Its Fleece Was White As Snow

Before I continue with my Sichuan trip, I’d like to tell you about yesterday’s lunch. My friend JJ seems to know everyone, including a lot of rich people – and I mean VERY rich people, billionaires (though he himself falls outside that category).

He invited me to join some of his friends and him for lunch, partly as a business lunch and partly as a farewell luncheon for me. JJ is very frugal, and though I know he can afford taxis, he takes the bus whenever he can. So we met in the park at 11:00 and walked a quarter mile through the Renmin campus to the bus stop.

We got on the bus and he said it’s only about 3 stops. We talked. The bus came to a stop. And he looked up quickly, then jumped off the bus even more quickly. I followed. He said we went 1 stop too far and had to walk back a few blocks.

It was hot and muggy. We started walking. I said, “Are you sure we came too far?” He stopped, looked around, then said maybe we got off a stop too early. We crossed the street and went back the other direction, hopefully toward the restaurant.

We passed a group of people, some sitting on the sidewalk, some lying on cardboard.

I thought they were homeless people, but I know those are not allowed in Beijing. It turns out they were people waiting in line to see a dentist at the dental hospital. (In Beijing, maybe throughout China, doctors and dentists are associated with hospitals and see patients there. Generally they do not have private offices.)

We finally made it to our destination, which is a well-known Mongolian restaurant.

Our luncheon was early (11:00 a.m.) so when we arrived the large restaurant was devoid of other diners.

Along the sides of the restaurant, on the second floor, are private dining rooms, and we were in one of those.

In China, as it is in other Asian countries, the placement of people at a meal table is important and I’ve learned to hang back until the host tells me where to sit. The seat of honor today, which is the seat farthest from, and facing, the door is the eldest person present, a retired government official.

I was placed to his left. To his right was the host, the guy with the short-sleeved white shirt and the dough.

Continuing counterclockwise around the table you see my friend JJ, his wife, and the RG2 (whom I think I introduced you to ages ago).

RG2 stands for Red Generation #2, meaning that she is the daughter of an important military official who was part of the revolution that established current-day China. I think he is currently head of China’s missile defense system and JJ semi-jokingly said that if the U.S. and China came to war, RG2’s father would be in the front line.

The host placed his daughter next to me because she speaks English and wanted to talk to me about universities.

Then the food started coming. The first dish was something that looked like a common Chinese seaweed dish but turned out to be a special type of grass that grows in Mongolia. It was good.

We had some fat, slimy noodles (looked like they were made from rice) in a delicious brown sauce.

An unusual dish then came: jellyfish. A bit too chewy for my taste.

There was a very nice salad of lettuce and cantaloupe,…

…hot milk,…

…and fish pieces with snow peas. Good.

Halfway though our lunch the entertainment began in the form of a woman singing traditional Mongolian songs.

More food: pig’s feet pieces in a sweet sauce with slightly dried plums,…

…the ever-present tofu with two dipping sauces,…

…turbot in a wonderful dark brown sauce,…

…a strange green vegetable (green squash?) I have not seen in the U.S.,…

…huge shrimp baked with garlic and scallions,…

…and what seemed to be a whole, small lamb.

This was accompanied by small pita-like pieces, 4 sauces, and spears of cucumber and scallions.

By this time I was so stuffed that all I could manage was to stuff a bit of lamb into a pocket and force it down.

Finally, as is customary in China, we ended with a soup. Instead of the usual light broth, however, this soup had noodles and potatoes and a delicious but unidentifiable liquid.

Fortunately I was able to waddle home.

保罗

Hot Diggity Dog Diggity Boom

(Most of you probably don’t even know who Perry Como is, but in 1956 this was America’s #1 song for a while.)

I have several close friends at the school, but to keep my sanity, I’ve needed a couple off-campus friends, too. I’ll remind you that these are JJ, the retired government worker who’s about my age, and X23, the grad student in mathematical logic. JJ and I talk mainly about economics and politics. For example, yesterday JJ broke the news to me that a high level marshal in the People’s Liberation Army was arrested – for bribery, of course. That makes two in the last 6 months. X23 and I talk about her boyfriends, her girlfriends (all of whom are glamorous), roommates, and philosophy. We tried some logic puzzles in the park one day, but I felt really stupid: I’d look at the problem for several minutes, scratch my head, and suggest an answer – invariably wrong. She’d look at a problem for a few seconds and then state the correct answer. I found an excuse to leave.

