Play the Game of Life
Ryan Petersen's Blog

Raymond may not actually sleep in that Hong Kong 7-11, but in my mind he will reside there forever, drunk off his rocker and infecting the other patrons with his lively smile.

In the few minutes I knew him, I got the impression that his English was quite good, if he could just get his happily intoxicated mind in order long enough to finish a thought. What few lines he could get out, he tended to repeat over and over.

"How old are you?" Raymond asked me.

"I'm 25 years old, sir, how old are you?"

"I am 72 years old!" he replied, barely able to supress his ebullient laughter beneath that enormous toothless grin, "I am oldeerr thaaan yoouuuu!!"

He was quite proud of himself for using English to discover that he was in fact older than me. "I am oldeeerr thaaaan yooouuu!!" he repeated several more times, his personal satisfaction increasing with each pass.

My friend Alex and I became quite enamoured of this kind-hearted drunk, so we bought him a couple cans of his favorite beer. Overwhelmed with joy, Raymond proclaimed us to be his friends until the end of time.

"Keeping up together always, no matter how!!" he roared, looking me intently in the eyes as a profound sense of love for his fellow man seemed to well up from from deep within his soul. We had formed an everlasting friendship with this great man for the price of twenty Hong Kong dollars.

But tragically, our eternal bond came to an abrupt end just minutes later when, to our astonishment, Raymond suddenly vanished into thin air during mid-conversation. We ran outside the store expecting to see him staggering down the road or, worse, keeled over on the sidewalk. But the joyously mysterious old Chinese man had disappeared without a trace.

Unsure whether perhaps we had imagined this delightful character, we quickly checked the digital camera. To my great relief, I am able to share with you today the only surviving picture of Raymond, Hong Kong's most cheerful drunk.

Labels: china, my favorite posts