Brand of Internationalism

My older one bailed on the birthday jazz concert for her mother last night.  “I’m sick.”  “Yeah?  How sick?”  “I’m serious.”  She was out cold around the time the rest of us departed and I let her sleep it off.  So when she presented herself this morning as “all better” insisting she wanted to have a sleep over this evening, I said: “No.   If you were so terribly sick last night that you couldn’t go out but tonight you’re ready for a sleep over . . . then no.  Go and hang out and be back  by eleven. “ This was of course not well received and the exchange descended into “Well, what if I go anyway?”  She is still young enough that I can say:  “try it and find out.” And know that this will be the end of it.  It won’t always be that way.  

Up early this morning and off to Tsinghua, China’s premier University for science and technology where most of the current leadership once inhabited dorm rooms.  The driver lets me off at a building named after a Chinese person who did not grow up in China by the looks of his name’s Romanization.  I headed into the building’s first floor and was happy to find a café, which served espresso. 

My role was to coach teams on their work for the prestigious Hult Prize and they were all having a hackathon of sorts, to try to create projects, promoting efficient energy usage of one sort or another.  

I met wonderful students from Perth and Kingston and Tehran and Caracas.  Three people were for the Russian Federation.  After I heard all about their shared economy business plan I couldn’t help but ask them for their favorite places to visit, in the different parts of the former Soviet Union, they each hailed from.  I penned down each of their suggestions and considered Beijing’s distinc brand of internationalism.

Coming home I sailed along Gao Bai Lu, I noticed once again the bike path that is laid out down there, along the side of the road.  It was so inviting.  It looked like what I’d rather be doing, certainly.  I had tried to get two bicycle flat tires fixed yesterday.  I was driving home after dropping off my wife off and I noticed that the guy we usually engage to fix our flats was sitting there.  I loaded up the bikes and drove to find him gone.  The flower sales guy near by mentioned that he’d just left for the day. 

Sunday, 11/19/17