Drinking rubber ducky

Thursday February 2:

Another New Year. Spoke in broken Korean to Chinese stewardesses and ate three refused meals, all from polite strangers, all mid air. Slept a lot, bought a plastic bag and some cold medicine, threw out my toothpaste.

Smoked death-row cigarettes and read F Scott Fitzgerald in the lounge. Four men laughed at a joke I hadn’t heard in a rice field. There were women on the other wall. How many I never counted.

Everyone speaks English in Hong Kong. In the Shanghai airport I spoke to no one. Bus let me off on Nathan Road, found the hostel in accordance to locale of McDonald’s. Listened to a lot of Why? and TV On The Radio. No key to my door, but an old Chinese woman to watch guard.

Had Indian with Kitty and took the subway to Central. Bought drinks at Club Seven Eleven and drank them on a walk, looking for the gay club Prophaganda. Asked a guy with gelled hair and a tight t-shirt for directions. He didn’t know where the club was. Turned out he wasn’t gay, just European.

Saw some steps Kitty’s friend fell down and realized we were walking in the right direction. 11:20, the club’s dead, bought more drinks from the corner store and talked about people we knew in college.

12:00, club’s still empty. Two new friends knew the waiter, poured extra in our drinks. They spoke Cantonese and I realized I like life better when I can’t understand it. Two bears in the bathroom harassed some guy from Tai Pei about his saggy pants. I pulled them up for him, so he bought me a gin and tonic and introduced me to his friend who looked like Vin Diesel.

Wound up with some vaguely South American guy and a local, back in the men’s bathroom. There was no standing space left in the club by 3:00. By daybreak I was on the other side of the island, flagging down a taxi.