Once Again, Beijing Has Changed

I need to head off to the Starbucks early this morning.  I’ll have four back-to-back interviews with students who are applying to my alma mata.   The first young lady has grown up here in Beijing and is convincing, effortlessly urbane.  Yes.  She’s already visited five different cities in the U.S.  The next young gentleman launches into a sophisticated discussion distinguishing his ethnic and his national identity.  He’s been able to travel internationally to support his research.  As with my first foray, the year before, the pool of applicants is exceptional.  I marvel at the opportunities that this or at least a part of this Chinese generation newly enjoy. 

The final student has traveled all the way from Shenyang to pay me a visit.  I later point out to the admissions folks at my university that this would be like traveling from Pittsburgh to their locale on campus.  I ask her if she is OK heading all the way back home this evening and she suggests she’ll be quite all right.  And I imagine that she’s probably right.  Traveling seven hundred miles on a train at night is a safe undertaking for a seventeen-year-old young lady in China.

My kids were going to head into the city with me but they have cut out early and gone instead on their own to NanLou Guxiang, where I once lived.  My driver and I agree that I’ll get off on Gong Ti Bei Lu rather than having to try to drive down San Li Tun.  I imagine myself finding the perfect coat for someone there in a show room window but the northern part of Tai Koo Li has nothing practical.  In the southern part of the mall there is store that has a green coat that looks lovely.  That will do.  By now I can rendezvous with a friend who is back in town.  We comment on how, once again, Beijing has changed.   The man at the bar would appear to have turrets syndrome, honestly, and I do my best to ignore him. 

Later I want to buy my step son something at the Apple Store. My card doesn’t go through.  I call my bank and wait twenty-three excruciating minutes before someone comes on, confirms that I am who I say I am and that in those circumstances the card will be unblocked.  Now you can use it.  While I was waiting I was able to stroll over to Nali Patio and confirm that the perky little kitchen goods store that used to own a corner was gone, gone, gone.  Heading home a young man in a white shirt tried once and gave up, but then tried a second time to do a U-turn and sped the car westward, away from the crowds.   Very little shopping remains to be done.

Saturday, 12/23/17