Drugged-up Californians, and a sudden epitany

(AKA, china prt 1.2)

Location; The Hostel Bar. Opposite Beijing Zahn (Railway Station), in the City Centre Youth Hostel.

Time; Approx 11pm. It was the holidays though, so i was waking between 5PM and 8AM, which meant 11PM was mid-morning.

Characters; Me, Brock Fettes, an 18-year-old English Teacher/Travel Writer, John Something, a 40ish novelist, who was a bit depressed after a girl he had become close to moved out of Beijing. A natural occurance when living in a hostel, but upsetting nonetheless.
Tomtom. That is, two boys called Tom (both 18) travelling the world together. Friends of mine (as was everyone in the bar at the time).
Other Random Hostellers, including a group of 4, two girls, two guys, who... wernt particularly expirienced in life, if you know what i mean.
Leo, the hostel DJ and very good friend to me. A crazy, much-tatooed 19-year-old musician.

And, of course, the drugged-up Californain, whose name i later discovered was Harman.


So, i arrived at bar after waking, showering, having some breakfast and sorting out some random shit. It is about 10 or 11. The bar is quite busy, loads of people milling and chilling and drinking beer and Baijo. Leo is playing some Hip-Hop, or some other such modern shite that i never bother to put in a genre. Decent 'beat' though, for what little thats worth.
I join Tomtom, Mistery-man and Tom and Mik at our little area that we take over every day and we get down to some serious drinking.
Was a fairly normall night, for the start. A good atmosphere. There was one drunk Californian geezer in the background who would occasionally shout some lyrics really loudly and start dancing a bit crazily, but it was rare and easily ignorable.
The night wore on, Tom and Mik left at around 1AM and Mistery-man went to bed soon after. I was at the bar chatting to John, cheering him up and all that sort of jazz, and had moved onto glasses of triple-Bailys, to sooth my way into drunkeness.
I saw the californain out of the corner of my eye talking some shit to the shorter member of Tomtom, but thought little of it - they can handle themselves.
Later, still chatting, i saw the guy go over to the table of 4 and heard something of an argument happening, and around then i started paying attention. It was about 2AM now, and John had been sucssessfuly mollified. We started to discuss the gu y, who was dancing crazily and staring at things that wernt there. Had a little debate over what he was on - not Extacy, becasue he had none of the major side-effects, not coke, not heroin, etc.
Eventually we decided it was either Ketamine, or some hallucinagen. Not good stuff.
I decided to try my luck speaking to him, so i went over with a big smile on my face and put an arm round his shoulder and chatted away. Thankfully he saw me as a friend and was okay, but he was having none of my probing after which drugs he was on. Refused to say his name as well, but at least he was a little pacified.
I sat him down on the sofa and went back to John.
Straight after i left him he went back to what he was like before, going around the bar threatening people. Eventually he chose the group next to me to threaten, so i thought i had better do somethng. They were chinese, and he kept saying he was going to kill them, and that his people would sort the mout and all that sort of shit. I put an arm round his shoulders and steered him away, chatting friendlily, and explaining to him that these were good people. He kept telling me that he loved me and i said "I know you love me man. What i want is for you too love them." pointing at the group of chinese. He looked at me with eyes brimming with tears and said "I do man. I love them."

I left him alone again. 5 minutes later i heard some shouting from the table of four, and the two girls were standing up and it looked like he was going to hit one of them.
Again, i took him away, again i calmed him, and this time i even convinced him to go and apologize.
This was the first time at which i felt sorry for the guy. The conversation whent like this;
"Look, im really sorry for what i said. It wasnt nice, and if you want to punch me in the eye, i want you to p-unch me in the eye."
"I want to stub my fag out in your eye, knobend. Can i do that?"
"Yeah, yeah. You can. Im really sorry."
"Okay dickhead. Can you fuck off now?"
...
I dragged him away quick, with him whispering how he hates all women and he wanted to kill him in my ear. I told him i agreed for once. They were out of order.
That told me the first interesting thing of the evening; that it is wholly, irrevocably true that other people treat you like you treat them. I treated him pleasantly, friendlily, and openly. He reciprocted.
The other people in the bar felt uncomfortable around him, because of his wild singing and dancing, and they were rude to him. He returned it with interest. So much interest, in fact, that it made him look like the bad guy.

And the main proof of this was... well, later in the evening he went back to try and fight the chinese group. I stopped him, but when i took him away he was telling me how much he totally hates the chinese. Not just these people; this was pure racism, in its most ignorant form.I said to him, "Man, this iws not really a great countrie to be in if you hate the chinese. To be honest, it would probably be better if you went back to california, and hated them there if you really feel that strongly."
And then he told me something which made me realsie how much of a hell he really was in;
"Ive got a degree in Chinese. This is the only place in the world i can get a job. I hate them so much."
But, back to the point, even though he really did hate the chinese, Loe proved how true it is that people treat people like they themselves are treated; at one point the californian shouted "I FUCKING HATE THE CHINESE" and Leo, who had been doing a similar thing to me - being nice to the guy, despite his dickery - came over and smiled and said "Do you hate me?" and the Californain said "No man. Of course i dont hate you. Your my brother."

That, i think, proves it. Leo is a great guy, and because he is nice to people, he can even make racists like him. Good man.

So yeah, the night wore on like this, becoming more and more weary in its swings (he would turn from being our best friends (me and Leo and Tomtom) and content with just sitting with us and talking... relativly normally, to wanting to go off and kill some chinese people, or some women (that was how i found out his name, incidently. He was going on about how much better men are than women, and started saying "Har-MAN. Har-MAN. Thats my name. MAN. Har-MAN."). Occasionally he got so worked up that a mere arm-around-the-shoulder-and-a-steer-away wasnt enough, and i had to physically hold him down.

But yeah, in that manner the night wore on till it reached 6AM or so and he vanished. I was content with telling myself that he had probably gone to bed, so started saying goodnight to everyone, had a last Bailys, and started to leave. Just as i got to the door of the bar, in walked the Californian, followed by three security guards, and a manager of the hostel. They stood in the door and started talking to him in Chinese, so i asked what was the problem. They said he had broken a door. I tried to talk to him, but he... he was beyond my help. He was so close to tears that he clearly couldnt talk or he would have started crying. He had that look of "leave me alone" on his face, and he wasnt acepting help from anyone. He was ruined, fucked up, and had at last done something stupid enough to get himself in trouble.

And so, like the gallant cock-sucker that i am, i walked away. Down to the internet cafe to drown my guilt in games.

I dont know if i could have done anything, but i still think i should have tried. I spent the whole night saving him from himself, only to abandon him at the finall fuck-up. And i felt like a cunt for it. I would rather i had just ignored him all night than what i did; falsly befriending him, but not caring enought to help him all the way.

And it was then that i realised something about myself. Something i hate, more than anything else; i love the glorie you get from the self-sacrifice in wasting your evening making everyone elses evening better. The next day, people asked me why i was willing to throw away a night babysitting a drugged-up fuckwit, and the truth is because i enjoyed it. Its so pathetic and narccisistic, so egotistical, so glorifying, but i love it when i help people like that. And not for any altruistic reasons, but simply because it makes me look like a good person. And thats what it comes down to - everything i do is just another way of making me look good. I just hate the fact that i am so pathetically dependant on the opinions of others that i am willing to do pretty much anything to make them like me. I hate the fact that i can never really be altruistic, that every generous act i do is just another way of glorifying myself. Its truley sickening.
Man, i hate humantiy sometimes.