The Burning Water

2 - Messing with You

Jasper Green was pretty sure he was the only non-Chinese among the twenty-some men crammed into the living room of an apartment in Dandong, a city in northeast China on the banks of the Yalu River, only a few hundred meters from North Korea. House music played in the background, under a buzz of chatter in Mandarin.

The décor was simple, and could have been at any of his friends' apartments back home in Illinois. A couple of IKEA-style futons, empty beer bottles and ashtrays. The air was hazy with cigarette smoke, reminding him that nearly one-third of the world's smokers lived in China. He could only imagine what living in Dandong was doing to his lungs, but he was young and the future was a long way away.

Jasper looked around at the crowd. One man had dyed his shoulder-length black hair shocking pink. Another had shaved his head and had multiple piercings in his ears. But most of the men looked fairly ordinary, ranging in age from what Jasper guessed as mid-twenties to one gentleman who had to be at least sixty. Several of the more muscular boys wore tight-fitting tank tops; a guy who'd have been called a bear in the States (except for his lack of body hair) wore a leather vest and chaps.

Jasper's friend Li Gan appeared out of the haze and embraced him. Gan was about average height for a Chinese man, which meant that Jasper towered over him at six-two. Jasper had to lean down to kiss his friend on the cheek. "Glad you could come!" Gan shouted over the music.

"I'm glad you invited me," Jasper shouted back.

Back home, Jasper had been eager to see the world, and had taken the opportunity to enter a six-month intensive language course in Mandarin offered in Dandong. After his course ended, Jasper had decided to stay for a while. He liked the city's atmosphere, a cosmopolitan downtown and riverfront, with countryside that reminded him of home just a few miles away. He set up his own blog about his life as a gweilo, or foreigner, in China, and had managed to sell a couple of short pieces to travel websites. He had discovered that Neusoft, the biggest software company in China, was headquartered in Dandong, and he'd pitched the idea of a company profile to every major media outlet he could find.

The international news editor at the Toronto Star had agreed to look at it on spec.

Gan was a programmer at Neusoft who had been delegated to speak to the gweilo reporter because of his proficiency in English. Jasper had worked his ass off on that piece, and been thrilled when the editor emailed his acceptance. It was a real coup when the story sold; it was the biggest outlet he'd sold to, and the best-paying.

Even better, the editor mentioned that he needed a stringer, a freelance journalist, in northern China. Would Jasper be interested?

Of course he was. Since then, using his Star clips, he had pitched a dozen stories and sold two of them, and also done some work on assignment for the Star.

"Come, get a beer," Gan said, tugging on Jasper's hand.

Gan was slim and had pale skin, which came from spending most of his time hunched over a computer either coding or playing games. Jasper followed him into the kitchen where Gan extracted a bottle of Snow Beer from a big tub of ice and bottles. The beer, made by a joint venture with Miller, was a bit too weak for his taste, but he liked the label, in shades of light and dark blue, with what looked like a rappeller making his way down a steep slope.

"How are you?" Gan asked. "Are you having sex?"

"I'm fine," Jasper said. It was a bit quieter in the kitchen so they could speak more normally. "I've been busy on an another company profile."

Jasper's interview at Neusoft had ended with Gan asking Jasper out on a date, which had led to a brief romance. Unfortunately, both men were líng hào – bottoms. Ling meant zero, a hole. A man who was yī hào was a top; the word yi meant one, and that number looked like a penis.