Everyone who comes to visit me likes these two people; I don’t tend to waste my time with also-rans. X23 and I have become very close friends primarily, I think, because we’re both a bit anomalous within our respective groups. I’m not Chinese, and thus the Chinese teachers tend to come to me and spill their guts about everything; X23 stands out in her crowd because she’s so much smarter than they are. She’s also not the glamorous type as the rest of her crowd is. We have bonded to the degree that we’ve actually talked about marriage – between my son and her. I showed her his picture and she said she’d like to meet him (after I said he was as lively as my daughter, whom she’s met). Believe it or not, there are still a lot of arranged marriages in China. (JJ and a friend of his are trying to get his son and her daughter together.) I haven’t told her yet, but I suspect the only thing Charlie and she have in common is that she likes beer (though not to the extent he does). She comes from a small village in rural China and is a very conservative, traditional Chinese girl. Probably not Charlie’s type. Still, you never know.

Anyway, X23 and I went to Sichuan Province for a week’s vacation. When we arrived at the airport there was a torrential downpour, and all flights were delayed. We waited and waited for information, but the Chinese airports are notorious for NOT telling passengers anything. Finally, the natives got restless and started yelling at the gate agents. That’s when they decided to bring out some food. We each got a little bag of “goodies”: 2 small rolls, a tiny hot dog-like thing, and a sealed bag of pickled cabbage. Yum.

I tore my roll in half and peeled the plastic off the hot dog thing,…

…put half on one of the rolls,…

…added the pickled cabbage (at this point I was so hungry that I would eat anything),…

…and ate it.

X23 did likewise.

We waited hours. Can’t remember how many. People were yelling. I suggested to the agents, in my typically modest tone, that people would settle down if they’d just give us some information.

Finally we were informed that our flight would not take off this evening and that we should follow this guy here to board the buses that will take us to a hotel. We drove for about 45 minutes (I could have gone home!) and we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere at what I first thought was a gaudy place…

…but that turned out to be just the entrance building. Behind it was the understated entrance to the actual hotel.

Thanks to my strategic planning and X23’s quick feet, we were among the first ones to get rooms, so we took a few minutes to take some pictures while everyone else was still checking in.

In front of the hotel was this elaborate stone carving, surrounded by little carvings.

Each one was different.

At the top was a guy on a dragon.

Inside, in the lobby, there was fancy, carved wooden furniture everywhere,…

…and what I think is very expensive pink jade.

We asked the powers repeatedly when we should get up to go back to the airport but got no reply that made any sense, so we set our cell phone alarms for 7 a.m., assuming this would give us time for breakfast before we returned to the airport.

Anyway, that was Day 1 of my vacation.

保罗

Baby You Can Drive My Car

For quite a while I’ve been wanting to talk to you about transportation in Beijing, so finally I begin these installments with a little about cars in Beijing.

There is a lot of money in Beijing, and you see many Mercedes, Audis, Porsche SUVs, Range Rovers, VWs, etc. What you don’t see are Lexuses because, after all, they’re Japanese. You don’t see many sports cars, though here’s one:

Expensive cars (small Porsches, large BMWs, etc.) are common on the campus of Renmin University. They are students’ cars, of course, from wealthy families who spoil their children, something else that is very common here in China.

Beijingers complain a lot about bad traffic, which, I admit, often moves at a snail’s pace. But they think it’s due to too many cars. Only partly true. My keen observational skills have led me to discover that the number of cars is not the primary reason for lousy traffic in Beijing. Rather, it’s NOT ENOUGH PARKING. They continue to build lots of big buildings in Beijing office without ANY parking. Nothing underground, nothing on top, nothing off to the side. I’ve been told very specifically that this is done intentionally to discourage people from driving to work.

Doesn’t work. They drive into downtown Beijing, then creep around, looking for a place to park. They park all over the sidewalks, sometimes in designated parking places painted onto the sidewalks, and just as often simply any place they can fit their car.

