`What?
‘Well, I don’t know what else it can be. It’s the extraordinary, easy unconcern with which a cyclist will set off directly across the path of an oncoming bus. They just miss a collision which, let’s face it, would not harm the bus very much, and though they only miss by about nine millimetres the cyclist doesn’t appear even to notice.’
‘What is there to notice? The bus missed him.’
‘But only just.’
‘But it missed him. That’s the point. I think we get alarmed by close scrapes because they’re an invasion of space as much as anything else. The Chinese don’t worry about privacy or personal space. They probably think we’re neurotic about it.’
The Friendship Store seemed like a promising place to buy condoms, but we had a certain amount of difficulty in getting the idea across. We passed from one counter to another in the large open-plan department store, which consists of many different individual booths, stalls and counters, but no one was able to help us.
We first started at the stalls which looked as if they sold medical supplies, but had no luck. By the time we had got to the stalls which sold bookends and chopsticks we knew we were on to a loser, but at least we found a young shop assistant who spoke English.
We tried to explain .to her what it was we wanted, but seemed to reach the limit of her vocabulary pretty quickly. I got out my notebook and drew a condom very carefully, including the little extra balloon on the end.
She frowned at it, but still didn’t get the idea. She brought us a wooden spoon, a candle, a sort of paper knife and, surprisingly enough, a small porcelain model of the Eiffel Tower and then at last lapsed into a posture of defeat.
Some other girls from the stall gathered round to help, but they were also defeated by our picture. At last I plucked up the bravado to perform a delicate little mime and at last the penny dropped.
‘Ah!’ the first girl said, suddenly wreathed in smiles. ‘Ah yes!’
They all beamed delightedly at us as they got the idea.
‘You do understand? l asked.
`Yes! Yes, I understand.’
‘Do you have any?
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not have.’
‘Oh.’
‘But, but, but…’
‘Yes?
‘I say you where you go, OK?
‘Thank you very much. Thank you.’
‘You go 616 Nanjing Road. OK. Have there. You ask “rubberover”. OK?
`Rubberover?
‘Rubberover. You ask. They have. OK. Have nice day.’ She giggled happily about this with her hand over her mouth.
We thanked them again, profusely, and left with much waving and smiling. The news seemed to have spread very quickly around the store, and everybody waved at us. They seemed terribly pleased to have been asked.
When we reached 616 Nanjing Road, which turned out to be another, smaller department store, and not a knocking shop as we had been half-suspecting, our pronunciation of ‘rubberover’ seemed to let us down and produce another wave of baffled incomprehension.
This time I went straight for the mime that had served us so well before, and it seemed to do the trick at once. The shop assistant, a slightly more middle-aged lady with severe hair, marched straight to a cabinet of drawers, brought us back a packet and placed it triumphantly on the counter in front of us.
Success, we thought, opened the packet and found it to contain a bubble sheet of pills.
‘Right idea,’ said Mark, with a sigh. ‘Wrong method.’
We were quickly floundering again as we tried to explain to the now slightly affronted lady that it wasn’t precisely what we were after. By this time a crowd of about fifteen onlookers had gathered round us, some of whom, I was convinced, had followed us all the way from the Friendship Store.
One of the things that you quickly discover in China, is that we are all at the zoo. If you stand still for a minute, people will gather round and stare at you. The unnerving thing is that they don’t stare intently or inquisitively, they just stand there, often right in front of you, and watch you as blankly as if you were a dogfood commercial.