Golden Monkey and Peel

Wallpaper with Chinese storks as its motif, with traditional Chinese PaKua symbols the main feature of the intricate wood carvings used as partitions for individual chambers of patrons. Candle lights illuminate the otherwise dim atmosphere and the loud chatter coming from the crowd exudes energy from the pores of drunk, happy, or make-believe happy people.

Meeting with a few close friends in the Golden Monkey for my birthday was spontaneous and didn't have a flow of events to it. Initially I dreaded going out because I had a 4 hour shift of flipping burgers and getting the oil all up my hair and skin, and when you think about it flipping burgers for four hours doesn't seem to set you in the mood for a party. It was only because someone had come to pick me up from my work place and offered to drive me around for the day. Without his strength and enthusiasm I would have sunken into the low mood of an overworked and over-lonely International student in a foreign country.

I've never been a good organiser of birthday parties. Usually I attend parties but I've never actually organised my own because the word "logistics" doesn't seem to exist in my book. Besides I'm not a whole fan of birthday cakes, presents and smiling people. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I had a birthday cake, or the last time people sang me the cheesy Happy Birthday song. My parent's stopped throwing elaborate kids parties by the time I was in primary school. I was too grown up then, for party hats and streamers, for clown masks and paper plates to pass the biscuits and cakes around.

So there was no way this party was going to be of that sort. Alcohol. Finger food. More alcohol. You get the idea.

Xiao Loong Bao on the menu, my favourite. Reminds me of my ex and the first lunch I had with him and his mother in Singapore. A few other dishes from dumplings to beef rolls and of course lots of alcohol. Alcohol from the people who bought them for me. Bourbon and Coke. Bourbon and Coke. Bourbon and Coke. It is the only drink my friends know I have an affinity for.

Bad music in The Peel doesn't dampen spirits. A whole gang of people whom I know by names and faces hiding in the shadows gyrating to the music. I've never known much about these people other than the fact that The Peel is their second home. I've never been invited out for outings, nor parties, nor events organised by them. They know me by my name and that's about as far as it goes. Dancing together under the cover of darkness and cigarette smoke, I feel all grown up now, being 20. I can no longer use the "I'm-just-a-teenager" excuse to get myself out of situations, and I have to start being responsible for my actions. I have to be prim and proper. I have to know how to distinguish a salad knife from a steak knife. I must speak in grammatical jargon and in weird tones to express my sophistification to other ancient people like myself. I have to be an adult now.

Then again fuck it, I still feel like a kid and will continue to act like one :)

I've never done a pick-up in a night club before. Perhaps, prior to yesterday there was little need to experiment in this whole different realm of getting to know "the others". I'm very shy when it comes to approaching people and I get lock-jaw syndrome when trying to regurgitate my feelings for someone I find attractive.

I'm a hopeless romantic, and noisy techno music doesn't get me into the I-need-to-know-that-person-dancing-over-there mood.

But I did manage to pick up someone, and it is amazing how I did, because I remember being slightly high at that time and unable to stand still in one spot albeit being intoxicated by trashy music and nonchalant about ugly white men who try to take a pass at me.

But that's another story for another day.

For the first time since I came to Melbourne, I felt as though I could call this city “Home”.

Happy 20th Birthday to me.