A friend is driving me home after a dinner at one of our favorite hangouts, a Beijing Bar Pub called The Den. We are passing under and overpass and there is a white banner running across it’s length with some kind of slogan in Chinese. I know it is a slogan because next to it is the English translation, “To be civilized citizen in Chaoyang to build civilization”. Now, I’m not one to point out all the mistranslations around town but this one strikes me a particularly odd. Odd enough that I take out my phone and snap a picture.

Two nights before Yang and I were all set to meet a friend at the Indian restaurant downstairs. We hadn’t seen the friend in a while – we had known her as part of a couple that no longer was – and were excited to catch up. When we got to the restaurant we got our reserved table for three and waited. Five minutes past. Then 10. Yang said she should be here by now, she only needed to park. So Yang called her and she said she was in the restaurant. Yang said “2nd floor” and she said “no, 1st floor” which was odd because we were on the first floor. Yang scanned he restaurant for her and this being an open style restaurant it was easy to see nearly every table. Yang confirmed that she was at the Indian restaurant in Hairun. “Yes”, she said in Chinese. They kept talking and hearing a bit of echo, Yang turns her shoulder to the left as our friend turns her to the right. They are now face to face. Turned out we were sitting back to back in our own booths.

Aidan and Lydia come home with lots of homework and some of it is for their English classes. Lydia is learning basic words and greetings. Aidan has moved into learning when to us “in” or “on”. I fear the day he asks me if the cat is “in” the tree or “on” the tree. That day is coming, but not today. He asks me to help with another lesson. I can barely decipher the lesson. He looks at me like this should be easy. I read out load “blank lives blank Kowloon” using “blank” for the part he (we) need to complete. Aidan hears the word “blank” and starts to write that in the blank space.

Yang is in Guangzhou as I write this spending the night on a boat. The boat set sails tomorrow and she will be on it for five or six nights before returning to land. Despite being done with her part of the deal, she needs to go to help the Chinese team communicate with the American team. She was practically begged by both parties – independently – to join to cruise to make sure things went smoothly.

Which reminds me of my commute home the other night. I’m on the 707 bus which runs from the subway stop to near our home. The bus comes to a stop as traffic slows down. The driver makes an announcement and some people get off the bus, I think nice of him to let them off before the official stop. Five minutes past and we don’t move an inch. Then the driver turns off he engine. I think this is not a good sign. I get off the bus and walk towards home. Traffic is at a standstill. I see a lady sitting in her car, doing email on her laptop. I keep thinking there must be some accident. As I get near my house, 1.5 miles from the beginning of my walk, I come across the cause of the traffic accident. Gridlock. At a relatively benign intersection, a group of cars intersected and no one could move. No accident, no police to clear things up. Just people who could not negotiate the intersection between themselves extending the commute of maybe 1000 people by an hour.