“Where’s Justin, and the Chinese girl?”
A story about New Year’s Eve in Beijing, potentially written for shits and giggles of my grandchild
Our second night in Beijing was New Year’s Eve. Not invited to any cool gatherings, we bought tickets of a considerable fee to the fanciest event we could find online — a party hosted by Atmosphere Bar, located in the 80th floor in the tallest building in Beijing called China World Tower. When we arrived, we passed a long line of super dressed up people queuing in the lounge waiting to get in last minute, took a dizzying elevator to the top floor, and found ourselves surrounded by people sitting and dining in cliques either taking selfies and photos of each other or scrolling on their phones. Meanwhile, blasting music was playing in the background so that we couldn’t even hear ourselves talking, let alone the almost non-existent humans standing and chatting. After we walked around in circles wearing a corgi hoodie and turtleneck sweater respectively trying to find a quieter spot and English-speaking-looking people we can strike a somewhat meaningful conversation with and couldn’t find either, I was about to give up and call it a night.
The highest bar in Beijing located on the 80th floor of China World Tower, Atmosphere is the beacon of style for the discerning who appreciates the finer things in life while unwinding and relaxing.
— thebeijinger.com
I mean, I’ve been to bougie parties before and occasionally enjoyed them, but this was not just bougie, it was trying so hard to be exclusive that it was shells in shells. You would imagine a bar at some 80th floor would have an amazing view, but on the contrary, the windows were sectioned, narrow and blocked by all the coffee tables where people could pay $200+ to sit at and had become unavailable to us minglers. While it was full of people, most of them were not interacting, and not present.
And then I saw Justin walking directly towards a couple both standing and holding champagne, two amongst the best dressed in the room, waved at them and started talking to them. The girl was Asian, in her late 20s or 30s, tall, with elegant makeup, coiffed blob hair, shiny earrings, and long silky nightgown, and the guy spoke with a European accent, also tall, very fit, wearing glossy black velvet suit. They looked like they came straight out of a magazine shoot for a party at this hotel. I kind of froze in my place, paralyzed by the judgmental voice in my head that we were people from different worlds until the couple turned their head towards me with Justin pointing at me and literally dragged me into their circle. Soon enough we learned that they live in Beijing and were staying in this hotel for the night as new year get-away.
I started talking to the guy while Justin talked to the girl. He turned out to be German and them two had just moved from London to Beijing months ago. “How do you like Beijing? Was moving to Asia hard?” I started with the small talk, hoping to find some common ground in hating Beijing air quality and the humongous distance between things.
“No, everything’s great. I haven’t found anything to dislike”. When I asked if they moved because of her, he replied it was actually because of him. He was looking for jobs as a professor and that landed him in Beijing. He said he knew that the girl enjoyed living in London but he’s glad that they are married so he didn’t have to worry about if she would follow him. That sounded strange. When we asked the couple what about the other that attracted them in the beginning, they couldn’t individually come up with specific answers, so they looked at each other, and repeated, “Things just clicked. It felt right.”
Later I learned from Justin that the girl grew up in Shanghai, and she hated Beijing and said she really prefer living elsewhere. She was trying to bury herself in work so that she didn’t have to face real life. Justin declared that “that couple is getting a divorce in 5 years” as if a fact. I gave him a look of “Surrrrrre”.
Then around 10 minutes before countdown time, we were soon surrounded by people wanting to get closer to the stage to see the guy on the mic hype things up with balderdash. They unanimously put their phones up recording people recording people recording. I was suffocated by this storm of recording mania and felt compelled to record a video of me doing terrible faces, which lasted for no longer than 20 seconds before Justin pulled me out of the crowd again.
We ran to the other side of the bar which was finally emptier, and in the middle of the aisle Justin stopped and kissed me in front of all the people sitting there. That was a long, wild, kiss. Feeling the heat of stares on my face fed to my desire for attention and rebellion. I opened my eyes to a shifted hue on everything, wriggled and jumped in between the forest of tables and chairs to reach a spot behind a giant sculpture next to a window that was unoccupied. Justin followed me. We watched the foggy city night view in heavy pollution. In the end, we had sex in the bathroom in front of a big mirror.
At that moment, I wasn’t driven by carnal desires, but purely a will to escape and disobey whatever social norms were expected from us. We evaded all the establishments in that venue set for us to dress up, sit down and be isolated, and found our way to the kind of engagement we prefer in life, even in this place, this culture literally the opposite from where we came from. Present, curious, creative, and playful. That’s how we show up in the world, and we could carry it anywhere. I was thrilled for what we’ve achieved and this new narrative.
“Nobody in that room had as much fun as we did.”
Justin made another declaration, with the same assurance as last time. Instead of giving him a look, I smiled.
We got back to the hostel after midnight and the expats gathering there were delighted to see us. A slim Asian guy came up to us, whom I had determined couldn’t be more gay and couldn’t be more sweet, hugged Justin and hugged me, grabbed Justin’s arm and said in the most affectionate tone,
“Justin you were gone for so long! I missed you! I couldn’t find you during the countdown and I was thinking, where’s Justin, and, uh, the Chinese girl? Where were you?”
I couldn’t help but giggle.
That was a great night.
