horrified and delighted all at once.. Senor Frogs is the glaring symbol of gringoization, and tourist blight in Mexico.. here it was so out of context it was nothing but funny..We came across a school with 200 kids in a cement playground exercising in Unison to horrible speaker music, chanting what seemed like patriotic slogans..an apparently upscale school at that.. despite all architectural traces of the past being gone, it was still China China China! we finally stopped for a lunch in a place with sea creatures swimming in goldfish tanks outside..food down more walking.. above the scurrying crowd appeared familiar faces.. A pack of the Romanians!
We merged without too many words.. we were a crew, 4 nations represented but a crew, literally, and we had had plenty of time to familiarize.. we had so much to look at.. they must have taken the same white van, been deposited in the same place, and made the same decision to wander the unknown streets and right into us, in a busy and major intersection.. we wandered together for a bit, but the call went up, it was now time to Drink.. I found myself wandering back to that place, that bar where the informal Shuttle could meet us, as night was falling, and as tranquil as things seemed, well, as tranquil as China can seem in a busy urban area, it was time to seek sanctuary and attend to our second priority.. WE mounted the steps back to the Gratified secret domain of the Worldly Maritime Wanderers, the lair of sailor’s privilege, and who should we bump into but the Filipinos.. the last portion of our cohort.. curiosity for Asia was not as strong as lust for drink.. how strong could it be.. they too were Asian.. this was almost home, and money was to be spent wisely, on something quick and fun, and that was whiskey.. as I came up the stairs, shots were flying down, cheers being made, and we were greeted in the same way, as expected guests, not to be a distraction to the task but a partner in it. I sat and too it in.. the boys were at it.. the Filipinos who weren’t bible quoters had revealed themselves around the table.. those who didn’t want this were likely back at the boat monitoring for thieving longshoremen and alarming gauge readings.. the real adventurers were here.. I kept waiting for things to go to another level, for women to arrive or some line to be crossed, but China is a compliant place.. you go to the line, but it wasn’t crossed.. we were flirted with, but there was no chattel here, no drugs, nothing to sully the crews and blackball the place, only alcohol and good times.. shots, screaming and laughter.. relief to be on land.. for a few, this was departure after friendships as long as a Filipino’s contract, 8 months.. a few were going home.. it was a time of celebration and separation.. We were drinking like Sailors.. it was grand.
At some point it was related to me that I had to make it back to the ship..I had to go through customs, since I didn’t possess a Seaman’s book..Hong Kong was a mile away and a world away to the millions here.. again, San Diego to this Chinese Tijuana.. I was told it wasn’t urgent, but the time was now.. The Magician was deemed in bad shape and I was to accompany him home.. it wasn’t too late, maybe 10pm, but the customs house wasn’t there for my convenience, I was here at it’s discretion, and that China, the China of Beijing, with it’s more explicit rules, was waiting in the wings with it’s hook to reassert it’self..
The Magician and I boarded the Minibus.. I don’t think I quite realized how drunk he was.. we debussed to pass through, back in and glide to a 20 foot walk back to the gangplank, me and him.. I’m now carrying him in the traditional drunk buddy way, one arm over my shoulder and feet almost dragging, up the step and onto the platform at the bottom.. he’s like a fussy River Otter.. not nasty, just out of control with libation and joy.. he wrestles loose from me, I laugh and release him, and he does something that to me will always be the symbol of that night.. the well controlled company man by day, as were all the Filipinos, he in a second had his wiener out, and proceeded to piss all over the side of our monstrous boat.. he was screaming with his hands pumping up in the air.. drooling a bit onto his pressed collared shirt, and piss flying back and forth emanating from the fly of his Jeans.. He screamed something in a combination of English and either Tagalog or his Tribal Language that essentially said “take that you piece of shit boat! yeahhhhhhhhh!!!
The “Piece of Shit Boat” part was clear.. I laughed, almost bent over.. not even afraid of him despite his ranginess..He had been a friend since the first magic tricks were displayed for me at the Boat Bar B Q our second day out… his English was almost non existent, but his eyes had told me he possessed a soul that did ponder the deepest questions of existentialism.. whether he did I doubt will even know. the boat, despite possessing the same feminine soul all boats seem to have, responded mutely to his assault on it’s monolithic sides.. it seemed to frown and ignore him, Chinese style..I offered to help him up the gangplank but he was all energy now.. I held onto both sides for the 5 story walk up just in case I had to catch him with a body check, and while pausing and swaying, he made it up on his own almost in bounds of energy, spurts of reckless lunges towards his resented home..
When I reached the top the guys diverted me off to the office at the base of the superstructure.. all that mirth would drain as I joined a Captain and Crew Chief here for training for a late night trip to customs. a sad place of industrial carpets by a ferry terminal to Hong Kong for a light night stamping.. but I was content.. it had happened.. the toasts had been made, and the boat Christened! For now and forevermore.. I will feel like a sailor too..