I can only recall memories of Chinese friends in sepia-tone. Even recent times I remember with a shaft of gray light cast over their faces, as if knowing even then that these moments were rare, semi-historical, and soon-outdated.

I recently moved from a second-tier city to Beijing (second-tier=anything but Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong; a city of only 6 million or so). I can’t say I loved it there. It was cute but uninspired, like a fun date with no chemistry. For the two obligatory years I spent there, gritting my teeth and waiting for something bigger and better to befall me, the best thing that happened to me was my Chinese friends.

True friendships are not easy to make. They are even harder to make across cultures. I’ve witnessed many expats claiming this-and-that Chinese person to be a friend, but we all know who’s the real deal and who is just an interesting culture exchange. In my first year, I too fell prey to the culture-exchange setup. I would talk with Chinese classmates, co-workers, and acquaintances about how the US and China are different, about the difficulty of learning Chinese, about why I would or would not date a Chinese man — the three most common topics. After a few months, these conversations still yielded no return. For the people I had been more candid with, I started to regret opening up too fast. For the people I had not progressed with, I wondered if they were worth the effort. For everyone, I wondered if they were actually interested in me as more than a token foreign friend.

It was not until I had been in one place for more than a year and a half that I began to consider several of these people true friends. I attended a trip to Fujian with several of my Chinese classmates. Aside from the boring museums we had to endure (Taiwan-Fujian kinship forever!), we were left to our own devices. Being a group of jittery 20-something’s on an otherwise fully academic trip, we made the best of the free time.

It was a drizzly night of seafood (which I could barely stomach), beers (which, being Chinese, were pretty weak), baijiu (rice liquor — always a certain pleasure), card games, and good-natured ball-busting. On all accounts, it was a pretty inappropriate night.

I’ve always had trouble making female Chinese friends, because the standard of female behavior in China is one I just can’t relate to. My best friends that night included Lao Dong (Old Dong), who was called that because he was 32-years-old and surnamed Dong. He wore a fanny pack, was soft-spoken, and had the crafty smile of a cat — if cats could smile. He made dirty jokes often. Yuguang was tall and handsome and athletic, interested in spirituality and revered by men and women alike for having biked across Southeast Asia. There were plenty of dirty jokes, good-natured needling, and unfulfilled dares to crash the nearby brothel. After the beers were finished and several rounds of cards exhausted, we finally parted ways. When I got back to my hotel room, the phone rang. I picked up. It was the deep, sultry voice of a young man.

“Hello?” / “Hello, would you like servicing?” / “What kind of service?” / “Heh, special service. We have men here that are both tall and handsome.” / “Not now, thanks!” / “Well when is good for you?” / “No, thank you!”

I hung up and ran to Lao Dong’s and Yuguang’s room. I knocked on the door and they let me in. “You won’t believe what just happened!” I jittered. We all had a good laugh.

The next day at the breakfast buffet, I was helping myself to something undesirable — black eggs or porridge or something — and the deep, sultry man’s voice whispered in my ear, “We have men that are tall and handsome.” I turned around and there was Lao Dong, grinning his cat-smile and nodding toward Yuguang, the tall and handsome heart-throb of my school.

**

Last week, Tom posted about “the lighter side” of China. I am as critical as they come about this country. But when I think of the most meaningful, fulfilling times I’ve had here, I think of living in that second-tier city, where the pace of life is just slow enough that you can’t help but sacrifice appearances.

I made many Chinese friends there — real friendships — but none moreso than the two guys who prank-called me. We rarely talked about politics or human rights. It just never occurred to us. We were happy and, yes, fulfilled by our friendship without that narrative. Perhaps we were all just too exhausted by it all — the human rights abuses, the political tensions, the bogus cultural exchange gag — that the thing we wanted most of all, and the only way to satisfy one another, was to give it all the finger, if not just for a few sultry Spring nights.