Some people would find it complicated--even, perhaps impossible--to blog about cities in which one no longer resides. Thankfully, I'm not one of those people. Welcome to "Last Night's Drinks Tab Was Not In RMB, or Who Is Chuck?" a sporadic, practically random blog-post driven by my undying love for Shanghai, City Weekend Magazine and the brilliant people who now enjoy of the free drinks I once used to score from the city's multiple watering holes.

It's been three months and four days since I left the Whore of the East. However, in my heart, it still feels like it was yesterday when we, together, turned our last trick.

Keeping my nostalgic feelings aside, I want to dedicate this post to those who have left, those who are planning on leaving and those who think it's fun to blog on their former employer's website. (hi, Aric!)

In these lines, you may encounter old thoughts. Posts from times that were and times that would hopefully be. Incidentally, my opinionated or--for those with a more prosaic turn of phrase--"crass" voice might perform a surreptitious appearance. Perhaps as a salute to the wild, or an undermining mention to the stale (sorry Dan Washburn!).

Whichever the case might be, my transparent desperation is an evident revealer of my longing for the Pearl Tower's motherland. I long for those drunken weeknights and the impromptu soirées. I yearn for the easy living and the busy, sometimes tacky beauty of it all.

Don't get me wrong. The Western world is lovely: Boys are well endowed, and salaries can't be compared. Reality seems, in some way, to be more present here. However, I can't help but miss the sweet touch of the Asian [continent's] embrace. The lucky-if-mild bodily hint that reminds you, every time you consume strong spices, that your body was just simply not brought up to digest such festivity. A constant cultural reminder of how different--yet incredibly, easily aroused--we all become when in the presence of a different ethnicity.

To sum it up: Fuck, I miss Shanghai.