Last night I found myself at Guandii between two visits to the new Babyface (yes, that’s Shanghai party jargon for you). I had a good dosage of whiskey and a sizable joint at the new CLASS Bar (opened by the the old staff at the now defunct La Disco bar – aka Eric’s favorite bar), and had suddenly felt compelled to drop 240 RMB on four Vodka + Red Bulls. This is interesting because no one else had asked me to buy these, and I don’t think anyone really wanted to drink them.
I gave one to Coco and tried to finish the other three off by myself. Around 3/4 of the way through my second glass, I suddenly felt a pain in my chest. I paused for a moment and gave it a rub, but to no avail. I didn’t feel so good anymore, and I tried to find a table for me to put the glass down.
Many thoughts rumbled through my head, but mostly I heard Chace’s old ruminations on age over and over again: “Buddy, at this point, everything’s most likely cancer.” Had my incessant binge drinking and smoke inhalation finally presented itself in the form of this seriously disturbing pressure pushing against the inside of my chest? Is this what a heart attack feels like? Wow, did I really spend 240 RMB on these drinks?!
I made a vow that I would stop going out so much, stop drinking so much, and stop eating so much oily foods stocked with MSG. I would actually USE my two gym memberships, start sleeping more than 3 hours a night, and find a wife and have a kid in case I needed a blood transfusion or to harvest an organ or two down the road. I was determined to walk the path of health; this chest pain here at Guandi was clearly a sign that I needed to mend my eyes before my body stopped taking all this abuse.
Then I let out a huge burp. *BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP*
The pain was gone. I finished my glass of vodka. Then I reached for the third one and gulped that one down, too.
Hey, it cost 80 RMB. Someone had to drink it, and that someone clearly was me.
P.S. Coco and I went to Dragon afterwards (dropped another 200 RMB for cover, *sigh*), an after-hours club that closes around 9 am. It was full of Europeans and a few Asian faces who spoke languages that were not Mandarin and not English. Then we went back to my place and chilled with the peace pipe, before I passed out at 7:30 am. Below is a picture that I took while decidedly NOT SOBER. It’s a classic Sichuan mask I filched at Chengdu, and I figure I’d post the pic so you can mull over the juxtaposition between this Chinese classicisim…and the utter doof behind the mask.
Boo for High Hu Hu
Coco’s tribute to the treasures of Sichuan province
