I was on the rebound with a Chinese clown. My boyfriend, the son of an American diplomat, broke up with me over lunch at the only Western Sizzler in Beijing. The Chinese version of the Sizzler, much like the Chinese Pizza Hut, is considered classy, with white tablecloths, wine goblets and a steady stream of Kenny G.

That afternoon, I told my sob story to the neighborhood clown—a countryside cutie with high cheekbones and a girlish laugh who wore a green and yellow polka-dot cover-all to deliver flower bouquets on his electric blue moped.

"My old boyfriend doesn't like me,” I stuttered. My Chinese was shaky, and I didn't know the word for breakup. I improvised. “He says he doesn't want a girlfriend."

"Mei shi," the clown assured me, no problem. “I’m here. I can be your boyfriend now.” It was as easy as that.

We sat outside his flower shop on kindergarten-sized folding chairs. Chinese pop music and the cloying scent of lilies wafted through the humid night air. Two schoolgirls jumped rope on the sidewalk, and a thin man in a Mao suit cycled past, his three-wheeled cart piled high with clouds of Styrofoam.

This wasn’t a first for the clown and I to talk, but it was the first time I hadn’t felt guilty about flirting. That night, I’d accepted his invitation to sit down, and he’d magically produced two big bottles of Tsingdao beer and a package of barbecued chicken feet.

The clown set down his bottle and grabbed my hand. His fingers were thin but strong, skin weathered from a childhood harvesting cotton and corn. I felt the electrifying tingle of a new crush, followed by a hollow disappointment as he let go. "Feng shuo," he said, break hands. “Ni ming bai ma?” he asked, or literally “you bright white?”

“Wo ming bai,” I said. I understand. My hours-earlier boyfriend had never been a hand holder, and in that magical Beijing moment, I understood, clearly and brightly, that he’d already been replaced. I’d traded in a prep-schooled jokester for a countryside clown.

"I like your hat," I told the clown.

He adjusted the silk rose pinned to his green skullcap then tugged on his plastic nose. In broken English, he slurred, "Thank you…verrrry, verrry much."

At the time, I was living near the ancient Drum & Bell Tower in downtown Beijing, beside the noisy entertainment district of Houhai, a manmade lake surrounded by hundreds of concrete and plywood bars and old people’s playgrounds. Our hutong (the traditional living quarters for Beijing families) comprised a concrete maze of alleyways, populated with beer and cigarette stalls, bicycle and shoe repairmen, prostitutes fronting as hairstylists, and generations of families living in courtyard homes, hidden behind formidable, red wooden doors. Blankets, frilly pushup bras, birdcages, and strings of raw fish, set out to dry, hung from laundry lines crisscrossing the alleyways. Old people sat on the streets wearing pajamas or sleeveless undershirts, playing mahjong on makeshift tables, or fanning their mop-haired dogs. Men and women washed their hair and clothes on the street, pouring hot water from a ticking kettle into a plastic washbasin and chatting with neighbors as they scrubbed.  Read More...