The Public Fight

In an SPR Coffee house in the university district of Beijing, at around 2pm on a tuesday, there is a young girl on the ground floor who has just loudly burst into tears.

She is a petite Chinese girl, sitting at a table with a Chinese boy who appears to be dumping her. Her vociferous sobs and quivering voice carry across the entirety of the busy café, but besides my American friend and me, who are thoroughly engrossed and spying from behind a curtain, no one seems to bat an eye.

The strangest thing is this boy and girl, in the midst of their intimate public display of lack of affection, are speaking almost entirely in English, only slipping in a Chinese sentence or two here and there when English fails them.

“Why-hy-hy are you do-ho-ho-ing this,” sobs the girl in English, loud enough for the entire café to hear, “after aaaaalll this time!”

“Listen,” says the boy sternly, in a slightly softer but still clearly audible voice, “I just know that you are not the right girl for me. I want to be very clear with you right now.” He pauses, then continues in a businesslike tone. “But if you think I have made the wrong decision, it is up to you to convince me of this.”

The girl bursts out in a fresh chorus of wails, while the café patrons around them continue to calmly sip coffee, impervious to the distinctive cries of the young female human in distress.

The boy’s cell phone rings, and he picks it up, speaking in rapid Chinese to the caller. He looks over at the girl, and says something in Chinese about scheduling interviews for the company. The girl, in roughly 2.8 seconds, pulls herself together and plucks the phone from the boy’s hand.

She takes a breath and answers the phone in a clear, steady voice that offers no suggestion of her current distress, schedules the necessary interviews for later that afternoon, then hangs up and resumes distress mode.

“Is this guerilla theater?” My friend, an American girl who has just arrived in Beijing, whispers to me.

I shrug, not sure what to say. I’ve never seen a display quite as bizarre or in your face as this one, but I have noticed that quarreling in public is quite common among young couples in China.

Walking down any Chinese street, you may pass by young lovebirds engaged in any one of the three stages of the Public Fight: they may be Loudly Bickering, possibly with the incorporation of an insincere fist or the shot put of a handbag, Hysterically Crying, with tears and sobs and running away from one another and chasing involved, or Making Up, sitting quietly on a step somewhere, faces red from crying, holding each other.

Although I still find this behavior somewhat bewildering, I’ve come to accept it is by no means unusual.

Perhaps it is a form of bonding in which the couple emerges stronger and more in love, as would be suggested by the plot lines of many a Chinese tv show which incorporate, or perhaps fabricated, the Hysterical Young Female or the Star Crossed Lovers driven mad by love that appears doomed by a simple misunderstanding but usually works out in the end.

In any case, by the time I have finished my cup of coffee and head for the door, today’s feature fight has brought the volume down several decibels and appears to be in the Making Up stage, or in any case, the couple are sitting quietly, more morose than a month of Wednesdays, staring into their cold cups of coffee- not speaking, but not separating either.