Most birthdays are regular with friends at your house or at a restaurant or fun place. However, one of my favorite birthdays of all time involved a birthday kidnapping. It was non-consensual, but it would be one of my favorite events I ever had in my lifetime. It begins not in The United States, but in the heart of Tanjing, China.
The year was 2008, and I was 18 years old. My birthday was on 9/3, but since it was school time, I decided to have two parties instead of one. In Tanjing, China, I know at least 50 people including 27 relatives and cousins. I was in the middle of the age group. On a blistering summer morning, I was awakening with a fresh start to a new day, not knowing that it would not be an ordinary day. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, washed my hands, and put on deodorant. I put on my crocodile t-shirt with a nice swamp background, striped red and blue shorts, and sneakers. I usually got up before anyone else in the household, so I was unsuspecting of what happened next. I took a step out of my bedroom, and made a right down the hallway. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and I decided to answer it. It was 4:30 in the morning, and it may not have been smart to open the door. I turned the knob, and it turned into a nightmare. Two people with masks was standing at the door, and they shoveled me till I fell. I screamed, but in this family, the parents are in the field early and working on improving the crops and herding animals, and my cousins was usually in a deep sleep and nothing can wake them up. My parents never wake up before 10 am because they are not used to the time difference. Therefore, no one was awakened by my screams. The attackers bound my hands behind my back, and I struggled to break free of their grasp, but their grips on my arms and legs was too strong. There was hardly any resistance as the second perpetrator bound my ankles. They cleave gagged me with a cloth, and blindfolded me with a scarf. The intruders picked me up and I was anxious. The high level of kidnappings in China and the thought of never seeing my parents or friends back in The States was nerve wrecking. To my surprise, I never heard a door open or close.
After carrying me for what seemed like hours, the suspects dropped me gently onto a soft surface. Then, my blindfold was removed, and I saw 10 people gathering around me, and they yelled Surprise!. I knew that I was kidnapped on my birthday and I deduced the chain of events. My cousins woke up earlier because they did not school on that day. They planned out the events the night before . My cousins knew a lot of kids from the school, and they were older and had kidnapped me. For the remainer of the day, they tortured me and I liked it a lot.
They tickled the soles of my bare feet, and I laughed like a clown. My cousins used a permanent marker, and drew on my hands and feet with chinese symbols that said "Happy Birthday". Some of my cousin friends force fed me my birthday cake one piece at a time. They put a colorful hat on me. After about one hour of being tied, they untied me. It was the best birthday that I ever had.