Think 2016 Was Bad? Just Be Happy You Made it Out of 2015 Alive

Hello my dear, thank you for coming.

*sniff, sniff*

Yes, yes, I know, it’s been hard for everyone. We also really didn’t expect it to go so soon. It had so much going for it. If you’d please make your way over to your seat, we’re about to start the ceremony.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind as to be seated. Thank you all for attending on this most grave of days. We’ve gathered today to pay tribute to the life of 2016 …

Yes, 2016 was the year everybody died. Well, everybody but you and me. And as much as the former fact is something to commiserate, the latter should be celebrated too. That’s especially true when you compare this time last year with 2015, a time in which we were battling a whole slew of faceless threats, most likely the result of all the bad karma set off by the sex, stabbings, and explosions that preceded it. Let us take a moment to look back at these darker times …

Straight out of the blocks, some asshole terrorist(s) decided to shit on everyone’s Christmas parade by vaguely announcing to someone somewhere that they were maybe going to do something somewhere else, but fortunately not before everyone had time to do their Christmas shopping.

The result was a Sanlitun that looked more akin to Die Hard. Except it was daytime. And Alan Rickman was still alive. Aww shucks.

Thankfully, nothing was to become of the security threat and minus the ugly BattleBots-reject barricades everywhere causing even more havoc with taxis, Christmas went on as usual, or at least it would have had it not looked like this:

Yep, even without the threat of immediate terror at any second, we were too busy trying not to get whole chunks of Hebei stuck in our eye. That's because Father Christmas' production of red socks and reindeer farming (Made in China™) went into overdrive, leading up to the worst single-day December AQI average of 485 and destroying 2015's otherwise decent pollution track record on none other than little Jesus' birthday.

Given these circumstances, and despite the unending death that 2016 will most likely be remembered for, it appears that our Beijing life over the past couple of weeks has been pretty swell. Well, at least for a few more hours.

More stories by this author here.

Email: tomarnstein@thebeijinger.com
WeChat: tenglish_
Instagram: @tenglish__

Photos: Michael Wester, Kyle Mullin