Laughing hard to hide a bitter sadness

I flew back to Chengdu for my high school's 20th reunion. Of the 360 students in my graduating class, more than one third showed up. Most I had not seen for 20 years and had a hard time remembering. It was embarrassing but also a source of rapturous laughter once the identities were revealed.

The reunion ran in style. We formally signed in and then were seated in a banquet hall. Three MCs guided us through the long list of agenda items - teachers spoke, student representatives spoke, MCs recited cheesy poems, we watched a video montage of old photos, and every class was asked to perform. The routine resembled our high school annual variety show so much that it made me somewhat melancholic, for the once unruly boys had lost hair and gained weight, and the once timid girls had wrinkles crawling next to their lustrous eyes.

Lunch ended with the guys endlessly toasting tables with baijiu (alcohol). A few puked in the bathrooms. Outside the banquet room, we took endless group photos. Afterwards, we broke into smaller rooms for tea. An old friend, a professional musician, played the guitar while we sang songs that had long slipped into the "oldies" category at KTV.