Business trip to Dalian

Part I Old impression

My last trip to Dalian was in the late 90s. I travelled by ship with my family. For a small town girl, Dalian was a large city with wide streets and blue skies.

Almost 15 years later, I found Dalian no different from other Chinese cities. The sky became smoggy. LV and Cartier opened their stores on Renmin road. The streets seemed narrower. Nay, the city did not shrink, but my horizon expanded. Nevertheless, I still felt comfortable in Dalian as its climate, dialect and cuisine were so similar to those of my hometown’s.

Part II Last minute task

The plane landed in Dalian at 11:20am. I turned on my mobile phone and saw a text message from my colleague telling me I needed to do product training for our cable operator at 1pm. She wasn’t kidding me! A training session wasn’t on the plan at all. I was caught unprepared. Fortunately my audience was busy preparing for a meeting in the afternoon and the training was postponed to the next morning, giving me some time to update the ppt.

Part III Drink and get drunk

Drinking is an indispensable part of doing business in China. The more you drink, the more impressed your clients will be. How I hate to see people getting drunk and losing control of themselves at the dinner table! (We were doing fine this time in Dalian. I was worried about our next trip to Suzhou. Every time I think about last year’s dinner with them, I wanna quit, no, retire.) 

One man’s meat is another man’s poison

Over the past few months my colleagues must have asked me more than 5 times why I don’t use weibo (a Chinese version of twitter). Well, I’m not interested. As the says goes, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

I don’t care who eat what in which restaurant. I don’t care who travelled where with whom. I don’t care whose dog is sick. I don’t care whose flight is delayed. And I don’t see any necessity for everyone to know my whereabouts. Living in an era of information explosion, we are being bombarded by all kinds of news and ads everyday. I’m eliminating the trifles and giving myself a little break. 

Last minute trip to Shanxi

2012 is my 12^th year in Beijing. It is the last city I wanna stay in for a 5-day Ching Ming holiday. On a lazy Wednesday afternoon, I stared at the map of China on a website, trying to find a destination for a spring fling – somewhere not too faraway as air ticket prices already went up at the last minute; somewhere not too close to bore me. On a whim, I decided to go to Shanxi.

I arrived in Datong in the morning on Saturday and met 3 girls at the airport. As we were going to the same places, I decided to join them so we could share a car. Later we found out that we were alumni! What are the odds! Knowing them was an amazing part of the journey. 

So, be spontaneous. Follow your hunches. Embrace the unexpected. 

Xuankong temple

Pingyao you won't see from travel guides

Next to a local Catholic church

Barry Lyndon

Epilogue
It was in the reign of King George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.
Wow! If I could time travel to 1975, I’d love to watch the 3-hour epic movie on a big screen. The picturesque scenes would be more stunning in a dark theatre and soundtrack more tuneful even though I consider myself not having the ear for classical music. More compliments would be superfluous, just set aside a weekend afternoon and relive the dramatic life of Barry Lyndon.

If the prophecy were true

If 2012 were the end of the world, how would you spend the last 9 months? This may sound like a cliche question, but I can’t help thinking about it. I would quit my job and travel to the continents that I’ve never been to.


Sometimes I wish the prophecy were true, so I don’t need to think about the future, 10 years from now, 20 years from now…Only then can I leave everything behind and never look back or forward. But all I can see now is a blurry picture of the future, myself being overpowered by the daily routines.

Isn’t it good that everything comes to an end all together? We are but a minute particle in the universe. Let me quote the ending of Schopenhauer’s Studies in Pessimism:


If we turn from contemplating the world as a whole, and, in particular, the generations of men as they live their little hour of mock-existence and then are swept away in rapid succession; if we turn from this, and look at life in its small details, as presented, say, in a comedy, how ridiculous it all seems! It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with infusoria; or a speck of cheese full of mites invisible to the naked eye. How we laugh as they bustle about so eagerly, and struggle with one another in so tiny a space! And whether here, or in the little span of human life, this terrible activity produces a comic effect.


It is only in the microscope that our life looks so big. It is an indivisible point, drawn out and magnified by the powerful lenses of Time and Space.

When a pessimist reads Schopenhauer

I didn’t like philosophy and I used to have the preconception that those who do are kind of neurotic. However, Schopenhauer changed my view. The great philosopher awakened the pessimist living inside me.

 A few excerpts from Studies in Pessimism:

No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that Time is continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom.

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be said: "It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to-morrow; and so on till the worst of all."

The delight which a man has in hoping for and looking forward to some special satisfaction is a part of the real pleasure attaching to it enjoyed in advance. This is afterwards deducted; for the more we look forward to anything, the less satisfaction we find in it when it comes.

To be continued...

修鞋记

一直觉得小区门口的修鞋摊是个很有人情味的地方。修鞋的女子大概三十几岁，似乎跟周围的街坊都很熟。

春节假期后的第一个周末去修鞋，路过的一些老人都会跟她打个招呼，问声过年好，顺便拉拉家常。聊天中得知她刚坐了三十多个小时汽车从甘肃回到北京，我问她是甘肃哪里的，她说老家在陇南那边，靠近四川。我这才注意到她脸上还真有一抹高原红。也许那只是常年风吹日晒留下的痕迹。

我不禁好奇起来。她在北京会住怎样的房子？过怎样的生活？为什么要背井离乡，来大城市做这么辛苦的工作？我想如果自己生在农村，大概会留在家乡种地吧。

类似的问题我考虑过很多年都没有找到答案。或者我只是在杞人忧天罢了。

修鞋那天天气还算晴朗，站在阳光下有感而发。