In most American municipalities, this narrow street (adjacent to my school) would be a one-way, no-parking avenue. There is in fact “No Parking” signs on the sides but they are completely ignored – and they have yet to convert this, or any similar street, as far as I can see, to one-ways. The result is that quite often we have incredible traffic jams here with cars trying to go both ways while avoiding the illegally parked cars.

Fortunately, I’m pretty adept at maneuvering my bike through this mess.

One day I was riding home down this street and saw a piece of paper on the window of a car.

Looking closer I was amazed to see a parking ticket, the only one I’ve seen in 2+ years here.

And in that time I have seen only one person stopped for a moving violation, and that was in Chengdu, not Beijing.

Occasionally you come across a car parked with boards leaning against the wheels. Can you guess what they’re for? I couldn’t. (Or did I tell you already?)

This guy is turning around, awkwardly and slowly, holding up traffic for quite a while.

The thing that bothers me the most about drivers here is their total arrogance and total disrespect for pedestrians and cyclists (and each other). In the photo below the pedestrians have a green walking sign but the driver pays no attention.

This is more than common; it’s routine, even when there are 100 people trying to cross the street. Drivers often approach the intersection honking their horns and barely slowing down, expecting the pedestrians to jump out of the way even though they (the pedestrians) have the green light. The pedestrians do in fact stop and jump out of the way, which only encourages drivers to continue their behavior. I am possibly the only pedestrian in Beijing who does not yield to drivers exhibiting this behavior, and though I’ve had many close calls (one with a bus), I refuse to encourage the drivers by letting them push me around.

At major intersections during peak times of the day there are traffic wardens who try to control the pedestrians. Sometimes they have cute signs,…

…sometimes they appear more serious in vests and with flags,…

…and sometimes they are apparently high school student volunteers.

Most of the time the pedestrians, carts, and cyclists ignore these wardens, but this guy is one of the few to get serious. He was persistent in trying to get these carts to come back, out of the intersection, so cars could get by. The cart guys made half-hearted, mostly insincere, attempts to circle back until the light changed and they moved on.

You see lots of the usual, lumbering SUVs in Beijing, which is weird in a city that is flat, sees virtually no snow, and has few large parking spaces. Status is a big deal here. But poor people also want motorized vehicles, and some of these can be pretty small:

In the photo below you see most of the pedestrians, cyclists, etc. staying behind the two wardens, who were relatively aggressive in performing their duty. They argued with and yelled at the two girls on the motor scooter but the latter simply ignored the wardens and stayed put, slowing the right-turning traffic. Obviously, traffic wardens need enforcement power. More generally, Chinese people need to get into the mode of following rules where enforcement is minimal.

People complain about the traffic in Beijing and blame it on the number of cars. I’ve studied the traffic situation here (anecdotally, of course) and find that the principal problems are related to (1) pedestrians, bicycles, and carts, (2) parking, and (3) poor urban planning. I’ve just described a little about the pedestrians involvement, but there’s more to say to bring some balance. I resent the drivers who honk and cruise through crosswalks full of pedestrians and cyclists who have the green light. On the other hand, if a driver comes to an intersection with no light, he is faced with a bigger problem: There are so many people in China’s cities that there is a constant stream of people crossing the street. None of these people stops to wave a car through, so the only way a car can progress is to be aggressive.

There’s so much more to say on this subject, I’ve decided to terminate this post now and call it Part 1. More later.

It’s good to be back.

保罗

As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls

(This is one of the more unusual song and album titles I know. It’s an early effort by the great jazz/fusion guitarist Pat Metheny.)

I am pleased to announce that any news of my demise is premature. I am still here, both geographically and corporeally. I have a plethora of excuses for being silent for several months in this medium, but I’ll burden you with only a few. As you know, this school year I have a fairly long commute: I spend 1 month in Beijing, then a month in Virginia, and so on. Thanks to my intimate friend jet-lag, I feel lousy half of my life: the first two weeks of each month.

