Mike Paterniti

Um, I think I did ask like, why, why, why are you standing here as opposed to any other spot on this four mile long bridge?

And, uh,

He turned and lifted his binoculars and focused out toward the river and then brought his binoculars down, turned the other way, put his binoculars up and focused in the other direction on the crowd.

Well, that's it.

He doesn't even respond.

No, it was like I wasn't even there.

It was like I was some ghost.

And I sort of went through some of this, and then I said, maybe, you know, is there a better time for us to talk?

And he said to the translator, you know, I can talk to you at lunch.

Well, so we were in a little what they call family restaurant near the bridge.

And there are no families present.

I mean, it's just workers.

And they're pretty hard drinking, in this case, grain alcohol and beer.

And so we sit down at the table and Mr. Chen has invited a man to join us whose name is Mr. Shi.

And then we are served some food and Mr. Chen and Mr. Shi start really drinking a lot of green alcohol.

And I started to sort of drink with them because it was the convivial thing to do.

And then I just realized I'm going to pass out if I try to stay with these guys.

I'm literally, I was, my head was spitting and I was, you know, the whole room was revolving.

I just was like, and he was, you know, very disappointed.

And so he sort of said, you know, just we're drinking here.