Room Service by Frank Moorhouse Read Free Book Online Page A

‘symbolic theft’ as a gesture against the rich. They will often take things they do not need from a public place; for example, you may see them trying to take a park bench home. Pay no heed.
    When doing business with Australians, Chinese should beware of the saying, ‘I’ll toss you double or nothing’.
    Beware of such Australian expressions as ‘Let’s talk about it over lunch’ (they will try to get you drunk), ‘Let’s leave the details to the accountants’, ‘Of course there is a little something in it for you’, ‘We don’t want the taxman getting his hungry little hands on any of it’, ‘I don’t think there’s any need to put that in writing’, ‘One for you, one for me and one for the family trust’, ‘I have a little off-shore company that handles those problems’, ‘Something’s come a little unstuck but it’s all under control – my MD does what I tell him’, ‘We’re in a grey area but that’s my reading of the investment guidelines – let’s give it a punt’, and ‘We’ll handle the documentation at our end if you like’.
    Never do business with an Australian who says ‘no worries’ a lot.
    That the Chinese knew so much about the Australian soul plunged Blase into deep gloom, and he and the Guide stayed in the Jing Jiang Club for two days playing billiards with the New Zealand Female Steeple-Jumping Delegation.
    From the Leader of the Delegation
    The members of the delegation feel that Francois Blase should not be a cultural delegate in future. Or, in fact, represent his country in any capacity.
    While abroad, he mopes in his room too much. Heis apathetic about scenery. He does not seem to know what to say about scenery. He sometimes refuses to look at it. He says it makes him ‘ineffably sad’.
    He does not know the words of Waltzing Matilda. He is uncertain about how much iron ore Australia produced last year. He often will not come out of his room despite efforts by the Leader of the Delegation and the Guide. He pretends to be ill.
    He refused to go into an ancient Buddhist temple built without the use of nails, ‘Because,’ he said, ‘if a Buddhist temple is going to fall, it will be me it falls on.’ Sometimes he refuses to leave the car saying that he ‘will watch from the window’. While the rest of the delegation goes inspecting, he drinks beer with the driver and listens to the car radio.
    When our hosts ask the delegation what it is they would like to see, Blase says ‘anything with blood on it’. He asks to be taken to war museums and museums of the people’s uprising, knowing full well that cultural delegations are about peace and friendship and not about how many rounds a minute the AK-47 fires.
    He spends days at a time in the Jing Jiang Club and such places with the New Zealand Female Steeple-Jumping Delegation. He does Chinese breathing exercises to the embarrassment of his hosts. He smuggles things in and out of countries using his Official Passport. Some days he asks no questions. He hums the song ‘Moon River’ to annoy the rest of the delegation. He seems morbidly interested in starvation and infant mortality.
    He embarrasses the Guide by asking all the time about what he calls ‘jig jig’. He makes long speeches at the banquets out of turn and alludes to ‘dark things of the soul’. At the performance of The Official and His Five Daughters by the all-female cast of the Hangzhou Opera Company, he went backstage and pursued the juvenile lead and persisted in inviting her back to the hotel for ‘supper’.
    In Shanghai he invited the Jolly Cooks and the Jumps From the Spring Board Performers back to the hotel after the acrobatics and we’ve heard that the Jolly Cooks did not appear the following night (the first performance they’ve missed since the troupe