I reported in “Cough Up the Bucks” that I was sick in November, thanks to a good friend who seems physically incapable of covering her mouth when she coughs or sneezes. That happened in my first day back in Beijing at the beginning of November. It lasted through that month and through December, during which month I finally was able to visit my doctor in Washington who prescribed an antibiotic. At first I thought it was pneumonia, but it turned out to be only a virulent case of bronchitis.

By the time I returned to Beijing at the beginning of the New Year, the bronchitis disappeared – more or less. Within a couple days of arriving, however, I acquired a violent intestinal “issue” any accurate description of which would gross out the toughest marine (DS?). That lasted 3 weeks, and over that period I was highly reluctant to stray more than 10 feet from the facilities in my apartment.

I seem to have come down with a mild bout of laziness, a condition I despise in anyone.

Some of the projects with which I’m connected have begun to catch fire, and I find I have a lot more writing and editing to do than I’ve had in the past.

Finally, and very irritatingly, the Internet here declines daily. You may have read about how China is cracking down on VPNs and other taboos (i.e., mechanisms that bring information to its people). If you add that to the already astoundingly poor Internet connection here in my dorm (which is intentionally minimized on my floor because we’re foreigners — no joke), it takes me 30-60 minutes just to log into my email or to do anything else that is not expressly permitted in China. It takes a similar length of time just to post something to a blog that’s already written.

Oh, well, enough about me.

I’ve mentioned X23 a couple times, a female graduate student from the university across the street. Though certainly an odd couple, we’ve become very good friends for what I believe is a very logical reason: we’re both are set apart from the people in our respective circles; she is much smarter and kinder than the others in her circle of friends, and I am an American surrounded by Chinese.

Anyway, X23 (who’s 25 now) has been informing me of events at the university (Renmin). During the past 6 months, there have been 4 suicides at Renmin. Three people have jumped from high-rise dorms, two of which from the dorm immediately adjacent to the park where we sit. I’ve looked for blood spatters, but X23 assures me that the authorities are very quick to clean up after one of these Icarus days. The latest jump happened 2 weeks ago.

One week ago a student poisoned himself.

Details of these events are difficult to come by; they’re acquired mostly via word of mouth as the authorities are reluctant to publicize this stuff. (Duh.) I’ve asked several people if this rate of suicide is similar at other universities, but most people have no idea. One professor I know told me that 4 suicides per university per year are normal for Beijing universities. I involuntarily raised my voice a bit, saying “FOUR SUICIDES IS NOT NORMAL. It may be the average but it certainly isn’t normal.” She seemed unconcerned and simply replied that 4 wasn’t the average but the minimum.

The Renmin University’s administration has instructed all professors with graduate students to meet with those students and give them anti-suicide pep talks. X23’s anti-suicide briefing is sometime this week, so I may report back to you if anything interesting is said.

* * * * *

On my last trip to home in Virginia, I installed a program on my laptop and a new desktop called Outlook Sync. It allows me to ensure emails written and received on one computer appears on the other. Unfortunately, I botched the installation process and deleted my IN box. In that box I had been saving several emails from friends and students that required substantive and lengthy responses from me. I was waiting for a good time to sit in my back yard and enjoy responding. I can’t remember all of these ephemeral email messages, but I do think there were some from Ritu D. (whom I loved to call R2D2), Henry H., Alice G., as well as others. If you sent me an email of any length and I have not responded, PLEASE resend it. I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten you and just didn’t feel like responding.

Pictures next time. I promise.

保罗

A Patch of Blue

A few days ago a colleague and I visited a school for the arts on Beijing’s outskirts. The purpose was to see if we could help them with connections in the U.S. We took a tour of the place, and though you can’t really tell from this photos,…

…we were surprised at how shabby the place looked. The paint on all the outside walls peeling everywhere, dirt and trash were in the hallways and stair wells, windows and doors were broken, weeds growing everywhere, etc. The chairs in the main waiting room were very worn and cheap.

Most of the students there major in dance, there also are drama and music majors available. The practicing dancers were elegant and fluid.

We passed the computer room, and I stepped in to look around. This being a holiday in honor of the APEC meeting, almost everyone in the room was playing a computer game, which seems to be somewhat of an addiction among Chinese high school boys.

