Flashes of Panic

Thanksgiving dinner involved no turkey for me, since A’s family went for ham this year. I like a good turkey, of course, but I don’t much like the resulting tryptophan stupor, so I was all in favor. I recalled my brother’s stories of a former teammate who would express great anticipation of going home to his mother’s “Thanksgiving lasagna” so skipping the poultry is certainly not too far from the mainstream.

The crowd in Amherst was a varied one, as they invited several parties who might not have done Thanksgiving otherwise. We had an economics professor from the college A’s sister lives near, who’s Turkish and has no family in the area; a student from The College who hadn’t gone home for break; and a family (mother, father, daughter) of Chinese immigrants who have been getting ESL tutoring from A’s mother.

These three were wide-eyed to hear that I was headed to Beijing next year. For various reasons, return to China is not an option for them, so they were enthusiastic with suggestions for what I should do with what little free time is available to me. I should go to Xian (only an hour by plane!) and see the terracotta army, and of course, I should see the Great Wall. If all I see is Beijing, “you will not have been to China,” they told me. Just an extra day or two!

I suspect that has been true of several countries I claim to have visited (two trips to Japan and I still haven’t been to Tokyo, or even seen Mt. Fuji?)

They also assured me that (a) having my housing and travel already arranged would be a lifesaver, because it probably couldn’t be done anymore, and (b) my first impression of Beijing was going to be, “too many people!”

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