All Become Slavic

I opted for a business meeting at the airport.  Most people pass in an out through the Beijing Capital Airport.  For someone heading in to town the airport is an hour's commitment, generally.  I can get there in fifteen minutes.  Accordingly I left my home with less then ten minutes to go.  Made good time.  Caught one of the two critical lights poorly and sat.  I texted the person I was to meet and though I wasn't sure, I turned out to be just on time, seven minutes late, as they were exiting the elevators into the lobby.

I rode into town with them and drove as much of a conversation as one can, sitting in a car, cutting across town.  Then I caught my own cab onward over to the Parkview mall at Fang Cao Di.  The name is associated with the international school, which as I recall, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia among other foreign dignitaries once attended.  This mall, cum installation art gallery, office block isn't a bad place to kill some time.  My meeting was for 2:00PM and I instinctively, with out much creativity ignored al the boutique cafes for a Starbucks.  "We're on B1, head to L2."  I stared up at the "Metropolis"- like configuration of escalators at odd angles, reconsidered the street level I'd headed in from to gauge my ascent.  I opted for an Illy, which had plenty of room, and had my espresso and my juice and was online by 11:00AM.

I got a text though which confirmed our 2:00PM meeting wouldn't be there at all.  No.  I was to head over to the Hua Run Tower, about a twenty-five minute walk away.  I spent the walk on the phone but quietly I was reexamining the Beijing of twenty years ago, strolling past west side of Ritan Park, watching the signs turn Cyrillic and the models all become Slavic, moving along past the Russian market complex.  Across the highway and into this older tower which holds the Beijing American Club.  The American Club in Hong Kong with its atop-Central view and perfectly perched grounds over in Stanley was a something I made sacrifices for to have access to, when I’d lived there.  In Beijing, who cares?  This facility is so inconveniently placed so as to be irrelevant to most businesses and pointless for the expat community of Shunyi. 

By 3:30PM, a bit later than I'd assumed, I was out and strolling with a friend up along the second ring road.  This always used to be the catwalk of wretched eighties buildings for Beijing, each one worse than the next.   Slowly, eventually they've all been replaced and are now aggressively modern like the Galaxy Soho complex or the Foreign Ministry Edifice.  The worst of the wanna-be-a-developed-country buildings from that era was the strange space tower that shot up beside the Poly Plaza.  Hopping in a cab at ChaoYang Men, I noticed it too was finally boarded up.  Couldn't tell you if they were tearing it down or preparing it for a newly confrontational future.

Friday, 03/03/17