What Did I Expect?

Missed lunch, missed dinner, missed it all.  We went for a team drink after passing through security and I nearly missed my flight, as well.  But I hadn’t had any food.  Well, it’s a two-hour flight back up to Beijing.  They’ll have some chicken with rice or some pork with rice on the flight and that will hold me over.  I can taste it now.  It’s not bad.

Where’s the food?  I’d nodded off reading.  Have I missed it?  I’ll be furious.  No one else is eating anything.  Hey, where’s the food?  There had better be some food.  We’ve been in the air for twenty minutes at least.  What?  Do they not do meals between Hangzhou and Beijing?

Relax, here comes the food cart.  She’s turned and begun the service.  And the meal is . . . a hot dog?  Are you kidding?  That’s it?  “Yeah, that’s it.”  Chinese airlines get a free pass on serving middling Chinese food.  But western food?  This is rather different from bad.  It’s long and thin and rubbery.  It’s coated in what looks like spray-on cheese in a wonder bread roll.  Artfully copied.  I take a bite and ask for tea.  What did I expect?  It’s horrible.

The cab queue at the Beijing capital airport at 11:30PM is the longest I can every remember.  It snakes out back towards the escalators and elevators.  There one of complementary length just over on the other side.  There is helpful sign suggesting everyone should take public transport.  The estimated time the happy cab image says is . . . two hours.  I ponder that.  I know it won’t be that long.  Fela’s “Zombie” is on.  I march forward slowly, considering Fela’s diction, rehearsing the lines I will use if the cab driver is rude.

Friday 09/22/17

See As Distinct

A meeting in the north west, then back east to Wang Jing.  No time for lunch, we’re late for a meeting all the way out in Shang Di.  I had a twelve-year-old I needed to get home and celebrate with.  Tonight she turns thirteen.  I was trapped in the corner of the room.  Between me and the door was the host.  And he wasn’t bothering to breath during his monologue.  

I do get energized discussing China with the guests who come.  This is what I enjoy most about this work, I suppose.  People who are soaking it up for their first time.  Some are intrigued.  Some are turned off.  But either perspective is a challenge and a refreshing perspective on what I can no longer see as distinct.

The ride in.  It will be the time to do all the things that haven’t been done.  But someone dear is having a terrible day back home and I call her and talk and its important and the right thing to do.  Many things remain undone when we arrive and I hop out the cab.  “This is the west side.  If you walk through the east side by the ring road is right over there.”  I trust him.  He was telling the truth.  I note the air is getting polluted.  Yesterday I bragged about how clear the skies were.  No such luck today.  No.  This isn’t so bad.  There are days when it gets much, much worse. 

Coming home I was certain I was late.  I was certain that my daughter would be upset.  I considered that if the shoe had been on the other foot and my wife was showing up this late I’d probably berate her.  But I called and they were still getting their selves together.  We met up at Lisa’s and had a good dinner and wished the young lady a happy, happy birthday.  They serve old-Beijing madoufu there.  It’s a good, thick, musty bean taste.  You can’t get it in other restaurants.  No one else wants any.  I finish the bowl. 

Thursday, 09/21/17

They're All Speeding Off

A gaggle of jet lagged people no longer particularly interested in anything but going to bed.  Meetings were shuffled.  This meant it was Bei San Huan, to Shang Di and then all the way over to Guo Mao.  “Where is the next meeting?” I asked, out while out in Shang Di?  “Guo Mao.”  It was like having a meeting in Walnut Creek only to have the person say we now had to head to Santa Clara.  It would be like heading to Gun Hill Road after finishing up your meeting on Wall St. 

We arrived late.  Tried not be rushed.  And we labored to get a cab after it was done.  One, two and three people were futilely working their Di Di Da Che apps trying to get a car to come and meet us.   “He canceled.”  “My guy did too.”  These car hire apps are great until they aren’t.  There doesn’t seem to be any loyalty.  Someone confirms a ride and then has a second thought and drops you.  Oh, I couldn’t find you.  Oh, someone else wants to go to someplace further.   Uber’s left town.  No one wants you to pull them over.  They’re all speeding off, answering some app notification.

This area should be full of cars.  The streets are empty.  There must be some traffic blocked somewhere.  Terrible place to look for a cab.  Off in the distance the new tall new buildings of the Guo Mao area collude with the old tall buildings of the Guo Mao area to block the darkening sky.  I notice a hotel.  Another hotel that’s marked by the ghosts of meetings past.  I tell everyone to follow me and walk through the gilded lobby purposefully.  With the air of a guest I walk out to the kid in front and ask him to get me a cab.  I tell him I’ll add some extra fare if they prioritize.  Im assuming this will be 100RMB but its only twenty and soon a minivan is on the way.

Everyone wants to bail.  Everyone is exhausted and jet lagged.  I’ve pre-ordered two ducks though and do not intend to quit on the part of the day I’ve been waiting for all day long.  It's been committed, I'm delivering.  Soon we’re rolling our duck pancakes and refilling glasses of beer.  Three more people become familiar with the Beijing duck ritual for the first time.  I love the smell of this place and ask if they notice. 

Wednesday, 09/20/21

East New York Worries

It wasn’t starting out so good on Tuesday morning.  There’s a letter from folks I don’t particularly care to talk to and since I don’t know what’s in it yet I imagine the worst.  Walking through the school, en-route to the Fitness Center I turn to Spotify, which I pay for dutifully every month but haven’t used in good while.  Checking I’m glad to see that both the JunglePussy albums I’m looking for are there for the listening. 

A voice from East New York.  Exotic and familiar perhaps a bit like a Beijing brogue.  “Satisfaction Guaranteed” is just what I need this morning: a rough, contemporary hip hop shake up.  I make the time to savour some East New York worries rather than my own.  More than once I laugh aloud at a line I can discern for the first time, charting out a bit more of her logic. 

Now.  Much later in the day.  In a car.  Where else?  Someone is driving it.  How long before it is just normal that the car drives itself?  Will they really have driverless vehicles as a policy mandate soon, soon as in three years out, not thirteen years out, over there in Finland.  This is what I’ve heard.  Mandate the inevitable early and facilitate a leap frog?  As long as you’ve a reasonably wealthy population who don’t mind surrendering agency.  The Finns are like the Americans in their love for guns.  But they would appear to be different in their attitudes on driving.  Soon though, the only Americans as well, who will still be driving will be those people people who take cars out to ‘driving tracks” for that real combustible engine excitement.

Yesterday I was with people who’s work it is to do Artificial Intelligence.  I expected that they all knew about the Ray Kurzweil book “The Singularity is Near” which I recently finished.  Chatting in the elevator I sheepishly asked if either of these gents had read it, expecting the sort of answer one would have had thirty years ago if one were to ask: “hey are you familiar with the Rolling Stones?  It was left to me to “explain” the concept to these artificial intelligence engineers.  I’m not sure I’m cut out for the high priest role in this movement.  

Tuesday, 09/19/17