I’m walking down Zhongshan Lu, the main drag through Dalian, towards downtown. I got off the bus, the same place as always, near The Bridge, an underground mall. There’s been a large police presence of late, and I counted five or six uniformed officers before I’d gone a block. I was thinking about that, and about a guy I ran into yesterday.

He was a street clown, an urchin, begging for money or attention with a few clever steps across the sidewalk. Yesterday he was a nuisance, sidestepping in front of me when I tried to get past. We did an awkward doe see doe and then I was past him with a slight nudge on his shoulder and only a minor annoyance.

He looked poor. Old slippers, Mao suit, puffy black hair and a dirty face, like a destitute Bruce Lee, a caricature of Old China lost in sparkling new Dalian.

I remember these thoughts vividly because I looked up and he was in front of me again. I was in the same place, on the Bridge across from Victory Square, a block from the office building where I had classes to teach.

He wasn’t dancing. He stopped me on the sidewalk with a hand on my shoulder. I stepped back, thinking, Not this again. We do our little dance, this time around a table, and this time not playing.

He points to something, my pocket, maybe my bag (with laptop inside, he can’t know that) maybe my camera on my belt. He motions for whatever he’s after. Are you kidding me? No. I move again. He follows.

This is getting ridiculous. He motions again. I don’t know what he’s pointing at, maybe he just wants a few RMB, but he’s getting nothing.

What the hell does he want?

He’s not moving. I step back, arms crossed, frustration on my face. I know this because, like a clown again, he imitates my posture and my expression.

Am I going to have to fight this guy? All the years of martial arts training, for this guy? I’d thought about it before. I’d been thinking of it, strangely, when I got off the bus. After our first whimsical encounter, I’d thought about how a good front kick to the sternum might have done. It would have been satisfying, especially given the lousy mood I was in then. I was in a better mood today, but not now.

Now I’m in fight-or-flight. He hasn’t made any overt threats. He hasn’t shown a weapon. He may indeed be a Bruce Lee of bums, but he’s also in my way. He’s between me and the safety of my office a block down the road. Behind me is just more downtown, and I’m not giving this guy my back.

Where are those goddamn police that have been everywhere the past few days, everywhere but here, when a cop would actually be helpful?

Our dance continues. I’m analyzing targets now. His throat is open. I’m wearing my heavy hiking boots, so kicks have to be low, stomps are best. I’m carrying my laptop bag, and it would do no good to damage that. No, a fight is not what I want. If it happens, end it quick. A finger jab to the throat, then bail. Get the hell out of there and don’t cause a scene.

A man intervenes. He’s well-dressed, probably a businessman, the epitome of New China. He tells the bum something, I don’t know what. I can’t hear and I don’t speak Chinese. He restrains the other man and waves me by. “Xie xie,” I say, still tense. A woman, also well-dressed, walked alongside me, motioning me to follow, promising safety with a look. But she was taking the underpass, and my building was only a block away.

Dalian is everything the New China wants to be: rich, cosmopolitan, attractive to foreign investors, clean and open. It’s safe, too, as far as I’ve seen. Not that I venture off the well-lighted streets in bad hours or go knocking on strangers’ doors, but I feel secure in the city. Last week I returned home to find my door unlocked (as I’d left it, accidentally) and everything untouched. It was a good feeling.

Now I have this guy in front of me, a clown or a street urchin, someone who wants what I have and seems willing to take it. I have no intention of letting him, but he wants it all the same.

Two things stick out in my mind: The look on his face, a grin that said, “C’mon, make this quick, you’re going to give me something eventually,” and the two people stepped between us and resolved it without escalation. A hundred people may have walked by while me and this clown did our stupid dance. These two stopped.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 4:02 am and is filed under the Dalian life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.