al in all

al

three's a crowd

last week was halloween and i desperately didn't want to go out. i love dancing, i like wearing scary things on the MTR, but i avert large gatherings of people, and halloween in the neighbourhood of central is exactly that. 'large gathering' to me is anything more than 2 people, i.e. a few weeks back i was meeting a friend and as i met him he surprised me with 'i actually have to meet some old work colleagues for drinks, but you're invited!' it turned out to only be 4 other people and i tried digesting the existence of everyone as best as i could, but 10 seconds in my entire mind just shut down. my friend and his colleagues took turns asking me if i was okay for the rest of the night, to which i would try and beam my smile but secretly wished i would dissolve into matter. leaving tangent, emma was over (all the way from australia!) and wanted to dance. we settled finally at 1am on a 'walk through the neighbourhood'. this happens almost immediately. happy halloween!

i got home and realised i just can't bring myself to participate in what people know as 'nightlife' (unless it involves pizza and movies and mcdeliveries and staring at full moons while wondering what it would be like to physically transform into a werewolf with a good heart who hides in woods so as to not terrorise loved ones). this isn't suppose to be a backdoor compliment but numerically i have travelled more continents then i have gone 'clubbing'. these are my experiences in chronological order.

*

there is always a precise moment in your asian existence when you realise (through an epiphany or having a racist tirade thrown at you)—white people think all asians look the same. this makes for easy id borrowing when you're in high school. my friend wanted to party and had done the work for me. the id was from a girl who enjoyed hitting me asian-gf style and pinching me on the arm and calling me names and basically bullying me. i lost the id immediately because i lose a lot of things i despise. just kidding i actually lost it, and was worried for a few minutes because this was a real id that belonged to a real girl until i remembered she was a psychopathic bully who physically inflicted pain on me every visual communications class and everything will be okay. 

when my friend found out i lost the id she was distraught we weren't going to 'go clubbing' and i breathed a sigh of relief. the next few blocks we walked has since become a blur but a stranger had overheard my friend complain about my underage-ness and lack of id, turned around and said, 'i have an id you can have.'

she was pretty. she handed me a malaysian driver's license. she was 25 years old.

'she's way better looking—'

'white people can't tell—'

'i can't drive—'

'it's an id!—'

'she's more than 8 years older than me—'

'white people can't tell!'

we realised we were arguing right in front of the girl. 'thank you so much,' my friend quipped, 'i'll try not to address any cocaine to your address,' i joked. the girl's face flickered through all 50 shades of regret and i quickly added, 'that was a joke, i don't even know what drugs look like.' i actually don't.

i ended up getting into the club and danced to every hip-hop song. human joints are not made for house music, seriously.

*

the same friend insisted we go 'asian clubbing'. i had just turned 18 and no longer needed foreign licenses to fuel peer pressure. i dressed for the occasion, no i didn't. i was in a t-shirt, shorts, combat boots. my friend burst into laughter (or maybe tears i couldn't tell under dim street lights) when she saw me. we found the line before we saw the club. to this day that memory remains of the impressionable me gasping at the sheer amount of asians collectively not doing their homework. i told my friend we were not going to line up and to my surprise she agreed. we passed the front of the door so we could have a gaze (why are so many people lining up it feels a bit 1850s gold rush) and noticed an empty 'VIP' line.

'nothing to lose,' i said as i started walking for the VIP door. actually i lost about 6 hours of my life that night.

*

i never realised this before... but this begins again with the same friend only across the equator. i picked her up from hong kong airport at 10pm, and knowing by then that one of her favourite things were going out late at night to get smashed, i suggested i sacrifice my sanity and take her to LKF. by the time we got there it was 3am. i thought the place would be kicking but i forgot to take into account that it was a monday of absolutely no significance.

pretty much everything was closed. but as though God was bored and decided to randomly place a person before us to play the butterfly effect, a typically annoying sort-of drunk expat appears, 'have you see my friend?' i tell him to leave us alone. he persists 'no, i've really lost my friend!' i keep walking and another typically annoying sort-of drunk expat appears, 'he's telling the truth! we don't know where our friend is!' before i have time to ask my friend to please ignore them another one appears and we're faced with a capella of typically annoying sort-of drunk expats looking for a friend.

'friend'.

i'm kind of 'i want to go eat mcdonald's' but my friend is already in a conversation with them. she tells me they know a bar that is open and we should follow them. i say 'i want to go eat mcdonald's' but she is already half way down the cobbled lane. i follow her a few more steps and indeed there is a bar, that looks closed.

'the owner got really drunk and he's passed out, he said we can have whatever drink we want,' one of the dudes explain.
'mcnuggetssss,' i hiss, but she is already behind the counter mixing her own drink.

at that point their missing 'friend' shows up and he is carrying an axe. just kidding he was off his face. i want to leave but my friend is being an idiot. so i stay, checking up on the owner hourly to see that he has not choked on his own vomit, and making sure nothing stupid would happen.

i think she had fun having a bar to herself. that was the last time i ever went out with her after 10pm.

*

this involves a different dance partner and is fairly recent. i thought if my friend wrote for a hong kong paper he would know a place that fitted my description of an ideal dance place without people. he didn't, but suggested we try to get into *name taken out so no triad members come after me* for laughs. i hadn't danced with a room full of sweaty asians since asian clubbing avec combat boots. funnily enough i wore doc martens again, (i only have these two pairs so it's kind of what-are-the-chances but not really as i only have five pairs of shoes all together). we didn't get rejected in our uniqlo esque attire and danced until our feet were sore a.k.a realised how old everyone around us were.

some had white beards.

white. beards.

wheards.

whut.

that is not cool.