THE Lowly Peon

lifestyles of the rich and famous 
24 August 2008, 12:01pm

my life is fantastic.

i think i've mentioned before the girls at the 198 south milk tea place ( daisy and i call it). they make the best milk tea in the world, and a stellar egg pancake. they also make for good conversation (they speak peter-dialect) while i'm waiting for my deliciousness.

so the last few times i've gone, there've been two guys playing chinese chess. they're younger guys, maybe 20 or 25. keep in mind that this is very strange these days. people don't play here in hangzhou much at all, and 9 times out of ten, the guys that do play are about 90 years old. so this time and last, i stopped to watch.

this time, i stood and watched, and one guy (red) said "kong yifan" (my chinese name). dumbfounded, i said "i'm kong yifan!" he said, yeah, the girls at the milk tea place told me.

i'm famous!

but wait. the story gets better. they pulled up a chair for me, even though i said no a billion times. black was losing, pretty bad. down a knight, two cannons, and his rook was jammed in the corner. he looked at me and asked if i could play. i said yeah, but not well. he asked for my help. five minutes later, guess who won?! that's right! the laowai (foreigner) beat the chinese guy!

ah. i'm famous. and i can play chess. and i'm a weird-o foreigner! i love hangzhou! it feels great to be back! (though i still haven't been back to work... maybe that feeling will change tomorrow around 8...)