At the entrance to the Administration Building there was a poster with a lot of photos of former students who had become famous, mostly as dancers, actors, and singers.

After about 30 minutes, we adjourned to the principal’s office to talk for about 20 minutes. In stark contrast to the rest of the school, the principal’s office, which was huge, was impeccably clean and nicely appointed. His desk was the size of a queen-sized bed (or thereabouts).

On the ride back home, it turned out we were both thinking the same thing: at this private school, the owners put lots of money into their own comforts but very little back into the school itself where the students exist.

Going down the highway I noted that there were banners advertising the APEC meeting every 50 to 100 yards. Thousands and thousands of banners! Each was 1 foot by 4 feet with writing too small to read either the English or Chinese. I wondered aloud how much money was spent on these useless, in my view, and unattractive decorations that adorned almost every highway in Beijing. I suggested that we could have put that money in the education system to a lot better use. My opinion was bolstered during the evening when a spectacular and, in CNN’s opinion, over-the-top fireworks show took place.

As we continued down the highway I pointed out how blue the sky was, which, as you know, is a rarity in Beijing. My colleague said this color has a specific name: APEC blue. I laughed out loud. If you’ve been watching the news, the Beijing authorities called a sudden 6-day holiday in the city that started just before the APEC meeting began: schools, government offices, and other stuff were closed, all manufacturing facilities were shut down, and driving was cut in half by having even-odd days (depending on the last number in one’s license plate). For these days the sky really has been blue, though the PM 2.5 still ranged in the 100-150 range, as reported by the U.S. Embassy.

The APEC meeting is over, Obama has left, and school has begun again. Because of the “holiday,” schools and other workers (I’m not sure which) will be in session over this weekend and possibly next.

It’s not often that I’d rather be here than in the U.S., but considering the cold snap there and the 60-degree weather here, hmmmmm.

保罗

Cough Up the Bucks

(Neil Young)

Over the past 15 years my students probably thought I was a little excessive (hypochondriac?) in my insistence that they bury their mouths in the crook of when they cough or sneeze. If they used their hands, I gave them some Purell to use. They probably chocked this up as just one more of my many weird idiosyncrasies. Nay!

About 15 years ago I was listening to a student – I will never forget his name: Alex K. – when he coughed directly into my face without even making an attempt to cover his mouth. The next day I felt very lethargic, to the point of having to lay on one of the tables in my room. A student came in and brought a cool cloth for my head. It was probably the only day I left school early, forcing the school’s administrators to quickly find rudimentary substitute.

I drove to my doctor in Centreville. He listened to my chest and said I had pneumonia and that I should drive immediately to the emergency room, which I did. At Fair Oaks Hospital I waited for 30 minutes in the Emergency Room’s waiting area and then was taken back for examination. They went through their usual routine, including an X-ray, and said they could find nothing wrong with me and that I should go home. I told what my doctor said and suggested they call him before sending me home.

He evidently convinced them to look further, so they did a spinal tap looking for meningitis. That was fun. Everything is negative, but because of my doctor’s insistence they decided to keep me overnight for observation.

In the morning they took another X-ray and said I had pneumonia. It turned out to be a fairly virulent form of bacterial pneumonia, and I was on an IV for 3 days. The hospital doctor said I wasn’t near death but that I was near near death. He was grinning, so I don’t how serious he was. One of the few distinct memories from that experience was my daughter lifting my head and giving me some water to drink.

Present day. The day after I arrived in Beijing (last Tuesday) one of my close colleagues visited me in my apartment. We talked for about an hour, during which time she coughed at least 5 times without covering her mouth. This is a fairly common occurrence in China; a significant percentage of people do not cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. People around them seem used to it, and thus I am the only one to scowl.

A few days ago I was in a meeting with the big boss and her, and once again she did her unhygienic routine. Not coincidentally, the big boss also had a bad cold, and I am thoroughly convinced that this Typhoid Mary gave it to both of us. Anyway, I’ve been lying on the floor of my office for the past couple days, barely able to get up to use the bathroom or to eat. I’m slowly getting better and predict I’ll be my old, ornery self in a couple days.

