The setting is unusual for dinner.

The floor is made of rough concrete and dark grey water is pooling on it like molasses.

We're all lit up by the clinical, intermittent glow of two flickering fluorescent strip lights.

Two of the walls are fresh plasterboard, plump with retained moisture.

The remaining two are a battlefield of white paint scarred with exposed concrete, where fittings from a previous epoch have been carelessly ripped away.

The room has no windows, and the only ingress/egress is an 8-foot gap covered by a loading bay-style plastic curtain that does nothing to keep the chill evening wind off my neck.

I’m drained, but balance myself quite comfortably on a bright orange stool to toast the last of my bamboo wine. 干杯! Gān bēi!

I've spent the day at a true artist's bamboo carving workshop. Like my other diversions on this visit to China, it was a cultured experience, and I even came away with a personalized bamboo pendant.

The hanzi inscribed into it to sum up my personality (we'll get to that) differed hilariously from what I was initially promised.

The skirmish to settle the bill

Dinner is over.

As everybody's empty glasses descend towards the table, the mood shifts perceptibly.

The covering over the bay door rat-a-tat-tats, and the chill seems to intensify.

Money is about to be spent.

As the hands of the six other guests retract from glasses to waists, their eyes flit rapidly between one another.

I sense the subtle changes in posture around the table, muscles becoming more taut, and everybody loading themselves like springs compressed.

It's like the final scene of an old spaghetti western.

Not for the first time on this trip to China, I got heavily drunk at dinner.

In my defence, the format had been so agreeable.

Walk to the adjacent room, hand-pick whatever skewered delights took your fancy—tofu, squid, wings, livers, hearts, lamb, aubergine—then pass them to the person manning the BBQ and return to your drink while he fires them for you.

I’m snapped out of my mental fog by the table erupting around me.

Rather like the time a jilted, nunchaku-wielding ex-lover violently interrupted a hot pot I was enjoying, everybody has begun to stand, yell, flap, and point.

To my right, a young woman moves her hand towards her pocket, but is intercepted by another woman, who grips her wrist tightly and locks eyes with her, freezing her into rock like Medusa.

To my left, a husband brandishes a bottle of Chinese spirits called báijiǔ (白酒) at another man, only to be intercepted by his wife, who forms a human shield between the two men.

She has to fight for her husband's eye contact, which is torn instead between the alcohol and his friend.

I remain seated on my hilariously tiny plastic stool in my contented stupor, wondering how the evening has devolved into this, yet somehow contented by the fact that a version of this slapstick play happens after every group meal, regardless of creed or continent.

Although in China, settling the bill can be something of a contact sport.

Inside a bamboo carving workshop

Earlier that day, I’d been introduced to a local bamboo artist by the name of Dàshān (大山), who invited me into his workshop and gallery in the city of Qīngchéng mountain town (青城山镇).

He also introduced me to his wife.

She quit her job to change cities and be his apprentice, before falling in love with the man as well as his art.

While Dàshān gave me a tour of his studio, it was clear that he was an artist through and through.

He talked me through some of his favourite pieces: the species of bamboo, which forest he picked it from, how he treated the wood, how he worked it, and what the motivation and meaning were behind each piece.

Dàshān was especially adamant that his art should go to a good home.

During our time together, he shared several stories about big-city folk walking in and offering him extraordinary sums of money to decorate their penthouses with his work.

He refused their offers because he didn’t want his art going to someone who didn’t appreciate its true value, as he did.

Given that mouldy bananas have more artistic bones than me, I was surprised at how much common ground Dàshān and I found.

We had both been raised in single-parent homes, used success in sport to elevate our education, and both agreed that true success was obtained through hard work rather than raw talent or luck.

Getting my own bamboo pendant

After our tour, Dàshān said that he would like to personalise a bamboo pendant for me—perhaps with my “Chinese name.”

