Dodge This!

Well, this past Thursday night I decided to try something new. Actually, it was a series of new things for me. The first new things I tried has to do with craigslist. Since coming to Shanghai I've browsed the craigslist listings for apartments, potential roommates, the "rants and raves" section (very, very slim pickings), and checked out the personal ads (lots of creepy). But then I saw a posting for a coed dodgeball team looking for new female members. I thought to myself, well, why not? When I couldn't think of a good reason why not, I replied.



The team captain (known as Patches on the court), replied and said I was more than welcome to join in the fun on Thrusday night around 9pm. I decided to give it a whirl. The game was held at the Jian Tong School of Medicine (first med school I've visited abroad), in a gym on the third floor of a brick building. There were about 11 people there for the team (and I hear that on some nights there are quite a few more), probably 6 teams in all. I got a refresher course in the rules of dodgeball, and stepped up to the line for my first game since grade school (first game of dodgeball in another country).



The games themselves were rockin. Some of the teams looked darn good, to my inexperienced eye, and some of the balls were thrown hard enough to take paint off the walls (literally, paint plus a little bit of plaster). We played two games and won both of them -- go team! After the games the majority of the team headed over to a local dive bar (first dive bar in China, first live music in China), for beer, french fries and live music -- all of which were quite good. The band played a mixture of chinese songs and classic american rock. It was an interesting combination, but it worked out pretty well.



All in all, it was a great evening. And it seems like it could have happened anywhere. An evening of sport, followed by drinks at a bar, some music. However, it's the little touches that make it distinct: the people on the teams came from all over the world, the US, France, Nigeria, the UK, China, and more; the beer was Tsingtao; the graffiti on the walls was in Chinese characters. But fun is fun, no matter where you are.