Bowling. One day, going around the rotary at Gŭ Lóu in a taxi, I noticed a ten-foot high duckpin standing in front of an otherwise non-descript building. Some time later, when my friend Juān and I were at a loss about what to do on a Saturday afternoon, I had just the suggestion. We had such a good time that we decided to go back again. The bowling alley, down a long flight of stairs, wouldn’t look at all out of place in the States. Its large lobby holds a vending machine, a foosball table and a front counter, behind which stands a compartmental rack holding many pairs of tired looking harlequin bowling shoes. Next to the counter, a short row of seats, on the opposite side of a plexiglass barrier from the lanes themselves, sits waiting for customers to don little white socks before exchanging their old shoes for new ones. It had been awhile since our last visit and we did not do as well this time as we had before-gutter balls aplenty. I did make one pretty good spare though, eliciting a solemn thumbs up from one of the guys in the group next to us-the only other customers in the place. He’d been doing really well; he had a beautifully smooth delivery, and his gesture was appreciated. His group had about five people in it, most of them middle-aged men, with one middle-aged woman, probably somebody’s wife. There was also a younger man in the group, wearing eyeglasses. As the evening wore on, we didn’t pay much attention to them as they loudly talked amongst themselves and boisterously cheered on those bowling. But at one point, when I was standing at the ready, ball in hand, peering down at the pins, their noise became loud enough for me to look over, not out of irritation-I’m not good enough to be irritated by noise, but out of curiosity. One of them, a pot-bellied man in a tank top undershirt who had to be in his late forties...at least, was pointing and shouting at the younger man in the group, who was staring back at him. In the States, this would, on its surface at least, appear to be a volatile situation, but in China, screaming at each other is a primary means of communication, right up there with the telephone, which everyone also screams into. I went back to what I was doing, rolled one into the gutter, and turned just in time to see the older man wave a poorly aimed right-cross that missed his target (the younger man) and then arduously try to tackle him. The whole exercise in futility ended with both men, rolling around and then coming to rest in the lane, creating a small pile of arms, legs, one angry face, and one confused one, now sans eyeglasses, as the other men began disentangling them. The woman stood back a few paces, sternly looking on, hands on hips. If they ever erect a statue commemorating the Chinese Woman, it should look like this. I can’t say how many times I’ve seen this pose in shops, street markets, and doorways, almost always directed at some unfortunate man who wishes that she would disappear as he sheepishly tries to. Oddly enough, the fight had been quieter than the argument leading up to it, with everyone taking a sort of ho-hum attitude towards it. The pot-bellied man now sat down, collecting himself but still hurling unfriendly sounding words at his opponent, who stood near the ball chute, calmly examining his retrieved glasses for damage. I rolled again and our game continued on peacefully until we heard shrill, angry screams coming from the front desk area. Looking through the plexiglass, we saw the boss lady (who was doing the screaming) frantically pulling at a heap next to the foosball table-the two men, still upset with each other, were causing another disturbance. Eventually, with the help of everyone in the place except us, they were again disentangled, the younger one sent off, trudging up the stairs, banished for the evening. Order restored, the now disheveled, pot-bellied man sat, hands on knees, grumpily explaining things to his bowling companions. We left them soon after, handing in our shoes and socks to the boss lady/referee/bouncer. As we now turned for the stairs, she very pleasantly chimed “Màn zŏu!” as the sound of pins crashing began again.