List of Six Hundred People

I’d met a nice gentleman from Italy over weekend.  He told me he was from Corsica and I exclaimed involuntarily.  “Have you ever been?” He asked and I had to confess, no.   But I had been close.  I had stood atop the Tuscan hill town of Scarlino and looked out at the Mediterranean Sea.  “That’s Corsica.”   My friend, who grew up in the town, explained.   And I thought of Napoleon as I suppose everyone does and figured I’d get out there someday. 

And this young man told me that he was pursuing his MBA at Tsinghua but wanted to keep up his Chinese language on the side and I strongly encouraged him in this.  Any time you have keep pushing it.  That’s the key to unlocking the place.  You’re never done with it.  Just keep pushing.  We moved to history and I suggested that if he knew Italian history it was easy to match eras to the complementary periods in Chinese history. “You can do Rome to Han and Charlemagne to Tang and Marco Polo to Yuan . . . ” 

He shot me a Wechat message today and asked me what I’d recommend to pursue this theme of Chinese history.  I was grateful that he asked this.  I recommended some Jonathan Spence and some Jasques Garnet as well as the Cambridge History if he really wanted to go deep.  I’ll have to remember to ping him when I finally arrive in Corsica. 

Thanksgiving is coming and I haven’t invited a soul.  As long as we do the cooking, I should make the effort.  Sitting at the Costa Coffee at our clubhouse talking to a colleague we were interrupted by his phone.  He took a call and I pulled out my phone as one does and began looking through Wechat.  Not sure why but I took to scrolling down further and further into this strange list of six hundred people.  I found one and another person whom I’d always invited in years past.  I just haven’t seen them in a while and I immediately shot them a note.  Two wrote back straight away to confirm.  

A Chinese life, mine, ever more reliant on this pervasive application.  An American colleague told me he was hesitant about downloading the app.  “I’m not sure I want the Chinese government on my phone.”  He suggested.  I thought to write back that they’d be right at home next to the NSA and the FBI who were already there, but I just savored the otherness of perceptions back in the homeland.

Tuesday, 11//21/17