One night in Beijing

All fancy restaurants were fully booked at Friday night. Never would I know the night in Beijing had I stayed in my apartment.

Loft reminded me of Eight over Eight in Sanlitun, the guests who came all the way from France in the early winter of 2004, Catherine who said the place was for lovers to break up, Betty haggling with the Italian restaurant manager with her broken English…Shining wine glasses on polished mahogany tables under pale yellow lights didn’t appeal to me; they felt lofty.

I don’t like business socializing. I’m always a quiet listener, an attentive observer. Having met more and more people, I gradually have the eye to judge. The sophistication of our clients from CITVC astonished me. How can environment shape a person? Change a person? We were the same back at school, but those years in society can make a person unrecognizable. My cousins and old classmates whom I haven’t heard of for years must be like strangers to me today.