Ruin It With a Phone Call

I couldn’t tell you what Wang Jing was twenty years ago.  It was village land passed on the left hand side, as one traveled out towards the airport.  Presumably before Microsoft and Sony and Siemens all decided to have their China offices towers built there, Koreans in Beijing had chatted about concentrating in this particular ex-burb.   

Today the driver suggested heading left at Shunbai road up and on to the overpass.  I wasn’t quite sure where he was going but I was in the mood to let him do as he pleased.  He took me over to the Jing Cheng expressway and it all made good sense as we proceeded along at a speedy clip.  My default route down the airport express way presses you into the interminable off-ramp at Dashanzi, the preamble for the still more dreadful red light left into Wang Jing itself.  Crossing this new way this morning feels unencumbered and aerated.  Coming from the other direction, elevated as we are, Wang Jing looks interesting. 

The first meeting’s over.  Three smart young professionals, all of them women, each of them trying to sell me on their platform’s service, which is nice for a change.   I find myself trying harder these days to maintain the thread of simple conversation in textual Chinese, before capitulating.  One young lady tells me that she thought I was in fact Chinese before the big foreign guy marched into the room today.  It sounds so wonderful I’m almost tempted to believe it. 

“You head down this way, and take your first right.  From there go straight for two blocks.  You’ll see the Starbucks there on your left.  Just keep going.”  “It’s in the mall on the other side after two blocks? OK.  Thanks.”  It’s a beautiful autumn day.  I ruin it with a phone call and am soon oblivious to my surroundings.

There will be another call in an hour and my colleague wants to discuss it beforehand.  “Yes, well, as I understand it there is a Chinese company that’s gotten quite a bit of attention lately who do precisely the same thing.  Yes.  My buddy is writing a book about AI and he’s asked me to look into them.” 

I note the Starbucks and not a minute too soon.   My bladder's rather full.  I figure I’ll get my coffee later. “Where’s the bathroom?”  “You need to go upstairs.”  “Really?”  Damn.  “Yes, anyway, this company's use case is exactly the same.  I don’t know if we should mention it or not during this call.”  I plod to the back of the silly, half built, second rate mall looking for the elevator.  The call drops as I go from the fist to the fourth floor, I resume my call, I find the facilities, I return to the Starbucks, get my cup, take my seat plug my phone into my laptop to start charging up the phone and then I realize . . . the Mac charger is not in my bag. 

“Hey, I’ll call you back, OK?”  I know just where I left it.  I can see it sitting there back at the office I'd just departed from, on the side of the table.  I write my new friends from the last meeting and ask them to check for me before I bounce back over to pick it up.  She writes back and tells me that it is not there.    That’s unfortunate.  And implausible.  But then she sends me a photo of precisely the desk corner I have in my mind and with nothing but a desk to be seen. Now I’m properly confused.  I write back and tell them to forget it.  That I must have left it elsewhere.  But inside I feel unsettled.

Thursday, 10/26/17