Travel to Japan and discover its people, history, cuisine, scenery, culture & arts.

July 2006. On my second trip to China...

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I first visited China in the summer of 2005 and ever since have been working on writing-up my experiences there and reflections of my various, weird things encountered and witnessed in Beijing and up north in Liaoning Province.

“Delegation“ is the story.  Just click on the tab above, “Sparkle of Your China“.   As is the case with all of them, it’s quite true.  Except for a couple of name changes and a couple of strategic omissions.  For several years I started, stopped and started over.  No, I didn’t spend four years constantly writing less than 3, 000 words.  It’s just taken me four years to finally sit down and, over the course of a few weeks, assemble and flesh-out various little notes and vignettes into something I believe makes for a readable narrative.  I dedicate “Delegation” (again, by way of “Sparkle of Your China“) to Uncle Ron, whose deep knowleged of and enthusiasm for All Things Chinese influenced untold numbers of his students to eventually make the trip; for many, to make their life there.  Also for my father, who always told me, even when I was a kid back in the mid ’70s, “China’s the country to watch for.  This thing they’re doing with Communism?  It’ll never last.  They’re merchants.  They’ve always been merchants and they’ll always be merchants.”   That’s what my father would say, with no shortage of respect.  He was still with us back in 2005 and very much enjoyed hearing my story about “Practical Tim”.  He had, indeed, been right.

A note on the stories featured on this site: they’re in more-or-less finished form, but I’ve no doubt some editing is still in order for any of them.

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*Steely Dan  fans assuredly “get” this right off the bat.  To those who aren’t familiar with the album “Countdown to Ecstasy“, I hope that that is something you’ll someday consider treating yourself to.