June 18th: bottle photo session and rooftop camaraderie

Day 275

When consciousness dawned, Mike and I walked to Century Mart for more water balloons, bread, bananas, and honey. In the water-fun aisle Mike also picked up a water pistol, something which made him cackle evilly. After a beer run and a liquor run to Times (tequila, cointreau, lemon Tang) we were set for the day's activities.

We ate lunch while watching "Predator," then began the process of taking all of the amassed beer, wine, and liquor bottles up to the roof for pictures. Close to 700 altogether, we lined them up, arranged them, which didn't takemuch since the majority were green Tsingtao type. The whole shebang took about 30 minutes to execute. Chen Ping, the eventual owner of the bottles and the money they would net, helped us carry some up and then said she'd take them all down in the morning.

We took photos from the ground, up in the roost that ate shuttlecocks, posed in the fray for blinking timers. We even made the empty boxes into castle form, posed in them and got video footage of Rhys moshing his way through them. Ridiculous fun four months in the making.



mine are the least impressive photos of the whole event

Erin came up and joined us for some Muslim noodles, then back to the school to fill up water balloons. She turned on "The Terminal," which I got sucked into watching, drank ghetto margaritas. They were disappointingly not up to snuff. The sour aspect was sorely missed. It just tasted flat, sweet, and not too cold, like drinking someone else's drink that was left on a railing in the sun. Bu hao.

"The Terminal" concluded, we took our position on the roof with two basins full of water bombs and waited for targets. We launched at the white stripe crossing, between trees, laughing silently excpet for Erin has not mastered the stealth laugh yet. Motorcycles would go by and we would ready ourselves, but if it was a woman we called it off saying "Green flare, green flare. Abort."

Pedestrians slowed the proceedings, and during that time we would do tequila shots. We got some good hits, especially one guy who after having two explode around him, turned around slowly and gave us another go. He never did figure where they were coming from. Eventually all the bombs were used up. Mike turned to the water gun and sprinkled people in the bike lane.

The night drew on, Rhys and Jeni went downstairs, Erin rode home. Mike, Heather, and I sat at the table finishing the tequila and reminiscing about our experience, talking about America, people we missed and how we were going to miss each other. Mike talked about how there are friends and good friends, and that we are all good friends. "I don't want this moment to end," he said, voicing what all three of us were thinking.

We embraced, the realities of the eventual deaprture of all of us in turn was not on the horizon, but already here. "You're not leaving us," I told him, "You're dusting off the welcome mat in America for us, clearing the way. We'll be there right after." And I reminded him he's going to come out to Moab.

"I'm not one of those people who drop off," I said. "Once I make a connection, it's lifelong. Wherever you are, you'll always know me, always know what's going on." We talked about how funny it would be for all of us to run into one another outside of Notre Dame cathedral further down the road, and how crazy but unsurprising it would be. The tequila vanquished, the mosquitos relentless, we headed downstairs, hugged again, turned in.

It's a lucky pain; missing someone. Some people go their whole life without caring about someone outside their own skin. We traveled half a world away, found kindred spirits in Haimen of all places. Sadness is not a bad thing, nor should it be feared for sadness is proof that happiness happened. I accept everything is transition and every new experience teaching abroad will be compared to this one, the glory days, the briefest of 9 months. As this last week winds down, I savor the squeeze on my heart, because it's the proof.