Félixxx en Thailande!: Good times at Fei Te Ni Si

I've started to work out in the gym located downtown Gongyi. It's a nice, modern gym with everything you need, and the only thing that seems different from your average Western fitness center is the huge Buddha on the front counter, the Yao Ming posters and the poor English translations on the machines.

It is conveniently located and I got a very good deal as I just took over the membership of one of my colleagues who is leaving China. Well, I could have had it for free, but I still gave him some dough as I would have gotten myself a membership some day anyway.

The gym is named 菲特泥斯, which is pronounced Fei Te Ni Si. Get it? Fei Te Ni Si, Fitness.

I go four times a week (or at least try to); when I go during daytime, it is damn quiet and nobody is in the place except the counter lady and myself. It is way more hectic around 8 at night, with all the regulars being there.

Of course, the Laowai Superstar Status (LSS) is fully kicking in as soon as I set foot in the place. The first time I went, I got my registration papers updated, dropped my stuff in a locker, stretched for a while and then got myself a barbell for my arm supersets. By this time, I had maybe 10 people in a close radius, surrounding myself, observing each and every of my movements. It gets annoying quickly.

Then, of course, people want to engage a conversation, despite the language barrier as large as the fucking Great Wall. They ask about my tattoos, my bike, my job, everything, sometimes three or four dudes at once! My Chinese must be becoming pretty good then, as I understand some of their questions and can even answer some of them! Among the guys from the weight room, there is one that speaks OK English, but for most of them it is limited to “hallo!” and “verrrry strong!”. It is actually quite cool to interact with different people from those at the college, and it forces me to practice my Pu Tong Hua (Mandarin Chinese).

The drawbacks: LSS is pretty cool, I mean I like being the center of attention as much as the next guy, but sometimes… it’s damn too much! I can’t even be resting in between sets without having one of my new Chinese buddies to come by me, assume that I’m doing nothing and then asking me for some random LSS shit. Asking questions I don’t understand, getting me to kick their Gong Fu pads (under copious applause), pointing me the sexy girls running on the treadmill… and of course the classic, asking their buddy to take a picture of them with me. And then, as I think I’m done and can just carry on with my other activities, they take the camera/cell phone from their buddies so they can take their turn being photographed by my side. I wonder if they show these pics at their family dinners “look, ma, this one is me with some white guy I barely know!”

By the time I’m done, I have completely lost my pump and have to start the exercise over. Goddamn!

But don’t get me wrong, I like this interaction. One of the first dudes to come to me, named Weng or something like that, after only two or three minutes of “conversation” (basically just him staring at my tattoos the whole time and muttering some chinese words), well he offered me a nice thoughtful gift in the form of a badass multitool. It has the shape and size of a business card, but is in fact a deadly stainless steel weapon of doom.