Stupid Gweilo
Back in 2006 I was living in a small city on the south coast of China. There were only a couple of hundred westerners living there and we all used to congregate in the few suitable bars. One of these was a beach bar, and a friend managed to organise a full moon party there.

At around 1am, when everyone had already had a bit too much to drink, an English girl at our table decided (I still have no idea why) to egg us on to take off our clothes and run into the sea. We (nearly all men, surprisingly enough) decided to follow her lead, tore off our clothes, and ran in after her. After a minute in the sea we felt the wind suddenly get much stronger. This meant that a storm was coming in - not a rare event in that part of the world. A few people sensibly decided to return to the shore at that point, but the drunker half of the group (including me I'm afraid) just thought this was part of the fun and swam further out. After five minutes the storm had actually started, the waves were getting pretty crazy, and we couldn't really see much at all, so we swam back to shore.

When I got to the table I found my clothes had made it halfway into the sea - everything was soaking, and my shirt was missing. My friend (the one who had organised the party) was less fortunate. All his clothes had been swept away, as had his bag with his work, phone and house keys inside. His girlfriend had the only other keys, and she was on holiday until a week later. Everyone was in the inside part of the bar now, so there was a good five minutes with a hundred or so people huddling inside, watching this naked guy running round outside in the rain trying to find his stuff. Fortunately we were able to find people with spare clothes to lend to him, and he was able to sleep on my sofa for the next week.

The real shocker came a week later when we returned to the same bar and realised the nice bit of ocean we'd been swimming around in was the outlet to a sewage pipe coming from a row of hotels on the hill. They'd thoughtfully extended the pipe 10 metres into the sea, and we'd mistaken it for a sea wall to guide us in and out. I'd even taken in a mouthful of seawater.
( Zuowan, Fri 9 Aug 2013, 16:41, 2 replies)

God, I hate China.

( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Fri 9 Aug 2013, 23:54, closed)

It speaks well of you though.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 10 Aug 2013, 13:40, closed)