Chapter 5: A China That Keeps Changing Flavor, and a Life That Only Recently Did

Today is Christmas, and yesterday was Christmas Eve, or maybe today is Christmas Eve (I mean on American time). Tonight I went out with my parents to a party for my dad’s work. I had no choice but to go. Eating, talking about work, what the hell does any of that have to do with me? And they made me go, when it was that cold outside. I didn’t want to a hundred times over, a thousand times over, but I had to go… I drank two bottles of beer. What a load of crap. That’s how it went. I remember that last year on December 24 I stayed home and didn’t go anywhere. The year before that, on December 24, there was a party at the branch office where my dad used to work. This year, because he was transferred, it was a party for the regional branch. The place is the same, but the people have changed… China keeps changing flavor, and it keeps giving me this feeling: “The General Administration of Press and Publication recently issued a notice calling for further standardization of language in publications. The notice requires that Chinese-language publications must not casually mix in English words, letter abbreviations or other foreign words; must not coin words that are neither Chinese nor foreign and whose meaning is unclear; and must not arbitrarily add or remove letters from foreign words, reverse word order, or otherwise violate language norms.” It makes some sense, but it’s still a bullshit move. As for my life, which only recently changed flavor, I don’t know whether that flavor is sweet or bitter. I can’t taste it anymore. I know it’s changed, but I don’t know what it tastes like…