August felt like the hottest month of the year. Yellow and orange heat alerts seemed to take turns, and going outside during the day was nearly impossible. The sun was so intense that it felt as if I might be cooked under it, so most of the time I stayed indoors with the air conditioning. By evening, though, that same blazing sun would soften into beautiful red-tinted sunsets.

As it happens, I was born in the middle of this sweltering season. That means my birthday celebrations usually involve indoor activities. This year, I went with Xiao Shifu to a nearby shopping mall on Friday at lunchtime and used up a restaurant voucher I had won. We chose a yakitori restaurant, where I tried 提灯—chicken offal served with an egg yolk—for the first time. Fortunately, it mostly tasted like egg and was not particularly gamey, so I could handle it.

The meal as a whole, however, was extremely rich. I had been craving salmon for a long time, but after two or three pieces I was already struggling. We also ordered eel, which made the meal feel even heavier. Xiao Shifu finished an entire bowl of ramen and drank all the soup. He said he was so full that he felt he might throw up. Fortunately, he did not—otherwise all that food would have gone to waste.

For the main birthday gathering, I met up with a few close friends at a board-game café. We ate the cake there and deliberately chose one that was tasty without being too rich. It was not the most impressive-looking cake, but the flavor made up for its ordinary appearance.

I taught everyone how to play Sanguosha. With four players, we played in teams of two. Xiao Shifu is an experienced player, but I won three of our four games while he lost three. I suppose the birthday person really does get a little extra luck. We also played one round of Catan, the building and trading game I mentioned in an earlier entry.

That evening, we went to Ren Xing Ji, a Cantonese restaurant included on a popular must-try dining list. The food was quite good. Two of my friends have a fairly long list of foods they do not eat, and Cantonese cuisine offered more options that everyone could accept, so we had chosen the restaurant in advance.

We originally booked a table for 6:30 p.m., but our board-game session ran late. By the time we arrived, the restaurant was crowded and our table was no longer available. We waited until after 7, by which point everyone was starving. Once the food arrived, we ordered a full table and dug in. The owner was very kind and gave each of us a dessert. After applying the Dianping discount, the total came to just over 400 yuan, which felt quite reasonable for the meal.

On Qixi, the project team held a combined birthday celebration for colleagues born in July, August, and September. I unexpectedly got to celebrate my birthday once again. Everyone received a cup of milk tea, and there was also cake, fried chicken, and soft drinks. The fried chicken even came from both KFC and McDonald’s, so the spread was surprisingly generous.

There were also small party poppers to add some ceremony to the event. The only problem was that they scattered glitter all over the floor, making things rather difficult for the cleaning auntie. To be fair, the colleagues did clean up the rubbish on the tables together afterward.

And how did I spend Qixi itself? Xiao Shifu and I went to Gao Lao Jiu, a restaurant we had not visited for a long time but had both been missing. After dinner, we stopped by MINISO, where I bought a pair of Kuromi chopsticks. They look lovely, especially in the purple color I like.

We spend two days together, so there is no need for an elaborate holiday celebration or an exchange of gifts. Having a good meal—ideally something we have been wanting to eat—is more than enough. After all, what could be more important than food?

There are already so many miscellaneous holidays these days. I would rather celebrate life in a practical way. When a relationship is no longer measured through material gestures, it can return to the beautiful simplicity of student days: natural, uncomplicated, and genuine.

That was my little record of August.