"Disguised"

I was woken by a bizarre noise coming from next door. It sounded like a whole bunch of people talking at once. "My cousin is Buddhist" my friend Sonya said as if that explained his ability to chant with 1000 voices. It was 5am. I am not a morning person.

I asked Sonya again why we were awake. She told me the park has free entry before 5:30 am. For locals. We were in China and I am clearly Caucasian. 

Sonya had a plan. She put a face mask on me to cover up my pale skin, large sunglasses to cover up my round blue eyes, and an umbrella for… I'm not really sure what the umbrella was supposed to do.

We got a ride from Sonya's cousin on a tiny scooter. We were dropped off at the park entrance. A man stood guarding the way in. I looked at Sonya. She gave me an unconvincing smile that I assume was supposed to be encouraging. I brandished my umbrella and tried to look convincingly Chinese. I towered over both Sonya and the guard. The guard looked at me and I ducked behind my umbrella. To my surprise he let us pass.

Sonya saw some water lilies in the park, and urged me to pick the seeds with her. As she was leaning in to pick the seeds her sandal stuck in the mud. I pulled on her arm to get her out, and as if some deity were enraged by us harvesting the park's flowers the floodgates opened up and it started to rain! We sheltered under an eave for a quarter of an hour before being invited into a guard tower. The charade was off now, my silly sunglasses and mask were tucked away. Our park visit ended with us trudging through knee deep puddles to the bus stop.