the not so Quiet American.

The entire time that I was in China in 2001, I tried my best to be a good representative for America. I was polite and respectful of cultural differences, and only a few times did I truly descend into the classic, loud American that is the reason why so much of the world thinks we are all like that.

There are times, however, when one cannot help but be yet another belligerent tourist in a strange land, and give people the wrong ideas. This is one of those magical times.

The evening started out like most of the others, with several bottles of Steinlager and the careful selection of music to take out on my nightly skating trips. After deciding on Portishead, I grabbed my board and headed out into the night.

Everything was going smoothly, skating past ancient walls and tiny shops selling trinkets and food, until out of nowhere I was lifted up and off of my board by a taxi cab. As I flew over the hood and then the roof of the crazy fucker’s automobile, I remember thinking “I really hope to god that my beer doesn’t break!”

It did, all over the concrete. And so did my wrist, in a few places.

As my dignity sped away with the taxi, I started realizing that no amount of sitting there would alleviate the pain in my strangely crooked wrist. I picked up my skateboard and went back to where Seth was busy not getting hit by cars or breaking limbs.

“What the fuck happened to you?!” he asked me

“I don’t. Fuck! I think that. God damn mother fuckers!” I replied, in the strange poetic way of speaking that eludes all but the most severely injured. “Fucking taxi hit me and shit!”

“Maybe you should go see a doctor or something” He suggested.

“No, fuck. I’m fine!” I said, as the internet café people looked at my bleeding hand with a look of shock. “I just need to sit down.”

“No really, your hand looks pretty fucked up and you're bleeding all over the floor. At least get something for the pain”

So we hailed a cab, and somehow made it to a pharmacy. Now at the time this happened, I had a job back in Portland working at a pharmacy, so I had a pretty thorough grasp of American pharmacy laws. I was just hoping that in China they were more like the mythical Mexican drug laws where you can just waltz in and demand anything you want with no hassles.

After finding the correct section of my phrase book, I started asking them for everything from Morphine to Vicodin. They refused them all, and offered me a package of ibuprofen and a bottle of water.

“I am a young American doctor!” I screamed at them. “Hippocratic oath and all that shit!”

Seth was looking noticeably uncomfortable, and suggested that I purchase the ibuprofen and that we maybe head back to our room in the compound before the pharmacists got angry with my increasingly erratic behavior.

The last thing that I said before he physically dragged me out and into the street was “Do the words ‘Doogie Howser’ mean anything to you motherfuckers?!”