This Light is Cruel

A friend drove from Haidian to Wang Jing.  I’m glad it was him.  If it had been me I’d have had to have written him by now:  “Hey.  Stuck in traffic.  Even though I left an hour ago, I’m still going to need another fifteen minutes.”  The person whom I’d have had to write that to, is by my side.  He’s driving.  He has now come up from the Third Ring Road along Jing Mi Lu to come upon the infamous Da Shanzi traffic light.  Good luck dude. 

Pleased, though I properly shouldn’t be, that it is he this time and not me who is calling the 3:00PM meeting to say he is stuck.  He’ll be there right away.  “Just a moment.”  He’s bluffing.  This light is cruel.  We’ll do three more turns of it at least before we’re allowed to turn left and enter into Wang Jing. 

Wang Jing is an odd thing to consider.  A satellite city to Beijing, a host of companies have put their headquarters here.  If you’re appealing to the tastes of foreign expats who have kids in Shunyi international schools and who have to regularly welcome foreign visitors into town from the airport and who are regularly jetting out to the same airport, well then, this is a great place to establish your HQ.  But there is nothing here but HQs, really. 

Today, we are heading to the Daimler building.  It’s right across from the globular, curvier than though buildings of the Wang Jing Sohu.  Like all Sohu constructions they do a flabgastingly interesting job building shapes, but all the first floor tenants seem to come and go swiftly.  Nothing strong and commanding, successful seems to anchor the tenancy.  They seem more interested in seucruing tenancy, any tenancy, soon, rather than curating anything particularly rich, varied or enduring for their first floor shops.

My colleague will hold a meeting in a Costa Coffee.  That’s fine.  Across the huge empty courtyard is another Costa Coffee.  I’ll head there.  So do they.  “Oh, hey, hi!”  Fortunately they’ve now moved on, back to the first.  I grade some papers and notice that the time allotted for their meeting has passed.   The time allotted or the next meeting I was supposed to start now is being eaten into. I’m in the hands of my colleague though, who arranged for this meeting.  I’ll wait here till he returns.   I've successfully talked myself out of that second tuna sandwich. 

Monday, 06/19/17