In case you’ve forgotten, this is no-man’s time, meaning it’s cold enough outside and inside but the government hasn’t turned on the heat yet. I have a small space heater in my apartment’s office, so I close the door and lie on sofa cushions, moaning only occasionally. One of my favorite studies is one showing that men moan more when they are in the vicinity of their wives as opposed to when they’re alone.

Epilogue:

I didn’t have the energy to press “Send” yesterday, so I’m just now uploading this the following morning. And, Yay!, my cold is gone (or almost). Now I need to rebuild my strength, which, fortunately, involves eating.

保罗

I Walk the Line

I’m able to write this brief status note only because I’m too sick to do anything else, but I’ll explain that in a separate post. Now, I would like to tell you a little about my recent trip to the U.S.

I had expected to be home permanently after Sept. 1 but I was encouraged to stay another year. I insisted that I spend every other month at home in VA, so I was in Beijing in Sept., then VA in Oct.

After all this travel, I’m getting used to being careful about what ends up in my carry-on luggage – or so I thought. On my way to the U.S. at the end of Sept., I was stopped by the security people. They wanted to search my backpack after scanning it, and we kept taking stuff out without finding anything offensive. Finally, way at the bottom of one of the sections, they found my combination bicycle tool.

I had been looking for this thing around my apartment for weeks. I thought it was great that they found it. They wanted to confiscate it, so I argued, using gestures, that it’s simply a combination tool for fixing bikes. They opened it up completely, revealing all the tools, and discovered a small knife. I knew my case was lost, so I smiled sheepishly and moved on.

I had planned to replace that tool when I was in VA, but October was full of stuff: daughter’s birthday, wife’s birthday, and daughter’s wedding.

As it is every fall, most of my waking hours were spent blowing leaves. This year, for the first time, I had a helper.

Velcroed together, we moved along side-by-side, Ava blowing the leaves while I enjoyed my cigar.

The trip home a few days ago was uneventful – until I arrived at the Beijing airport. The immigration lines for foreigners are usually longish, taking about 30 minutes to get through. It doesn’t sound like much, but after a 14-hour flight it’s annoying. There are 4 lines for foreigners and about 10 for Chinese nationals. When I arrived at the immigration area, I saw this huge mob of people lined up in at the foreigners’ lines. I wish I had taken a photo because you won’t believe me, but my estimate is at least 1,000 people, maybe closer to 1,500. The lines wound around and around, then off into the distance.

It took me 5 minutes to reach the end of one of the lines, and it was clear that I was destined to be in that line at least 2 hours, maybe 3. I’m hoping that the large numbers were due to this week’s APEC meeting in Beijing.

You’d think that the airport would bring in extra people and open up extra lines, but not here. The Chinese nationals’ lines were, as usual, almost empty, while the foreigners’ lines were absolutely massive.

I was at the back of my line for about 15 minutes, moving at a snail’s pace. Off to the left I saw two lines, separate from the rest of the rest, labeled “Groups.” I made an impromptu decision to get into one of those lines, at the end of some group. About 10 people were in front of me. I was hoping the official would show mercy and let me thorough. The line crept forward.

I’m now #2 in line behind this woman. That’s when a tour guide came forward with his group (Japanese?) and tried to start his group of 30 through. I encouraged the woman in front of me to ignore the group and simply move forward to the official. She was too polite/timid to do so, and the Japanese group started through. After 3 or 4 people, I merged myself into their line. In a couple minutes I reached the official who showed me the tour guide’s list, indicating that I clearly wasn’t Japanese and that I was not on the list. I pleaded for mercy, but he would not relent. I was moderately persistent and he finally said I should go to Line 1, DP (?).

I pushed my way through this mob of people, past the enormous lines for foreigners, past the Chinese national lines with a few people, over to Line 1. There was NO ONE in Line 1; it was for Diplomats. I thought, “What the heck” and went up to the girl sitting behind the desk and handed her my passport. She scanned it and played with the computer for about a minute. I was waiting for her to tell me that I was not on the Diplomat list and that I’d have to go to the back of one of the foreigner lines.

