Speak Intently to Whomever

Monday, was windy.  We came out of a meeting and went to a bank.  The bank didn’t want to do business with me.  It accepted the card, took the English command and sat there waiting and waiting until it spat it out and told me to go away.  By now I was hearing the aural assault of the well-intentioned robot voice “alerting!” me to watch my back.  A command from the police for my protection.  They should have told me to protect my ears.

Stepped outside to take a call.  Wished I hadn’t.  The wind was literally howling.  This always impresses one here as wind fresh from the Gobi dessert.  Uninterrupted wind that cuts one’s face and makes a mockery of one’s autumn attire.  The person on the other end of the line kept saying “what?”  I told him I’d call back. 

And it was a day of going out to the north of the city and then returning south for another meeting. Further south and then tearing up once again to the north.  Didi has a car ready for me but it’s been cancelled.  DiDi has a car for me but it will take fifteen minutes and now he can’t find us.  I go out and chase a cab down in the parking lot.  Now . . . that will do.  That will do. 

It’s a “VIP Dinner” and it all looks very stately was we make our way into the compound and across the parking lot and down the tiled stairs into the vestibule.  Turning the corner they have a serve-your-self tins.  I instinctively stick to the meat and the veggies and avoid the starch.  My colleague points out that he is off starch completely and hence and eats none of the meat I’m consuming. It’s all been breaded with a starchy coating.  Noted. I feel bad as I finish it up. 

There are many people to meet.  My friend is so good and breaking of, and pulling back someone and introducing them fearlessly and moving on again, as one should do when they “work” a room like this.  I stand there and speak intently to whomever I’m introduced to.  I can’t seem to get beyond their humanity and wonder if they will be hurt if I dispose of them too quickly.  So I ask all I can about what they are doing and why it is they have decided to return to China.

It’s time to leave and we manage to get the person we’re hosting a car in one direction.  And my phone is dead.  My friend’s won’t work because there’s a ride in progress.  So we talk to a young woman whose finishing her degree, while we wait for the phone to charge off the laptop that is opened at an angle on the floor.

Monday, 11/13/17