I love Philipp Inos
To confirm that my memories of Lisa and her merry band of dancing, morocca-shaking, chef-hatted Filippinos were solely the product of a great dream, I went back to the same restaurant last night, at half past eight. Even if they actually existed, which I was convinced they didn't, surely they wouldn't be back in Zhuzhou for this week's gigs, as promised.
On the street, I dodged the beggar girls, which I had also dismissed as products of my imagination, and entered the restaurant, heading upstairs. The room looked quite dark and deserted, and no "Day-O"s, or any other music, could be heard. Indeed, suspicions confirmed, I thought.
But I entered more closely, and was met by a few of the teen-age girls who work there. It was 8:30, past closing time -- welcome to Zhuzhou nightlife --and they were in their jeans and sweaters. Their eyes lit up when they saw me, and they pointed excitedly at me. I said in Chinese that no, I wasn't interested in eating, as I figured they thought I wanted feed. But they grabbed my arm and led me further into the restaurant.
There, in the dark, sat the entire merry band of Fillipinos, just done with their night's performance, eating a feast. They gathered to hug me and erupted in cheers of "Daniel, we love you!" and "We missed you!" and "Let's have a dance!" I apologized for being late, told them I was eating with Shu Jie (shoe GEE-uh) -- one of my students -- and her entire extended family. They asked me if Shu Jie is my wife. I told them no, I'm in China alone.
Instantly, they broke out the guitars and played and sang "You Are Not Alone," by Michael Jackson. During the course of the song, some of them would start beat-boxing, as others turned the song into rap, as others made farting noises to musical effect, as others bellowed, Aretha Franklin style. It was goofy, spontaneous fun, the kind known only to people who grew up in enormous families.
Indeed, Lisa, with a mere six siblings, comes from the smallest family of the bunch. "My family is a basketball team," said Luis. "Two starting fives, two coaches." "His parents believe in Family Planning," said Lisa, "BIG family planning!" Laughter followed, and Lisa said "joke-joke-joke."
And on the night went like this, joke followed by "joke-joke-joke", followed by goofy song followed by giddy laughter. At one point, I took out my just-developed photos, five rolls of the recent trip to Shanghai and Beijing with my older brother Bob, his wife Michelle, and my younger sister Patty.
First the seven Filippinos dug into the pile, each grabbing a handful. Then the Chinese teen-agers dug in, and quickly my photos were strewn all over the restaurant, amid the widespread food. The first was of my sister Patty and I riding a camel on the Great Wall.
"This is your wife!" one of the men shouted as the others gathered around excitedly. Not sure if he was referring to my sister or the camel, I nonetheless reminded him, "I'm in China alone." "But, this is your America wife," he said.
Sensing that they wouldn't stop until I had acknowledged the presence of a wife, I replied, "One of them." They laughed. I said "joke-joke-joke." They laughed again. And so every other woman who appeared in the photos -- my sister-in-law Michelle, strangers on the street, my students, acrobats in leotards -- became another of my "America wives." And the joke-joke-joke never got old-old-old.
The fun continued every night of this week, at the same restaurant. They played from 6:30 until 8 as I cha-cha-cha-ed, tangoed and limboed with Lisa and Mirna, and then we sat down to chow, sing and joke-joke-joke.
They were the most gregarious bunch of human beings I have ever encountered, another symptom, I think, of growing up poor amid a brood of brothers and sisters. Their jokes and laughter and songs would pause periodically, at which time Mirna and Lisa would point at me and scream, "EAT," stretching this itty-bitty word into two syllables and about five seconds.
"It makes us very sad if you don't eat," explained Mirna. Fair enough, except that, true to my nature, I was doing nothing but eat. And yet the commands continued.
Over the course of the week, we met Rocket, a Chinese student whose major is English, and he joined the fun. We sang a lot of Beatles songs, some John Denver, some They Might Be Giants, some Chinese songs and of course a ton of Filippino songs.
Pretty much whenever anything resembling a song lyric was uttered by anyone, they instantly broke into the song it belongs to. And so when they were about to go downstairs to change clothes, and I told them I'd wait upstairs, they sang, "Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll be right here waiting for you." And when I remarked that their workload was heavy, of course out came "Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles. In anyone else, at any other place, this habit might have been annoying, but they were such total goofballs, and such great musicians, that all I could do was join them.
To make things ever cozier, they, newsflash, like America! They have the good sense to oppose Bush and all his evil deeds and empty promises, but they remember when Macarthur saved them from the marauding Japanese army during the second World War. "We owe our independence to your military," remarked Crisanto, one of the dancing chefs. "We will never forget." And Lisa pumped her first and repeated a line that Macarthur said, "We will return," and they broke into a Filippino patriotic song, in their language, spinning off from that line.
As I travel, I just assume belligerence toward America in any foreigners I meet, so it felt like a blast of fresh air for them to praise us. They all expressed a dream to move to America, believing that it's the path to financial opportunity. All I could think was, I want to move to the Philippines, as there lies the path to personal happiness.
What felt like all-night revelry usually would end at about 10 or 10:30, at which time they'd prepare for another show -- they had to perform at 11:30 each night at a different restaurant -- and I'd split.
I rode half an hour back to the village on a minibike taxi, the State Highway for the Insane completely deserted, ghostly dark, and I'd tilt my head back for a good look at the stars, let the winter air blow through my nostrils and fall into a trance, not seeing another vehicle or light for miles and miles. A few times, this inspired me to break into a song we had sung earlier that night. And the minibike would stop suddenly, the driver mistaking "Daylight come and me want to go home" or "Everyone's your friend in New York City" for, "this is my house, please stop." How to explain? I had to muzzle myself from then on, but it was tough.
Tonight was to be our grand finale -- their last night in Zhuzhou, my last night in China. I had withheld my most cherished dance move -- the backspin -- and was planning to unveil it for tonight's show. However, Lisa, in addition to teaching me to tango and to cha-cha-cha, also infected me with gastroenteritis.
For the past two nights, she visited the water closet with the frequency of Dagwood Bumstead at the deli, and complained of a sour stomach. We always sat next to each other at dinner, and the slightest hesitation in my chopsticks' motion from dish to mouth was met with a chorus: "EAT!" "EAT!" "EAT!" And so I ate, ate, ate, out of dishes touched also by Lisa, and everyone else, and, today, the water closet has been my living room, and it's no joke-joke-joke.