Knowing full well that my ego would burst if I were to be referred to as “mighty golden dragon” or something of the like, I suggested instead perhaps a short idiom or phrase which described me.

In a quick consultation with my hosts, who by this point knew the depths of my personality inside and out apparently, a unanimous decision was reached upsettingly quickly.

Inquiring about what phrase was agreeable to summarise my entire being, I was told they had chosen an excerpt from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

其疾如风

其徐如林

侵掠如火

不动如山

It means:

Let your movement be as swift as the wind,

your stillness as orderly as a forest,

your attack as fierce as fire,

and your defence as firm as a mountain.

My hosts explained that they chose this phrase as they saw me as able to adjust my temper, actions and words to suit different scenarios, and that obviously the phrase was too long, so they’d use a modern abbreviation on the pendant.

Ego overwhelmed, I graciously accepted and left Dàshān to his work, for which he required absolute focus.

A Chinese tea ceremony. 工夫茶

Dàshān’s wife ushered us to a table and performed a traditional Chinese tea ceremony, Gōngfū chá (工夫茶).

In contrast to western-style tea preparation, the leaves are steeped in near-boiling water in a small, ornate teapot for just 10–30 seconds before being distributed to guests in tiny egg-cup-sized ceramic bowls.

The leaves can be re-steeped and the tea consumed up to 10 times.

With each infusion, the leaves unfurl more and release a subtly different flavour profile, taking the tea drinker’s palate on a journey.

Performing this tea ceremony is harder than it looks and requires a lot of dexterity.

Dàshān’s wife made it look effortless while telling us all about one of their favourite side hustles—bamboo wine.

As agreeable as sitting, chatting, and drinking delicious tea was, I had to pull myself away to watch Dàshān work.

He sat on a chair with one foot on his desk, using his knee as a work surface.

A fine, traditional carving tool and a thick eyeglass were his only tools.

Sat like this in black puffer jacket, he looked to me like a woodlouse in defence mode.

Fast as a rabbit, quiet as a virgin

Eventually, Dàshān unfurled himself and presented me with my pendant.

It's stunning.

About the size of a lighter, the pendant retains the slight curve of the original cane.

The two large sides are polished perfectly smooth, while the edges display cross-sections of the bamboo's unique fibrous structure.

These ridges are straight as harp strings, and hold within them a record of every day of this extraordinary plant's life.

Checking the inscription on the reverse, I can see it has been modified to:

静如处子

动如脱兔

My Mandarin skills are basic, but I immediately recognise a character I’m not expecting and notice a distinct lack of "forest," "fire," and "mountain."

Dàshān explains that while the underlying meaning of the phrase is the same, the modern variant he has carved indelibly into the bamboo has been modified to be a little more affectionate and playful, deviating from Sun Tzu’s austere tone somewhat.

The literal translation for the phrase around my neck is now:

Quiet as a virgin,

Fast as a rabbit.

And with that, my ego shrinks to its normal size again.

It is not the first time my lack of language skills has caused me pain. At least this time it wasn't physical.

The bill is finally settled

To say thank you, we invite Dàshān and his wife to dinner.

As we do, he grabs a 5-litre jug of his prized bamboo wine to pair with our Chinese BBQ.

During the commotion over settling the bill, a guest has just reached for her wallet but is physically restrained by someone's wife.

The man wielding the bottle of báijiǔ is proffering it as a gesture of well-mannered insurance should he not be allowed to pay for the meal.

His wife is admonishing him for offering an open bottle, which is an embarrassing insult in her eyes.

Eventually, the wife of the báijiǔ-wielding man realises she is closest to the door and dashes to pay at the till in the next room while her husband blocks any pursuers.

Because my hosts have paid, not Dàshān or his wife, we end up with the remainder of his homemade bamboo wine—a very agreeable outcome indeed.

Now that terms are struck, everybody relaxes and settles back down.

Throughout the excitement, I’ve been sitting in my chair in the corner, as quiet as a virgin.