Like They Never Were

I have a great course I’m teaching on Chinese history in which I cover four thousand years of history in forty hours.  This is taught to the undergrads, who still need to learn about things like history.  The MBAs at my university, do not.  But I’ve worked with the deanery to offer a mini-course to all the MBAs who are freshly arrived here in Shanghai: The “Yi Jing to Xi Jinping” course.  For this one, by contrast, I am allotted three hours. 

I ran through things this morning and where as I currently have sixty undergrads in my course, the registrar tells me only five MBAs have signed up for my mini-course.  I guess I’m glad it hasn’t been cancelled.   What to include and what to leave out?  There are quite a few emperors who’ll have to find themselves on the cutting floor.  We’re up to the Qing after ninety-minutes when I suggest a bio break.  I have to gallop a bit at the end, because you can’t leave out Liberation, nor the Korean War, nor the Great Leap, nor the Cultural Revolution.  I only run five minutes over, trying to sum it all up and it would appear they all enjoyed it.  In a class this size there is no difficulty getting everyone’s wechat.

That night I finally rendezvous with client guests who are here in town.  I’m sure there are many, many more remarkable options to consider, but I’ve booked a place for us all at Ye Shanghai there in Xin Tian Di.  I’ve generally default to there if someone’s in town and hasn’t tried Shanghainese food.  The Shanghainese family-style food of my youth, twenty- six years ago, is impossible to find.  Perhaps it never existed.  It was just new to me then, and it can never be new again. 

We’d go out the back gate of the East China Normal University and head to one or another place and we’d fill the table with simple, but extraordinary dishes, drink “Ribo” beer and get change for the hundred-renminbi bill we’d lay down, And it was blue in those days, with Mao, Zhu De, Zhou En Lai and Liu Shaoqi all happy together once again, just like they never were. 

Later I take the guests out back, into the China-lite Shikumen of Xintiandi.  We walk around for a bit and find a bar where we can sit outside and debrief the day.  And as I mount my bar stool, it occurs to me that this is the same place I always take guests for a drink after a meal at Ye Shanghai. 

Monday, 5/27/19