You are not as handsome as you were before

K decides to use the instrumental interlude in whatever song he’s currently blasting into the microphone to shout “Ahaha tiny woman bladder!” at me as I exit our karaoke room for the 12^th time. I had already hissed at him that I am NotWell, lady code for ‘I could shit through the eye of a needle’ but the 2.8% beer must have finally had an effect on him. After around 14 bottles each. I look back to scowl, nearly bumping into the two cleaners who have taken to standing outside our booth and peering in at the laowai screeching Winehouse tracks.

At the start of the night, I’d wondered if I’d finally reached my personal pinnacle of awkwardness in this room. Our hosts for the weekend had treated us to dinner, and then, as is the Chinese way, karaoke. For around half an hour, songs wailed sadly to themselves on the screen and disco lights aggressively flashed as the three silent foreigners smiled and desperately necked weak alcohol. My skin prickled and I’d been sitting on my hands, considering completely sober singing for no reason other than embarrassment at our inability to let ourselves go when our friends just wanted to have a good time with us. The boy and I gave each other shifty glances. Mine said, "You’ve lived in China before. This is your responsibility. Pick up the mic and save me from destruction." His said, "Why are you twitching, you wide-eyed goon?"

An ungodly amount of songs and beer later, and we’re more relaxed. K has been misty-eyed all night reuniting with friends he hasn’t seen in nearly a decade. My Rihanna’s coming along nicely, but the sheer volume of liquid we’re consuming and my delicate Western bowels have me bowling out of the smoky room every two or three tracks.

The toilets are squat loos - a hole in the floor and a bin for the paper. There are separate cubicles, but the locks are broken in the best tradition of drunken night out venues the world over. I stand in line. A cleaner pushes into the next free cubicle and picks up the bin full of used loo roll. She empties it with a flourish over the floor in front of me, and aggressively uses her broom to push wet, bloody, shitty paper towards me, over my feet. Everywhere I hop, the brush changes direction and finds me again. I look around and everyone else is reapplying make-up, chatting, or casually watching me. I don’t know what’s happening, but I keep my squealing on the inside and jump into a cubicle.

I don’t want to stretch the whole Western freak out about hole toilets – it’s not the end of the world and I’m sure there are advantages - but I can’t help wondering why all the ones I have been in have the cubicles raised up and also have a massive gap under the door. This here is squatting, trying to hold a broken door shut, your insides shuttering out of you at breakneck speed, and facing what is basically a window at crotch level. A vagina window. I return to the room, considering what constitutes the pinnacle of awkwardness, and ruin Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.

At around 2am, we've lowered the head-splitting volume of the music, though the disco lights are still exploding mini fireworks. Singing has lapsed in favour of flicking through old propaganda songs on the system and a crash course in Korean 'K Pop' - girl bands in short shorts with ombre dye jobs and double denim singing Dancing Queen Dance Party to the tune of Duffy's Mercy. K is still talking animatedly to his reunited BFF, the language barrier no issue when it comes to a soul-deep bromance. Eight years disappear and it’s a brilliant night, despite my digestive system. There are a few beers on the table among the empties (we stopped counting at 40) and we have a final round of ‘bottoms up’ - draining the bottle in one shot. Outside, it's still hot and there's manly hugging while a taxi is flagged. We haven’t paid for anything yet so K tries to push his 20 kuai in the direction of the front seat. Our attempt to contribute is rejected with an incredibly forceful yet somehow not unfriendly (and heavily Chinese accented) 'Fuckayou! Fuckayou!' Alright then.

We are woken by the staccato booms of firecrackers lit to banish bad spirits from the new residential high rises before people move in, or just to celebrate the opening. They sound like guns, this city now a warzone of blisteringly fast development.

We’ve been invited to an 11am lunch by the friends we saw last night. K is told he is fatter than when he last lived in China, and less handsome. With posture like a shrimp no less. I have to agree that he does have bad posture. His friends look the same as they did before, but have marriages and babies.

During lunch, I’m offered a cigarette and I decline because they’re really strong, but K prods me to accept. It’s important to stay polite, so I smoke and fully neck my beer when prompted – any less than completely emptying the glass isn’t the done thing and what do I care? I’m pretty much unemployed now. K prods me again to offer one of my cigarettes in return. I do and point repeatedly and smile, but our host laughs and won’t take it. His wife explains he doesn’t smoke. Later, he gives me a pack of his to take home. They’re probably about £9 to buy. The smokes I’ve been buying are about £1.

We’re given a lift to our digs and handed Suzhou silk scarves, told if we're not working we have an invitation for Spring Festival. K waits outside to wave the car off. Some dust must have got in his eyes again. On the way to the shiny train station for the bullet back to Beijing, our view is studded by concrete pillars in various stages of completion, waiting for an elevated ring road to be dropped onto them from on high.

I thank the lord for toilets on the train without a vagina window, and K falls asleep with his mouth open. A small girl in glasses kneels on her seat next to him, studying every aspect of the laowai's face from a distance of three inches all the way home.