Lu-Hai Liang

Some might think going abroad and living somewhere strange is full of fear.

And they wouldn’t be wrong.

I spent my early to mid twenties in a polluted, giant city. And I would be lying if I said there weren’t some hard, lonely and depressing times.

But I learned things.

I grew.

I became more of myself.

I got to know people — from China obviously, and from Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Korea, Canada, and other places. I got to know Americans. Quite a number.

Some of them became friends. Some of them became friends and then became not.

Some were just people you knew, had a great time with, got drunk with — pushed together by fate and circumstance. We didn’t know what was in front of us, in the future, or the significance of what we had just left behind.

We might have had plans. We might have had ambitions. We might have had more beers.

We didn’t know what was in store, whether it was ruin or reward.

We didn’t know if it was the best decision. Or the worst mistake of our lives. We didn’t know if we were forming memories, to be remembered long afterward, or just passing through, the next day obliterating the one just gone. But there was one thing we could be sure of at least.

We really did know how to party.

To all souls about to embark on 2016, good luck and have a happy new year