Eric's Beijing Diary

Sitting here in the Lush, absorbing the mindlessness of the place. I generally don't like bars, but this place has pretty good food, and this week they have a late dinner special going, so I decided to stop by. During the day, this place is quite a bit less frenzied, and, as I said, the food is good. Techically, it is open 24 hours, but if you get here too early in the morning, the drunks from the night before are still waking up, and it can be a little rowdy. But, as I said, the food is very good here, so I often come here for late breakfast or lunch. But after six in the evening they darken the place up and make it a bar. I don't care for bars. I have never been able to study in a bar. Don't get me wrong--I've never been kicked out of a bar for studying, which is more than I can say for restaurants. The people, both customers and bar tenders are always pretty nice. It's just that bars are so loud it's hard to concentrate. Tonight they are playing one of those quiz games you often see in bars. You know, just something to keep people buying more drinks. The guy is asking a bunch of trivia questions. He just asked, "Who is the current prime minister of Japan." I don't know how to tell this guy that Japan has no prime minister. Abe just resigned. Not sure where this guy has been the past few days--maybe he made up the questions a week ago. Dangerous thing to do when you are dealing with current events. I would say something, but I'm not playing the game. I just came here to get the free mud pie. It's actually pretty good, but you better not eat this every day. I couldn't guess what it was, so I couldn't resist coming here to find out. Curiosity killed the cat, and it's almost killing me. Rich chocolate ice cream and Oreo cookies. Death by chocolate. You really need a stiff cup of coffee to neutralize the callories.

Anyway, as I was saying, I don't like bars. It isn't the people. Most of the folks you meet in bars are pretty nice. Here in Wudaokou, they are mostly kids from various Western countries studying at one of the nearby Universities. I wandered in here one night about a year ago because I got caught in a torrential downpour, and I didn't want to ride home on my bike until the rain let up a little. A Canadian kid took one look at me, reached into his bucket, and handed me a beer. Just now the guy at the next table handed me his mud pie when he saw that I didn't have one. He knew that I had ordered before him. As I said, these are pretty nice kids. But drinking the night away just seems like such a waste of time. I don't know, they would probably think my life is too boring. Solomon said, "of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."