March 24, 2018

My parents asked me where I wanted to go when my next vacation came around. They suggested a hiking trip. I told them I didn’t have time to worry about that until I finished my thesis.

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I was hiking up a hill near the city when an acquaintance ran past me. They were training for a marathon. I asked them if they were still playing golf. They were upset that they were demoted from the green division to the pink.

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An old friend asked if I had an online alias. I told him that of course I did. “What about a Chinese alias?” he asked. I told him that I didn’t, as I wasn’t registered on any Chinese sites. He seemed disappointed. “Not even WeChat?” he asked.

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The audience was sitting around the four sides of the stage which had a screen in the middle. On the screen was a game show with an exaggerated cooking segment. However after a few minutes, people starting popping out of the screen.

The people from the screen were rolling out with large woks on wheels and our seats started to wobble around. Someone asked where the video was from which made me start looking at the captions and subtitles on the screen. I quickly spotted the Chinese characters but it took me a minute to recognize that it was in a traditional script instead of simplified. “Well it’s not mainland China”, was all I could conclude.

The front row of seats on the opposite side of the stage rocked forwards and rolled across without warning. I quickly looked down to check if there was any sign that my front row seats were also loose.

“Oh my god that’s Dave!” someone to my right shouted as they pointed to a Caucasian looking man on the stage. Apparently their friend had gone to study abroad and got roped into the game show.