LANZHOU, China - The shouts came from the banks of the Yellow River.
"Hello! Hello!"
This didn't faze me. Outside of the Beijing bubble, Chinese people are constantly hooting that English greeting at foreigners. Pity the French, who have to go through China with people under the impression that they are American.
I kept walking straight, planning to walk right by the half-dozen hooters. But then a thin man with rosy cheeks and a Bruce Lee haircut got up and took me by the arm.
"Hello!"
From up close, I could see that his rosy cheeks were caused by the same thing as his distinctive breath: beer. "Come! Sit!"
And since I had four hours to spare before I had to meet an American friend at the train station, I did. The man introduced himself as Xiao Nan (xiao, or little, is a common nickname for a younger person. An older person can be called lao something, with just means old) and said the five people gathered around the plastic table were his friends from middle school.
The crew had stacked out an area on a long promenade that runs next to the Yellow River, China's second-longest river and Lanzhou's reason for existence. In Lanzhou the river still has over a thousand miles before emptying in the Pacific, and its brown, silty waters flow very quickly here. It's not beautiful or majestic in a traditional sense, but framed from that table with steep mountains and pointed Taoist temples on the opposite bank, it formed a nice place to have a cold brew.
Xiao Nan poured a small glassful of beer into his cup and mine. We toasted and then pounded the glass. Then he repoured, and we went again. I did many shots with the group, sometimes with Xiao Nan, sometimes with another male friend. The two women in the group didn't say anything or drink, only smiling when I looked in their direction.
"How can I move to America?" Xiao Nan's friend asked me.
He knew no one in the country and had no relatives there. He works as a taxi driver and did not get admitted to college. His chances of legally getting a job in the States weren't good, but I tried to deflect the question with a procedural answer.
"First, you need a visa," I said, and then we did another round of drinks.
As the collective total of a dozen or so glasses went to my head, I felt glad that I had arrived with a day to spend myself. Wandering around as one foreigner makes it so much easier to be invited in and converse with the local population. I can't imagine Xiao Nan grabbing me and a friend hand. But as one, I wasn't threatening, and therefore was welcome onto their small turf overlooking the Yellow River.
I asked Xiao Nan about his plans for the May Holiday.
"No plan," he said. "We'll just be sitting here, drinking beer. You can come back anytime."