Thinking back, I suspect she was either being kind or simply assumed I was someone special, despite being in my cargo pants and gray sweatshirt. She stamped my passport and motioned me to continue on. Miracle of miracles! I’m thinking that if I did this on a normal day I wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Still, I may try.

Epilogue:

A couple days after arriving back in Beijing I rode my bike to a bike store up by Tsinghua High School. I wanted to get a rack for the back of my bike so I could bring the one I was using back to the U.S. The shop was small and run by a man and his wife. The man got the bikes down for people wanting to buy them and the wife pumped up the tires.

After some searching, the man found a suitable rack and started to install it. I stopped him and asked him how much. He said 40 RMB (about $6.50), so I motioned for him to continue. When done, he proceeded to adjust my brakes as a kindness. When I took off to go back to school – I was in a hurry because I had a meeting with the big boss – I noticed that the rear brake was rubbing a little, making it harder to pedal. No big deal. I figured I’d adjust it back in my apartment.

But I have no bike tool and everyone (including the workers) is gone for a week, thanks to the APEC meeting). I will try to find a picture of one online, then send it to X23 for ordering in China. It’s possible that I won’t find a cheap one because it’s not a commonly purchased item here (even though they’re probably all made here).

No hurry: I’m confined to the floor of my office until I recover. Oy vey.

保罗

Sweet Bird of Youth

Not far from my school there’s an area on a main sidewalk that everyone calls “the pigeon place.” There’s a guy there who sits behind a little table, selling cheap bird seed to pedestrians who want to feed the pigeons. I don’t think it’s a legal enterprise, but many of the interesting cultural aspects of Beijing are illegal.

保罗

Fight, Fight for Old Notre Dame

On a recent trip to Carrefour, I was startled to see (and hear!) a loud argument between the older man on the left and the younger woman on the right. The woman in the orange coat is a salesman.

I have no idea what they were fighting about but this is one of the rare occurrences of a presumably familial altercation in public. I have a short movie of it.

I thought things might come to blows, so I considered getting involved simply by walking over to the cart, but no one else passing by seemed to think much about it, though a few stopped for a couple moments, then moved on. I was the only one wondering if this might get serious.

After 10 minutes, I headed toward the exit. I headed past one of the numerous purse-and-shoe stores loaded with the typical colorful items.

It was closed, as this not-so-cryptic sign on the door indicated.

保罗

Fly the Friendly Skies

Warning: This installment is not suitable for young readers.

I recently returned home for a week in Virginia. It was nice but short – only a week. Mostly I worked in the yard, pruning, weed whacking, all that manly stuff that women can’t do.

The flight to Virginia was uneventful. Not so the flight home.

While at home my wife told me about three in-flight events that had happened over the past week or two: three commercial airliners were forced to land prematurely to remove passengers who were arguing over a new device called a knee defender. This device can be attached to your food tray to prevent the seat in front of you from reclining, and it is prohibited on all major American airlines. You all probably know about this.

I must admit that I had a small amount of trepidation as I boarded my flight back to Beijing. I generally recline my seat during long flights (except during meals, when I straighten it again), and I wondered what I might do if the person behind me employed one of these devices. I’m not generally one to take these things lightly. Fortunately, it didn’t happen.

About ¾ of the way back to China I noticed a commotion off to my left. I was in the right aisle seat of the center section, and the commotion was coming directly from my left, from the 3 seats on the left side of the plane. Two seats to my left (left aisle seat of center section) was a young guy who was awake, so I asked him what was going on. He said some big, drunk guy came back from business class and deliberately urinated on the male passenger immediately to his left.

I was a little disbelieving and slow to find and start my cell phone, but here is a blurred picture of the three left-side seats after they cleared of the pee-ees. (I assume you all know that you can view a larger version of a picture by clicking it — not that this will be much help here.) Note the wrinkled (i.e., wet) magazine.

The pee-er returned to business class. The crew did a good job of quickly lowering the intensity of the situation, and they began cleaning up the three seats. Here’s a blurred shot of one of the seats before it was removed completely.

The crew removed all three seats and put them in red biohazard bags.

An hour or so later we landed, and I have no more information about this.

“Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine.”

保罗