He's Introduced a Country

Up to Hangzhou from Shanghai at 6:00AM.  There is no traffic at this hour, until you reach the station.  We both want espresso.  We both sigh, going through the second and then the third security check.  He wants vaporize some tobacco fore we get on board.  I stand with him beside car number ten, with nothing to occupy my hands.

Now we’re sailing through the watery world of northern Zhejiang at two-hundred miles per hour.  “Are those rice fields?”  “No, I believe that’s aqua culture.”  My guest has refreshingly sophisticated musical tastes.  We’ve moved to the class of ’77.  We’re into the first Clash album, song, by song.  He mentions the Damned and it is as though he’s introduced a country we have both traveled extensively within.  No.  I haven’t seen that interview with Captain Sensible.  Send me the link.

Alibaba have a conference.  It is enormous.  I have assumed this would be at their super-sized campus.  But they have taken over another, even more commanding area that resembles its own small town of activity.  There are booths we walk through and halls that are hosting talks I’ll never hear.  Our building has a lot of stairs and I walk up and down a lot. 

Out in the bathroom I must wait a while to get a stall.  I sit down.  There is no toilet paper.  This isn’t going to work.  And I figure I’ll hold things a while.  Washing my hands I notice an enormous roll of toilet paper that serves for all things paper in this washroom.  One is supposed to load up on paper before one heads in to the stall.  Ah hah.  A new line has formed.  I reenter it. 

That night we are hosted.  Well, let’s have Hangzhou food.  My hosts laughs:  The only dish I remember that is distinctly Hangzhou is the predictable “West Lake Fish.”   It isn’t any good these days.  He tells me.  No one orders it any more.  Oh.  But that night, he orders it anyway.  It tastes fine.  We drive back through new, night time suburbs, in the lingering rain. 

Saturday, 10/14/17