Skip to main content

Hello Beijing!

8/8/08 - it is a lucky number in Chinese, and a lucky day for those of us that find ourselves here in Beijing. The air is thick with smog, and the mood is thickening with anticipation of what is about to happen, namely the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics!

The summer is usually a hot time here in China, and this summer is no exception (feels kind of like DC, if you ask me), and we have been hanging out in Tianemen Square (National Mall) to soak in the cultural sights and sounds of this great capital city. But there is always watermelon (still some in the fridge), a Chinese summertime pastime it seems.

Anyway, off to the show (work), I must be going where all the people are (in the office) so that I can continue dreaming about this Chinese spectacle of an Olympics (on the tv).

(Excuse the daydream, as I was remembering a trip to China in 2006 where the anticipation for the upcoming Olympics was already quite high - I will be watching on television just like most of the others here in the US. Handy picture for today, though, don't you think?)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Totally handy ;) Love you and I can't wait to watch the opening ceremony with you tonight! *muah*

Popular posts from this blog

Party Like It's 1999

A coworker sent me a meeting invitation to the end of the world.  Fitting.  I'm not sure if I should accept or not (suppose it depends on your views of the end of the Mayan calendar ), but somehow it reminded me of the Prince song on a related subject . Fitting as well that this coworker was not born when Prince extolled the virtues of partying like it's 1999 (side note: I did party like it's 1999 while studying abroad in Milan at that time, which was a heady experience with the coming of the Euro and all.  How times have changed, how the mighty have fallen...).  Time change, sometimes faster than we think, and our cultural references become dated.  Perhaps just like the Mayan calendar falling out of fashion over the last few centuries, until its end becomes a modern cultural phenomenon - or not, depending on your view of things. In either case, it's worth partying like it's 1999 regardless because hey, it will be Friday when this all goes down, and Fridays

New York Pause

Heading to the Helmsley Sometimes I work in NYC, and this is my office.  More precisely, there is a desk in the upper floors of this distinctive building that has a major thoroughfare running through it that I inhabit while typing up documents and conducting meetings in the city.  It is nothing exceptional, usually the work and sometimes the desk at which I sit, but the surrounding city is commanding, ever-thriving, and never-still. If I pay close enough attention, I am reminded of the countless things that make this city unique among the many cities I have had the pleasure to live in and visit.  But on this brisk morning, when winter gusts barrel down Park Avenue as I hustle the blocks from Lex to the building entrance security guards, I pause long enough to snap this picture.  That pause is enough reminder that I am lucky to be here, and New York City is ready to give me its best shot (I'm still not sure if the city is better personified male or female).  But that is all t

A Little Bit of Proust

Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l