Where In The World Is Evan?

My time here in China has been quite an experience lately. The academic year is coming to an end and so most of my classes are finishing up over the next two weeks. As a result it’s left me questioning what I want to do next. Maybe I will stay in Chengdu and teach for another semester. My concern, however, is that I have made so many great friends here, most of whom are leaving soon, that if I stay behind then I’ll be constantly comparing everything to how it was before (and probably find it lacking). On the other hand I am considering traveling through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam as an alternative option to staying in China.

My lifestyle here in Chengdu is, surprisingly, somewhat reminiscent of my time in Amsterdam. As many of my friends are grappling with the same questions of what to do next, we’re all making an effort to enjoy ourselves to the absolute maximum–with a complete disregard for our health.

On Friday I climbed a holy Taoist mountain, Qingcheng Huo Shan, with J and a friend of his, Woody, who was in town for a couple of days. Afterwards we went out drinking (heavily), and didn’t get home till until 7:00 am on Saturday. I slept for a couple of hours, ate a big lunch and had a few pints of beer in the afternoon followed by smoking some pot. Later that night I was snorting lines of ketamine in the toilets of a nightclub before taking some ecstasy and dancing the night away. I returned home from the club, spent a couple of hours chilling out in a children’s playground attached to my apartment complex, then rested in bed for a hour–you couldn’t really call it sleeping. I then got up to teach ESL classes at 9:20 am that morning–another quality DVD lesson

The following night J, O and I had a bit of a party at my house… between the three of us we finished off what was left of a gram of K. I’ve never been hit so hard from any drug before, it was quite an experience. At no stage would I describe it as being fun, but it certainly was interesting. Lying on the ground, completely paralysed except for my eyes, looking out from a k-hole at the world as if I was watching a David Lynch TV show. Richard arriving home with his Chinese girlfriend to find the three of us in various states of incapacitance made it all the more amusing.

J has aptly described our lives as “… the final days of the Roman empire.” Indeed the gross excesses of hedonism and decadence certainly bear some resemblance. Although his joke about Richard being Caligula took some explaining to Dong Dong.

The last 6 weeks have undoubtedly been a wild ride, but in a strange way I’m both already regretting its immanent end and anticipating the rest and relaxation of not partying 5 or 6 days a week. Perhaps I’m just feeling a little burnt-out…