ICE
At some point one spring, I quit school and decided to open a punk bar with Xu Liang and my boyfriend. Bands from all over China came to play at the bar in those first few months and word spread about it very quickly. It felt like an important thing was happening. I drank a lot and learned how not to take things personally.
It was over one hundred and ten degrees every day this one summer. I had moved into my boyfriend’s apartment which was down the road from the bar. My boyfriend went back to America to take a roadtrip alone cross country that summer. He would call me from time to time and talk about getting married. It seemed ludicrous.
“I’m at the Grand Canyon,” he’d say. “I love you.”
I was miserable. Every morning I would wake up at 11 and buy two iced teas from the stand on the corner. Then I would go to the huge, dingy internet café and look at pictures of American celebrities on gossip websites for two or three hours. I would try to get a seat in front of a fan. I smoked about a pack of cigarettes and yelled at anyone who hocked a loogie on the floor.